1980s Metalhead Kids Are Alright: Scientific Study Shows That They Became Well-Adjusted Adults

In the 1980s, The Par­ents Music Resource Cen­ter (PMRC), an orga­ni­za­tion co-found­ed by Tip­per Gore and the wives of sev­er­al oth­er Wash­ing­ton pow­er bro­kers, launched a polit­i­cal cam­paign against pop music, hop­ing to put warn­ing labels on records that pro­mot­ed Sex, Vio­lence, Drug and Alco­hol Use. Along the way, the PMRC issued “the Filthy Fif­teen,” a list of 15 par­tic­u­lar­ly objec­tion­able songs. Hits by Madon­na, Prince and Cyn­di Lau­per made the list. But the list real­ly took aim at heavy met­al bands from the 80s — name­ly, Judas Priest, Möt­ley Crüe, Twist­ed Sis­ter, W.A.S.P., Def Lep­pard, Black Sab­bath, and Ven­om. (Inter­est­ing foot­note: the Sovi­ets sep­a­rate­ly cre­at­ed a list of black­balled rock bands, and it looked pret­ty much the same.)

Above, you can watch Twist­ed Sis­ter’s Dee Snider appear before Con­gress in 1985 and accuse the PMRC of mis­in­ter­pret­ing his band’s lyrics and wag­ing a false war against met­al music. The evi­dence 40 years lat­er sug­gests that Snider per­haps had a point.

A study by psy­chol­o­gy researchers at Hum­boldt StateOhio State, UC River­side and UT Austin “exam­ined 1980s heavy met­al groupies, musi­cians, and fans at mid­dle age” — 377 par­tic­i­pants in total — and found that, although met­al enthu­si­asts cer­tain­ly lived riski­er lives as kids, they were nonethe­less “sig­nif­i­cant­ly hap­pi­er in their youth and bet­ter adjust­ed cur­rent­ly than either mid­dle-aged or cur­rent col­lege-age youth com­par­i­son groups.” This left the researchers to con­tem­plate one pos­si­ble con­clu­sion: “par­tic­i­pa­tion in fringe style cul­tures may enhance iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment in trou­bled youth.” Not to men­tion that heavy met­al lyrics don’t eas­i­ly turn kids into dam­aged goods.

You can read the report, Three Decades Lat­er: The Life Expe­ri­ences and Mid-Life Func­tion­ing of 1980s Heavy Met­al Groupies here. And, right above, lis­ten to an inter­view with one of the researchers, Tasha Howe, a for­mer head­banger her­self, who spoke yes­ter­day with Michael Kras­ny on KQED radio in San Fran­cis­co.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in July 2015.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Dev­il­ish His­to­ry of the 1980s Parental Advi­so­ry Stick­er: When Heavy Met­al & Satan­ic Lyrics Col­lid­ed with the Reli­gious Right

Sovi­et Union Cre­ates a List of 38 Dan­ger­ous Rock Bands: Kiss, Pink Floyd, Talk­ing Heads, Vil­lage Peo­ple & More (1985)

Watch Heavy Met­al Park­ing Lot, the Cult Clas­sic Film That Ranks as One of the “Great Rock Doc­u­men­taries” of All Time

A Blue­grass Ver­sion of Metallica’s Heavy Met­al Hit, “Enter Sand­man”

The Hu, a New Break­through Band from Mon­go­lia, Plays Heavy Met­al with Tra­di­tion­al Folk Instru­ments and Throat Singing


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Comments (50)
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  • Abe says:

    Your pic­ture depict­ing ’80s met­al­heads one of the kids is wear­ing a slip knot t‑shirt their first album was­n’t released until 1999 come on now.

  • Shawn says:

    Ofc this makes sense usu­al­ly those niche groups or clique are usu­al­ly list­ed in that envi­ron­ment and they learn about being reject­ed, grow up, and learn to have thick skin to the abra­sive world vs. Jocks and pop­u­lar kids that don’t know rejec­tion until they are in the real world and thus are ill-adjust­ed to adapt.

  • Jonnathan says:

    Not to men­tion that I see scene cul­ture style in the girls wardrobe so it’s at least 2004-05

  • Ryon says:

    I was a rock­er from the ’80s.
    I remem­ber watch­ing the pmrc hear­ings. Hell yeah we’re well adjust­ed and sta­ble.
    Unlike some of the oth­er forms of music rock isn’t real­ly degrad­ing some can be but most is inspi­ra­tional that’s why 70’s and 80’s rock ruled the world. Those two decades will nev­er be matched again.
    We knew exact­ly who and what we were and where we want­ed to go. You have more garbage out there today that’s degrad­ing.
    I don’t need a study to tell me the best adjust­ed adults today grew up lis­ten­ing to rock. Our gen­er­a­tion that came up to the 70s and ’80s gave us every­thing we use today on com­put­ers the first cell phones microwave oven our gen­er­a­tion will nev­er be matched again.

  • Fork Pick says:

    Real­ly? The only pic­ture I see has dudes in Sax­on and Maid­en shirts. And I think I also rec­og­nize them from the Heavy Met­al Park­ing Lot movie. Maybe we have dif­fer­ent pho­tos for this arti­cle?

  • Drakkan says:

    I start­ed lis­ten­ing to Skid Row and Metal­li­ca in the 80s, now I’m a senior soft­ware engi­neer and a home own­er.

  • BradentonDeb2021 says:

    I was one of those met­al-head kids doing my teenage years in a lit­tle coun­try town that was heav­i­ly aligned with the rea­son­ing of the PMRC. And I was very lucky to have par­ents who let me lis­ten to what­ev­er I want­ed to, as long as it was in the home and they were the first point-of-con­tact when ques­tions came up.

    Any­way, the PMR­C’s cru­sade was sin­gle-hand­ed­ly derailed by the one man whom every­one thought rep­re­sent­ed the good­ness in Amer­i­ca, con­ser­vatism, and the fam­i­ly. That same man also turned out to be more anti-cen­sor­ship — and anti-PMRC — than any of those Wash­ing­ton Wives could have ever sus­pect­ed.

    His name was John Den­ver (1943–1997).

  • Koragg says:

    I’m not sure this arti­cle writer knows what a groupie is …

  • Donald Stretz says:

    I was in ’80s met­al kid, did­n’t actu­al­ly cut my hair until I was 43, now I’m 56. I’m retired ear­li­er than most of my high school class, and was in a group of less than 25% that com­plet­ed col­lege. I had a suc­cess­ful career in petro­le­um, and cur­rent­ly have a fam­i­ly con­sist­ing of three daugh­ters and six grand­chil­dren that are all black sheep just like I was. Could­n’t be more com­fort­able in that. Life teach­es cor­rec­tion, and I learned that there was a fine line between suc­cess and gro­ceries, ver­sus Hard­line teenage ide­ol­o­gy. We are just fine, and all the younger gen­er­a­tions are going to be fine as well. I watch the rebel­lious atti­tude in my grand­chil­dren and just gig­gle to myself and say right on! Lol.

  • Peter Thomas says:

    As a teenag­er dur­ing the late 1970s and 80s, I was enam­ored by the British NWOBHM heavy met­al and also punk rock. Both were very aggres­sive music with angry lyrics. My best stress reliev­er! That kind of music helped me to go through my rather rough teenage days. I did­n’t become a gang­ster, psy­cho or dope addict. I grad­u­at­ed from a local uni­ver­si­ty and became an Eng­lish lan­guage school teacher.Thank you motor­head, AC/DC, Deep Pur­ple, Iron Maid­en, Sex Pis­tols, The Ramones, The Damned etc.

  • Megathin says:

    A lot of them sup­port­ed Clay­face to destroy their chil­dren’s futures & end their own free speech because they want­ed to see him ref­er­ence the n word in inter­views. How well adjust­ed are they?

  • Rick says:

    Con­gress was lis­ten­ing to the bs Top­per Gore was spew­ing, mean­while she’s doing shots of rub­bing alco­hol! Like most of these groups,they should be focus­ing on their own issues and not oth­ers per­ceived ones.

  • Pablo Blanco says:

    Tip­per Gore is a filthy whore.

  • Tank says:

    Amen broth­er Dee Sny­der and yes John Den­ver with spe­cial guest Frank Zapa took down tip­py and her goons long live the 80’s

  • Makks Ark says:

    I find this arti­cle to be dis­hon­est. There is a huge dif­fer­ence between Mot­ley Crü, Scorps, Skid Row and Slay­er, Ven­om and the ten­den­cies. Born in 69, most of the male kids in my scene lis­tened to the lat­er and mocked bands like SkidRow. Atleast us true met­al heads did. To say we grew up to be well round­ed adults is a huge reach. Many of my crowd are dead junkies and drunks or in prison. Those of us that turned it around, did­n’t get it cor­rect­ed until out 30’s and 40’s. But maybe I have a dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion of an 80’s met­al head.

  • Rhyno says:

    If I had to pick some­one to watch my back, I would ALWAYS pick a met­al­head. They’re usu­al­ly the smartest peo­ple in the room, and not afraid to take some lumps.

  • Michael says:

    I think you and I had sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences. Seems to be some sur­vivor bias in this study. It cer­tain­ly does­n’t include the kids that died or are in prison, which was a good chunk of my friend group. I was involved in the hard­core scene in Los Ange­les and then adopt­ed thrash and death met­al lat­er on. I man­aged to stay out of prison and even­tu­al­ly turned my life around in my 30s but I’m one of the few.

  • Andy says:

    Fuck Tip­per Gore and her swear­ing is bad/christian bull­shit dis­guised as decen­cy. We’re still doing “stud­ies” because of that ass­hole’s agen­da. This is stu­pid.

  • Puck Mugger says:

    HA! I saw that as well. It should be an Iron Maid­en or Dio t‑shirt. I was one of these 80s kids, and I would say I turned out more than just alright. So did all my met­al­head friends. Some of us have kids who have kids now. We’ve all done well for our­selves and we still love the 70s hard rock and 80s met­al. I’m turn­ing 60 this year and will be com­fort­ably retired by the end of the year.

  • BurtyT says:

    Most­ly look at the envi­ron­ment and where peo­ple lived. Most that went bad were city to big city lives. Where to much was going for par­ents to be par­ents. I’m a mil­i­tary brat but my par­ents always raised us in small­er towns off base. I heard the the tales of city/big city life and it does­n’t sur­prise me that those were prob­lem areas for rais­ing kids to adults.

  • Truice says:

    Thank you! I lit­er­al­ly clicked on this just to come here and say THAT!

  • Truice says:

    Pre­vi­ous com­ment was a reply to the fact that these kids were at best ear­ly 00s met­al heads because of the Slip­knot t shirt. Appar­ent­ly those peo­ple not only don’t know their music, but they also don’t know their JavaScript.

  • BradentonDeb2021 says:

    They def­i­nite­ly DO NOT know what a groupie is. Per­haps some­one should sent the author some of the more deca­dent books by Pamela Des Bar­res. It would prob­a­bly blow their mind. [evil cack­le]

  • Ranz says:

    Lol. You need to do bet­ter. Just do bet­ter. Your get­ting paid. Out accu­rate pho­tos. This isn’t col­lege

  • Jonnio says:

    Wow… Who writes this Crap.. Of Course we’re alright. Gen‑x will always be alright. We Grew up in the “Best Of Times”. We’re a far­cry from the posers out n about now.

  • William Hill says:

    Nice catch. I was a met­al­head back in the day… I don’t con­sid­er Iron Maid­en and Judas Priest or Metal­li­ca as Met­al any­more… Just high qual­i­ty clas­sic rock! I do like Slip­knot, ICP and oth­ers I refer to as Men­tal Met­al!

  • Cliff Burton says:

    The only last­ing dam­age was to my hear­ing

  • Joe says:

    Yeah , because all of them were able to buy or rent a home because Black­stone did­n’t own every home and con­trol rent. Hones weren’t a mil­lion dol­lars.. my car pay­ment is more that your mort­gage was

  • Jenna says:

    Thank you, I noticed that right off. 🤨

  • ScottD says:

    John Den­ver stood up against a giant for you’re and MY Free­dom of artis­tic speech. NOT Bruce Spring­steen, not Boy George, not Lionel Ritchie. Def­i­nite­ly, more artis­tic mind­ed folks should remem­ber that!! Dee Snider, and Frank Zap­pa also. BIG FAT ETERNAL THANKS to those fel­low brave Amer­i­cans!!

  • Mjolnira says:

    If well-adjust­ed means that I am work­ing until I die as a slave in the system…then yeah 😑
    I miss the 80s, noone will ever be that free again.

  • Patrick says:

    80s met­al heads were the best peo­ple, in a sea of what was often a bunch of pret­ty ter­ri­ble bul­lies.

  • Yon. says:

    I was born in ’82. Although I am gen­er­al­ly clas­si­fied as Gen. Y (lat­er called Mil­len­ni­al), I align more with Gen. X (and regard­less of my true gen­er­a­tion label, Gen. X is def­i­nite­ly the best gen­er­a­tion). My music taste is pri­mar­i­ly mid 70’s to mid 90’s with some trick­ling into the end of the 90’s (high nos­tal­gia and all). I believe we were made high­ly adapt­able. We had pow­er in our music. Very ener­gized.

  • DJ_K666 says:

    Heh I man­aged to catch Dio live at a fes­ti­val in 2004.
    I’m real­ly glad I did now.

  • Kat says:

    Well yea, there’s noth­ing wrong with peo­ple just because they are in a niche or sub­cul­ture, if any­thing they bet­ter then pop­u­lar kids due to being bul­lied and hav­ing to deal with being pro­filed and ridiculed 24/7 just because of some­thing that made them hap­py. Look­ing dif­fer­ent can real­ly weed out the fake peo­ple

  • Rickinator says:

    I grew up going to shows in the ’80s and ’90s, I’ve seen about 50 con­certs. Slay­er, White Zom­bie, Pan­tera, Ozzfests, Lol­la­palooza, you name it. I laughed at the title of this arti­cle because I am def­i­nite­ly not a well-adjust­ed adult, but I did have a lot of fun.

  • TL says:

    Well of course. We learned how to be excel­lent to each oth­er and par­ty on no mat­ter what we faced.

  • Ash says:

    I was an 80’s met­al­head and I still am!
    Insane­ly excit­ed to be see­ing Iron Maid­en again in Lon­don next month!
    I can absolute­ly con­cur with this head­line!
    Rock and met­al pro­motes self-expres­sion and authen­tic­i­ty and those fac­tors are con­ducive to cre­at­ing a ground­ed and well adjust­ed indi­vid­ual.
    Up the Irons!!!

  • Geri Je Ne Sais Quois says:

    Wow, was inspired by this art.
    I recall those hear­ings from my early/ mid teens, and at tim i was a seri­ous met­al head, attend­ing EVERY con­cert, wear­ing the ‘uni­form’+ all that. This segued to punk, new wave and final­ly Goth. The last had, at least­’­more poten­tial’, for harm.
    That because ’ goth’ was more a lifestyle, than just a music genre. Tha ks to all i involved in this study? Art., and com­ments.

  • TN says:

    It’s hilar­i­ous “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was on PMR­C’s list of the 15 most objec­tion­able songs bc of “Vio­lence.” I googled the lyrics to see if there’s some­thing in it I for­got about or may inter­pret as vio­lent now that I’m old with my own kids, but nope, there’s ZERO vio­lence in that song! No doubt PMR­C’s real issue with it was they did­n’t want kids hear­ing any­thing that may influ­ence dis­obe­di­ence.

  • jon donoghue says:

    Come back in 40 years & see if it’s the same per­cent­age for rap & drill !!!! That’s if any are still alive to make an exam­ple or ref­er­ence as the above ? Ciao 4 now.

  • TN says:

    I’d bet every­thing I own that every sin­gle one of those men accus­ing Dee Snider of immoral­i­ty and sex­ism and lec­tur­ing about par­ent­ing chil­dren all had mis­tress­es, a lit­tle black book full of hook­ers and had nev­er once actu­al­ly tak­en care of their own kids by them­selves (that’s what wives and nan­nies are for). The Chris­t­ian Moral Police have proven to be the most immoral (and the biggest freaks) over and over again!!

  • Kehk in a MiG says:

    Yes we turned out fine, not like those ’90s hip-hop­sters.

  • Cory says:

    Im 64 now. I still lis­ten to most of that music. I served in the mil­i­tary, got my degree, retired from the fire ser­vice. Ive been mar­ried to the same woman for 40 years. 3 kids that pret­ty much lis­tened to my music when they were grow­ing up. 1 served and is a pro­fes­sion­al now. One is a Fam­i­ly Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er, one is a machin­ist. I will admit I still dress like I did when I was 12. Jeans, boots, Black T‑shirts and ride a Harley. And I still go to Rock con­certs. And lis­ten to alot of Amon Amarth, etc. The kids just know and accept dad is a met­al head. 🤣

  • Kelly Krash says:

    Soooo To Say That 80s Met­al­Heads Were Trou­bled, Is Such A Cliche, And Proves You Know Noth­ing About Gen X, Of Course Some Were, We Were The Hap­pi­est, Luck­i­est Gen­er­a­tion Ever, We Made Every Day Fun And btw, Female Met­al­heads Are Called Female Met­al­heads, Not Groupies, Jesus, If You’re Gonna Write About A Gen­er­a­tion, Then Per­haps U Should Know A Lit­tle Some­thin About That Gen­er­a­tion, Check Your­self, We Are The Best Gen­er­a­tion Ever, And I’m Proud As Hell To Be A Mem­ber I Will Always Be A Met­al­head
    👄☠️🫧🤘🖤🖤🖤🤘🫧☠️👄

  • DE says:

    They had their way and since the Inclu­sion of the stick­er was made law we saw a decline in lyrics as if the stick­er was giv­ing bands per­mis­sion to be as shock­ing as they could be. Maybe tip­per and Co should’ve kept their noses out and left well alone. Let’s be hon­est it was a polit­i­cal stunt and was noth­ing to do with pro­tect­ing kids.

  • Don Geffert says:

    Aren’t most of these bands played on soft rock sta­tions now

  • Big jiggy says:

    To be part of this sub­cul­ture at its peak in the mid­dle 80s, you’d have to be about 60 today. And I can tell you that peo­ple in that age range are NOT okay. Theyre para­noid, greedy, arro­gant, and afraid of every­thing.

  • Aaron Lucas says:

    You are kid­ding, right. John Den­ver was antiPRMC right up until he was remind­ed some of his Fly­ing and Space pur­suits were con­trolled by some of the Gov­ern­ment peo­ple he was about to go head to head with and he rolled over com­plete­ly.

  • Vickie says:

    Amen!!!

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