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1:14

Welcome to Why Would You Tell Me That?

1:16

with me, Neil Delamere and him, Dave

1:18

Moore. If you haven't listened to any of the episodes so

1:20

far, do get on that. They're non-topical

1:23

and you'll enjoy

1:25

it. Your mind will be opened. The

1:28

flower of your knowledge will be fertilized.

1:31

Your fecund garden

1:32

will be slurried.

1:35

You're fecund what? Yes. Listen to the podcast.

1:37

We're proudly part of the ACAS Creator Network and you

1:40

can get us on all social media platforms,

1:42

including the ones that have just been invented since the end

1:44

of this conversation. Dave, it is

1:46

your turn to wow me with the fact. I've

1:49

got to go to it for you. I am biased

1:51

in this one because I'll

1:53

ask you a question and you can answer it honestly.

1:56

Do you think I am a... content

2:01

individual, a happy person. I

2:04

have always said that you are

2:06

a content individual. And I

2:08

put that down to a number

2:10

of factors. Oh. Um, I think

2:13

one, uh,

2:14

good upbringing and family life. I

2:17

would thank you. I would respect that. Yes. Yes. And

2:19

two, and I think this is even more important

2:21

than, than, than that. And that's

2:24

a level of ignorance of the

2:26

world and how things work.

2:28

Yeah. I mean, I really think that, uh,

2:31

a low IQ is very beneficial.

2:35

All of a sudden I'm very happy without understanding

2:38

why. Yeah, you're right. Um, well,

2:40

actually I, so I would contend that I am

2:42

indeed very happy and contented. And I'm

2:44

joking aside.

2:44

And I'm all joking aside. There are many factors.

2:47

I'm sure that going to make a personality and all the reasons

2:49

why this may not be. However, in

2:51

part two, we're going to be joined by a chap

2:54

called Bill. Bill's from Australia. And

2:56

Bill is the professor in the faculty

2:58

of society and design in Bond university

3:01

in Queensland, Australia. He's also

3:03

a professor emeritus, a distinguished professor, 2017,

3:05

McQuarrie university

3:07

in new South Wales, Australia. And he is also

3:10

Neil, the adjunct professor in the university

3:12

of new South Wales

3:13

in Australia. So this man is

3:15

about as qualified as they call him. Okay.

3:18

And Bill, you may be wondering how he's going

3:21

to have anything to do with my happiest. Yes. Bill

3:23

is going to tell us in part two, why people

3:26

who listen to this

3:38

are actually happier than

3:41

everybody else. Neil,

3:46

this man, this professor has

3:48

proven this

3:49

twice in two separate

3:51

studies that the people who listen

3:53

to death metal are happier than

3:56

everybody else. Okay. I've,

3:58

I've lots of questions on this. First of all, is Bill

4:01

actually a professor or is

4:03

New South Wales the name of his death metal

4:06

band? Is this a bizarre

4:08

long con? Are you grifting

4:10

for a half of big death metal? Also,

4:13

can I ask what is the difference? Because I am

4:16

an ignoramus when it comes to the different genres

4:19

of metal. What is the difference between say death metal

4:21

and other types of metal? Okay, that is a brilliant

4:23

question. And actually it would take at

4:26

least the length of a podcast episode for me to explain

4:28

it because the family tree, the

4:29

genre tree of metal

4:32

is genuinely so phenomenal. I mean,

4:34

if you think about it, it begins probably

4:36

as far back as the blues. It comes into,

4:39

no, it does. It comes into the Chuck Berry

4:42

type stuff.

4:43

It grows up through the seventies,

4:46

Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, of course,

4:48

you know, probably the most famous exponents

4:50

of what became modern heavy metal.

4:53

Then you had the new wave of British heavy metal that

4:55

led us to thrash metal that gave us Metallica

4:57

and Slayer and Megadeth and all these bands. And

4:59

then it branched out into lots of different

5:02

progressively heavier genres of

5:04

music. And in there came death

5:07

metal. And death metal is basically

5:11

even more extreme than thrash metal. So

5:14

take your Metallica's, take your slayers and multiply

5:16

them by about 10 and then add in those

5:18

guttural vocals that

5:21

lots of people figure are just noise. In

5:23

fact, I often see things like, you know, when dogs make

5:26

kind of noises, people will

5:29

take those sounds and go, when your dog is a death

5:31

metal singer, it'll be like over a massive

5:34

amount of death metal. You're like, oh, it sounds the same

5:36

as whatever band. Yeah. So

5:38

death metal is extreme. However, listening

5:41

to it, those things that we will discuss

5:44

in part two with Professor Bill that

5:46

make our brains, the brains of

5:48

those of us who listen to this music happier

5:50

than yours and happier than people who like

5:53

jazz and happier than people who like

5:55

pop music. People who like jazz can't

5:58

be happy. I mean, that is a thing. If there's

6:00

a learned anything from the fast show is happiness

6:03

isn't cool. So therefore if you like jazz,

6:05

you can't be happy. That

6:07

is a hundred percent. I'm standing by that.

6:10

But that's fair. That's fair. You're never in Ronnie Scott's

6:12

looking across a fellow gone. That fellow

6:14

looks absolutely delight with himself.

6:16

Look how happy he looks. Just

6:19

mainlined a lot of heroin. He

6:21

doesn't do a trumpet solo that's 15 minutes long.

6:23

Nobody can breathe for the accurate tobacco smoke

6:26

in this room. I think he's really happy. He's

6:28

looks really happy. The drummer has died

6:29

twice on stage. He's not to be

6:32

resuscitated and defibrillated by

6:34

a fellow hitting him around the head with a saxophone.

6:36

They're going to release the noise that the saxophone

6:39

made by hitting the drummer in the head as

6:41

a B side because no one

6:43

understands what this particular band is playing anyway.

6:46

But they all look very happy. No, that's the thing.

6:48

They

6:48

have a lightness of spirit about them or something.

6:50

Can I ask is it death

6:52

metal? Is it that

6:55

the themes that they cover are

6:57

all kind of darkened? Yeah. Well,

6:59

I suppose most of metal deals

7:02

with

7:03

darkness and emotion and

7:06

some of it deals in sadism and

7:08

some of it deals in pain and some of it deals

7:10

in all these kinds of things. Then you move on to black

7:12

metal,

7:13

then you're out entering the realms of, you

7:16

know, whether it's church burning

7:18

and Satanism and wow, sorry,

7:20

a lot of like a lot of this is imagery. Like

7:22

it's not like that. I

7:25

must admit there are some

7:27

previously convicted black metal musicians

7:29

who have burned churches. Look,

7:32

they had problems going on before they got into music. But

7:34

you know, but a lot of this is imagery and we'll

7:36

get to this with Bill. There's a lot

7:39

of nuance and detail

7:42

in

7:42

the lyrics and in the

7:45

formation of the music and what it does

7:47

to our brains and our emotions. Is there in

7:49

this broad church of music, which

7:52

isn't on fire, is there any

7:54

such thing as deliberately happy

7:56

metal?

7:57

Like, is there anybody that really

7:59

that. really guttural voice

8:02

but going, yeah I saw some wecks

8:04

for strawberries for sale

8:06

and I got some good value on the N11. I

8:09

had a lovely 99

8:12

with fancy raspberry

8:14

red puffs. I

8:16

got a good deal on a bouncy castle

8:19

we had a great day at the community.

8:22

Can someone please take those lyrics and put

8:24

them over some death metal it would make me the happiest

8:26

I've ever been ever please do that and

8:29

send it to us on social media.

8:29

It didn't take us long to fill the paneling

8:32

pool and my cocker spaniel

8:35

really liked it. I

8:38

like the melodies you've chosen as well everything

8:40

about this is perfect. Okay I can't wait to talk

8:42

to Professor Bill to answer your question yes

8:44

there are people who do they're not as not

8:46

as overtly happy as you do

8:48

but there is Christian metal.

8:50

Okay Christian metal it can sound

8:52

as as heavy as death metal but

8:54

lyrically you know they're talking about praising

8:57

Jesus and he's in their lives and he will

8:59

save us and you know here comes the rapture and

9:01

all that kind of stuff so yeah there's all rats hungry

9:03

but he took our two loaves and five fishes

9:06

and they weren't hungry anymore.

9:08

Oh brilliant.

9:11

Okay well look that's in part two let's focus

9:13

on part one okay and in part one

9:16

I'm going to tell you about some more metal

9:18

heads okay

9:19

and these metal heads are not like you

9:21

know these are not going straight to death metal like other people

9:23

you've heard okay yeah but

9:25

I'm going to tell you about some of the wildest things

9:28

that methylers have done over the years and

9:30

Neil some of these are class. Now let's start with a pretty

9:33

basic one you've probably heard the story

9:34

of Van Halen and the Brown M&Ms have

9:37

you ever heard this story before okay yes so

9:39

Van Halen were going on a massive

9:41

tour they were the biggest band around in the 80s and they

9:43

put together this writer this list of things

9:45

they demanded from every venue they went

9:47

to

9:48

and all it was we do not want

9:51

any brown M&Ms in our room

9:53

we

9:53

want M&Ms we don't want brown

9:55

and everyone kind of went oh these

9:57

divas these rock stars David

9:59

Lee

9:59

Roth and Eddie Van Halen, they're just there,

10:02

they can't even eat a packet. What's wrong with

10:04

brown M&Ms versus blue M&Ms or whatever?

10:07

And if you know the story, you'll know that actually

10:10

it was a test. Okay. So the

10:12

test was to see whether

10:14

the venue and the promoter and the

10:16

security company and the rigors and everybody

10:19

had read through the entire rider document.

10:22

And if they got to the venue and found that there were

10:24

brown M&Ms, they went, okay, now

10:26

we need to send our safety guys to check the

10:29

rigging, the lighting, the pyrotechnics,

10:31

everything, because these guys did not read the

10:34

entire document and do it the right way. So

10:37

it was actually a really sensible thing. Although from the outside,

10:39

of course, for years, it just persisted as

10:41

this image of

10:42

you know, Van Halen being these demanding rockstar

10:45

divas. But in fact, there was method to

10:47

the map. That is genius when you think about

10:49

it. It's basically a little trap

10:51

in the middle of it, isn't it? That's, that's all it is.

10:54

I mean, well, of course, once becomes known that

10:56

that's what to do, you just presumably scan

10:58

all, you just do a word search for brown

11:00

M&Ms and that's it.

11:02

But I suppose different artists have changed since

11:05

then and put in different weird requests, 100%. Like,

11:08

I mean, I remember Beyonce years and years

11:10

and years ago when she played the point of the three

11:12

re-enter, whatever it was at the time, maybe the O2

11:14

actually.

11:15

And someone was given out because

11:17

she needed everything draped in white or whatever

11:20

it was, you know, and look, I'm sure part of that was

11:22

her being whatever. But also later transpired.

11:24

The part of that was, well, if, and that

11:27

was down the bottom of the document again,

11:28

if the bathroom and the dressing

11:30

room and the corridors and everything are draped

11:33

in white when I walked in, I've

11:34

done to worry about it. I know everything's going to be fine

11:36

because you've read everything. If I walk in and it's not,

11:39

then I have to just have a look around and see. So look, there's,

11:41

there's a logic to it. I suppose what you'd have to do

11:43

is you'd have to not put that on the last page each

11:46

time, you'd have to move it within the writer document,

11:48

wouldn't you? Yeah. We once had Patrick Bergen

11:50

on the panel, you know, who was in famously

11:53

in Sleeping With the Enemy with Julia

11:56

Roberts was the big movie. And we said to him, so

11:58

how do you decide on the land?

11:59

on the part. And he went, I flicked at the last

12:02

page and if I'm still in it, I do it. Spoiler

12:06

on her for sitting with the enemy. Just saying. I seem to remember

12:08

he was living in a castle in,

12:11

on the awfully tipperary border when we

12:14

interviewed him. While Willie, he, who

12:16

was hosting the show as a guest host said,

12:18

uh, where do you live now? And he goes, I live in a castle.

12:20

And Willie looked at him and said, the

12:22

best

12:23

Irish da thing I've ever heard.

12:25

He went, must be very hard to heat.

12:29

Not you're a rock star and

12:31

a famous actor that lives in his own castle.

12:33

No. Would you have forgets or what would

12:35

you have? Probably like the, the super sorry

12:37

that we talked about. When did he just go out the wheelchair?

12:40

Those little, the arrow windows. Okay.

12:43

Let's go back to something else. You've probably heard of them before. Keith Moon 1967,

12:46

drove a Rolls

12:48

Royce into the swimming pool of a Michigan holiday

12:50

and photos were taken. Oasis used

12:53

the image of that and one of their later album

12:55

covers. It's an iconic thing. However, I don't know if

12:57

you knew this is destructive antics

13:00

led to the band being

13:02

banned, banned, banned from

13:05

every single holiday in, in

13:07

the word. Like

13:09

that is impressive. That's

13:10

all we'll just go. Do you know what lads you've

13:12

ruined the pool in Michigan. You can now

13:15

no longer go to any holiday in anywhere

13:17

in the entire path. They must've been really angry.

13:20

Like surely the band management

13:22

would have gone, well, ban us from the ones that have pools.

13:25

Like he's not going

13:27

to run. It's like, if they have a water

13:29

feature, is he going to do it with a mini or

13:32

a smart car? He's not going to taper

13:34

his and tailor his car

13:37

into water body shenanigans. He's probably

13:39

not something else. Yeah,

13:40

definitely. And let's face it. There are

13:43

so many stories we could tell you about Keith Moon in particular

13:45

and the who we will move on to Led Zeppelin.

13:47

Led Zeppelin were banned from one single hotel

13:50

in Seattle in 1969 for raucous

13:52

rockstar behavior when they were staying there. They

13:54

snuck back in, in 1977, using

13:58

aliases. I don't know. I think they did.

13:59

this on purpose because there's no other they're gonna stay

14:02

it anywhere in Seattle but they

14:03

stuck back in use eddies and started

14:05

to wreak havoc again they burned

14:07

carpets and they actually did the

14:09

rock star cliche thing they threw five

14:12

TVs out of the hotel

14:14

windows i mean

14:18

for that for the stereotype like

14:20

it is the quintessential rock star thing to do

14:22

and they were the first people to do probably

14:24

if

14:25

if if it is most famous wonder how high

14:28

up are they i wonder yeah i've

14:30

often thought about that like because whatever about

14:33

wanton destruction yeah within

14:35

the confines of the hotel suite

14:38

and you know maybe

14:40

sticking it to the man or whatever

14:42

their kind of feelings might be or we don't care

14:44

we don't follow your rules whatever surely

14:47

the potential for throwing a very heavy

14:49

tube television down onto an innocent

14:51

passerby must cross your mind at some point

14:53

yeah i i mean like if you do with a flat

14:56

screen like that's essentially you

14:58

know skimming stones across across

15:00

the lake i mean you could probably you could get proper

15:02

distance to the flat screen there's a good chance you throw

15:04

a flat screen if you threw it from high enough before

15:07

it disappeared from your vision like a collie

15:09

would catch it like on a body format

15:11

to show that you could do anything when you're having

15:14

your period hell of a collie to catch

15:16

that but yeah he caught him but

15:19

how many tellies are in the room well i presume there

15:21

was you know maybe one in the bedroom one in the

15:23

living room kind of thing in a suite but maybe they had a number

15:25

of

15:25

suites yeah also like in 1977

15:28

they're one of the most famous bands of the world

15:30

what kind of aliases they used for

15:32

people to go oh that's not robert plant or

15:34

jimmy page

15:35

like i mean whatever about the

15:37

first one they used to weigh a couple of three

15:39

or four stone like i just can't see

15:41

your my my anger kind

15:44

of continuing or even my kind of giddy

15:46

excitement with the first one out the window open

15:49

like pretend to do that four more

15:51

times oh this is still a real

15:54

laugh unless of course you

15:56

know they actually are much geekier

15:59

than we expect and

15:59

and they were doing the Galileo experiments

16:02

and one of them was sitting there with a clipboard going, well, in

16:05

a vacuum. And this

16:08

is an entirely different thing.

16:10

And then they were caught and they were like,

16:13

the Nord-Mendre seems considerably

16:15

heavier than the Pi television.

16:18

Who knew that the Nord-Mendre had

16:20

actually been designed with air resistance

16:23

in mind. Kudos to the Nord-Mendre

16:25

engineers indeed. And

16:28

they were caught and they had to go,

16:29

we were just due for the crack.

16:32

Hold on. We were rock stars. And we could

16:34

have pulled it better in the last hotel. You're right.

16:38

I don't know if you've heard of this one because I hadn't heard it until I started looking

16:40

this open and finding as many crazy rock stories as I could.

16:42

But Billy Idol, okay.

16:44

Probably rock and roll more than heavy

16:45

metal, but Billy Idol. Spent

16:48

three weeks hosting rockers

16:50

parties in his Oriental

16:52

Hotel penthouse in Thailand in 1989.

16:55

Again, 89,

16:57

he's at the peak of his powers, his spiky

16:59

white blonde hair, his sleeveless

17:01

leather jacket. He's as cool as he gets. And he decides

17:03

Thailand's where he's gonna go. So he goes

17:05

there. He throws three weeks of parties

17:08

in the penthouse. And you can imagine at the end of that

17:10

period of time, there's going to be a bill.

17:13

Well, the bill in 1989, which was

17:15

a long time ago,

17:16

was $149,000. Oh,

17:21

geez. I'm no good at working at the

17:23

inflation value of that, but let's assume

17:26

it's a hell of a lot more in today's money, right? So

17:28

the Thailand establishment said room

17:31

fees, damages,

17:33

food, drink, whatever. This is what

17:35

you owe us. Billy Idol ignored

17:37

hotel management. He refused

17:40

to vacate his rooms. And

17:42

then the hotel management said, well,

17:45

if you don't, we're gonna have to call the police. Call the police.

17:47

That did not work. So then what did they do? They

17:50

escalated it beyond the police. And they called

17:52

the Thai military, who

17:54

carried Billy out on

17:57

a stretcher because they

17:59

shot him with a... tranquilizer darts.

18:02

The only

18:04

way they can get them out of the room, they have to literally tranquilize

18:07

them. So shall we just shoot them dead?

18:10

No, no, no, no, no. Do you know the guy

18:12

who catches tigers in the north of the country?

18:14

Yes. Get him

18:17

in here. Get him down here. Did you just shot him with a tranquilizer

18:19

dart? They shot him with a tranquilizer, yeah, and then they

18:21

went, here you go. Now,

18:22

I'm assuming that Billy, at that point in his career,

18:24

had probably tried, I hope I'm not

18:26

impugning his reputation, but rock stars

18:29

try every chemical known to man.

18:31

And I'm not saying he necessarily

18:33

did, but you'd imagine that

18:36

they were bored. They're bored of trying

18:38

the various different cocktails of drugs. You've done

18:42

your cocaine, you've done your heroin, you've

18:44

done all this. Do you think maybe they set him off? Like

18:47

he was bored of life. He gets hit with

18:49

ketamine or whatever it is, and he's like, oh my God,

18:51

this is amazing. This is

18:53

the next level. We call this the Bangkok

18:56

cocktail. This is absolutely fantastic. But

18:58

I can only get off me now. And

19:01

now it's a psychosexual thing. I can only get off

19:03

on this if you dress up as a Thai

19:05

police man. I know, Thai

19:08

military, Thai military. Sorry, Thai military.

19:10

12-wheel rush to the room. I

19:12

pretended to throw Nord Mende out

19:15

the window, because I've invited

19:17

Led Zeppelin around over there, however her name

19:19

is this week. Wow. What do you think

19:21

would knock Billy Idol out?

19:24

I reckon if you fired clean blood into him

19:26

at that point. It

19:28

was just like Zeleena

19:31

of her plasma from someone normal. A

19:33

good transfusion from a fella

19:35

from Dorsett Street would have been cleaner than whatever

19:38

he had going on in fairness. Yeah,

19:41

just like the normal level of platelets on his

19:43

body would just go, what the fuck is this?

19:47

But you did remind me of a story about

19:50

Rod Stewart. And people might think, you know, Rod

19:52

Stewart, yeah, you know, he's been around for

19:54

a while. Former

19:55

grave digger, yes. Well,

19:57

Rod Stewart, look.

20:00

Most of this is allegedly not all of our most of this is allegedly

20:03

Rott Stewart was a little bit worried

20:05

about the adverse health effects. Mm-hmm

20:07

of

20:08

Snorting too much cocaine through

20:10

the nostrils right so

20:14

not necessarily concerned about you

20:16

know inhaling the Class

20:20

a drug and the effects that may have internally

20:22

or psychologically. Yeah, it was merely

20:24

the appearance of his nose Okay,

20:27

which he was concerned about. Okay

20:29

So Rott Stewart for a period of time

20:31

took cocaine Ainly

20:38

Allegedly allegedly

20:40

this is what do you think I'm sexy?

20:43

I don't actually

20:45

Not only that but you really put me off snow

20:47

clubs I'll be honest with

20:49

you know, I had a bag of icing sugar there I

20:52

was going to dust my cake, but I'll be honest with you I've

20:55

seen your dusty cake. I don't want to do

20:57

this. Oh my god You've

21:00

ruined four hovers

21:04

Well, you know we've had to do with

21:06

those hovers we were going to recycle them but apparently

21:08

Led Zeppelin want to do another experiment

21:13

Would he I'm gonna tell him into your

21:15

knowledge on this I mean, oh, I'm sorry Sorry,

21:17

I kind of just say that before we go any further that's

21:19

the extent of my knowledge But feel free to ask me questions.

21:22

I don't know where your mind goes. Okay. Okay.

21:25

Okay, right Well, I don't

21:27

know about you, but my bottom and

21:29

does not possess the snorting

21:32

muscle He

21:35

can't oh it can be trained. Oh God

21:40

now that is that is the crufts

21:42

Agility test that I'd like to see if

21:45

you could train someone's bottom And

21:47

here we are we have Dave Moore this

21:50

this woman Snort

21:56

a life

21:59

Maybe that's how he does agility dogs are

22:02

so fast who do knows oh My

22:05

god, I've thought of the best thing ever. I'm

22:07

so happy If you could train

22:10

your either yourself or a dog to use

22:12

their anus to snore like

22:14

sucks Yeah, you know what dog has worms

22:17

and it wants to rub its arse on

22:19

the carpet You can get your

22:21

dog to over the carpet Oh

22:25

Oh boy, we should give him his medicine.

22:27

No, he hasn't known the corners yet. That would

22:29

be fantastic. So It's

22:31

so presumably We're

22:35

gonna get one of those rocky things But then we just brought

22:38

the dog in with other dogs that haven't been minded

22:40

properly and now he does the whole

22:42

garden Um, so presumably

22:44

he he can't Won

22:46

not rod stewart cannot suck

22:49

stuff up through his body. So he would have

22:51

to get it blown up as bottom

22:53

Oh No, you're you're

22:55

assuming what is wrong? Mayor

22:57

Ren

23:08

Okay,

23:23

but listen You can't

23:25

say that and then just think that I was going to go. Oh

23:27

that is that is indeed a tasteful

23:30

tidbit for carry on

23:32

We're we're almost 40 episodes in I should have

23:34

known that you weren't going to just accept that one and

23:36

move on to the next one We will move on though to

23:39

motley crew motley crew a million 50 stories

23:41

about these lads, right? Nikki six was

23:43

the bass player in motley crew. He was

23:45

declared dead for two minutes

23:48

No way after a near fatal injection

23:50

of heroin. Yeah, so

23:52

Slash from guns and roses.

23:54

He was there his or at least his girlfriend was

23:56

there slash his girlfriend gave

23:58

nicki six mouth to mouth until

24:01

paramedics arrived. Six was transported

24:04

to the local hospital and released the next

24:06

day,

24:07

having been dead for two minutes. And

24:10

you know, the next time that man took

24:12

drugs, that day, that

24:15

day, the day he was released

24:18

from hospital, having died from drugs, he

24:21

took more drugs. Speaking

24:24

of Slash, Slash was

24:27

so high, one point, that

24:29

he caught Predator,

24:32

the Predator from the

24:34

movie, was trying to kill him.

24:38

Right? He punched

24:40

his way through a glass door. Now, I just

24:43

love this sentence. I want you to absorb

24:46

this sentence. The most famous,

24:49

visually most famous rockstar in the world with

24:51

the hat and the hair down, you can barely

24:53

see his eyes, right? He punched

24:55

his way through a glass door at an

24:57

Arizona golf course, completely naked,

25:00

because he thought Predator was trying

25:02

to kill him.

25:04

And it doesn't end there. Oh, great.

25:07

He grabbed a hotel maid and

25:10

used her as a human shield against

25:12

the imaginary assailant.

25:16

Well,

25:19

in that, does an animal cover himself in

25:21

mud? Yeah. And this is a golf

25:23

course. This is a golf course. He's just holding

25:26

his poor maid gun. Where is the bunker?

25:29

It is the only way. At what time does

25:31

this sprinkler go on? I

25:34

do like his will

25:36

to survive. I mean, he doesn't do the noble

25:39

thing there and just go, Predator is going

25:41

to kill me. He is fighting for his

25:43

life to the bitter end. Yeah. And

25:46

I mean, I'd love to read, it didn't exist

25:48

in 1989, but I'd love to read the Trip

25:50

Advisor review that you might leave to

25:53

the Arizona Golf Course Hotel

25:55

Complex after saying, you know, listen, the

25:58

food was okay. The room was okay.

25:59

left a lot to be desired but

26:02

the protection I got from the maid

26:05

when I was being chased by Predator five

26:07

stars would recommend it's

26:10

quite an unusually specific thing to

26:12

have written on the on you know the do

26:14

not disturb side like it says you don't disturb

26:16

on one side please service my room with the other

26:18

side and then just down the bottom and in the event

26:21

I hallucinate Predator

26:23

what year was this? 1989. Oh 1989

26:25

okay so Predator

26:28

was out a few years yes like

26:30

it would be much weirder if he imagined it

26:32

now I mean that would be oh yeah or if

26:34

he'd imagined it before it happened next

26:36

week apparently the idea from Predator

26:43

came from what slash imagined

26:46

would happen to him you don't know if

26:48

he imagined it after or not if he

26:50

was running naked through a golf course door yeah

26:52

Wow there's some quality stories

26:55

yeah well hang on one more to finish off because

26:57

we're the most famous rock

27:00

debauchery person in

27:02

the world is this gonna upset me given that

27:04

we no no no no no no this is Ozzy Osbourne

27:07

yeah okay Ozzy Black

27:09

Sabbath everyone knows it right everyone knows it so

27:11

the story is well first sorry first of all let's go back

27:13

to Nikki six for a second Nikki six Michael crew on

27:15

tour with Ozzy the two of them are trying to outdo each

27:17

other and they're

27:19

doing cocaine and they're doing hair whatever and

27:21

then Nikki six is like well I don't know like

27:23

what else to do I'm kind of done

27:26

and they got Ozzy Osbourne finds

27:29

a trail of ants walking

27:31

you know wherever they are whether it's a bar

27:33

or a backstage I don't know where they are yeah

27:36

and he says oh and he snorts

27:41

a line of ants to

27:43

prove to Nikki six that he's the matter

27:45

fucker right oh I mean

27:48

I mean I think he's very much established a pecking

27:50

order there yeah that's

27:52

just to give you context Rosie so look famously

27:55

Ozzy bit the head off a bat yeah okay this

27:57

isn't myth this is true but

27:59

here's what

27:59

people don't maybe realize is

28:02

that this is the bat scenario

28:04

was the end of a culmination

28:07

of events. Okay. Okay. So

28:09

Ozzy had left Black Sabbath. Ozzy was going

28:12

solo. Ozzy was torn with her. Ozzy needed a record

28:14

deal. Everyone needs a record deal.

28:15

And this is back in the 80s. You need a record deal.

28:18

So Ozzy Osbourne was going into

28:20

a meeting with record execs

28:22

in some high powered either LA

28:24

or New York,

28:25

like office. Do you know

28:28

what I mean? Yeah. So he's going in there and Sharon

28:30

is doting wife says to him, you need

28:32

to make an impression Ozzy, you know,

28:34

how are you going to impress these guys? Oh,

28:37

fucking Ozzy Osbourne.

28:40

No, no, you need to do something to show

28:42

them you are the wildest rocker around. Yeah.

28:45

Why don't you take these doves

28:47

and release them in the, when we

28:50

go into the meeting, release them and

28:52

they'll fly around the labs. So

28:58

they go into the meeting. They

29:00

sit down. Ozzy produces the two dogs. He releases

29:02

one. Yeah. The dog flies around and was

29:04

like, Oh, what's going on, man? He takes the

29:06

other dog in his hand, looks at it and goes and

29:10

bites the dogs head off

29:13

in the meeting with the record execs. Jesus

29:16

Christ. I made

29:19

an impression Sharon. So

29:22

he did this in two separate meetings

29:25

with different record labels

29:27

who didn't give him a deal by the way. Oh, no,

29:29

really? Really? Yeah. They didn't give me a deal.

29:32

They didn't think Mr. Bird's

29:35

decapitate or Mr. Avian Gillitine

29:37

over there. He's stable

29:39

enough to release some music. Yeah.

29:42

Give him lots of money. Give him an advance and go to

29:44

a studio. It'll be fine. And then what happened was that

29:46

a gig, he got the taste for somebody heard this

29:48

story. No, they heard the story. Okay.

29:50

So they brought a bat

29:52

to the gig. Yeah. Through the back

29:55

to Ozzy. Yeah. And said, I'll

29:57

add dogs bite the head off.

29:59

And I'll see. Exceeded to

30:01

the demand and then said

30:03

immediately he was the biggest regret of

30:06

his life because There's

30:09

well, no, I actually don't want to get into the detail But

30:11

there's more going on with a bat than there is

30:13

with a dove That's all I'll say and he

30:16

he wasn't happy with anything. So he he

30:18

bit a dove And that

30:21

is not the point where he went. No, this is this

30:23

is nice I

30:26

should stop this and see whatever professional

30:28

health I need I'm pretty

30:30

sure I'm

30:31

banned from birdwatch Ireland

30:34

or whatever He went on

30:36

to do it again, and it's only when he

30:38

bit a bat that he went. Oh, no

30:42

My life choices here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

30:44

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is a point

30:47

where we should tell people that go back to Listen to

30:49

season 2 Episode 1

30:52

where we find out the bats live forever

30:56

They've been

30:58

bitten by Ozzy Osbourne, maybe

31:01

he knew that he's

31:01

ahead of the game and that's why he lived forever That

31:04

is I mean, it's gone down in the annals of rock and

31:06

roll history. We can say that it has it's yes

31:08

And it's and now we've gotten to you know,

31:10

some insight into the rest of the shenanigans

31:13

of the metal community However,

31:15

we will in part two when we're joined

31:17

by professor Bill Thompson We will explore

31:20

some of the other things that heavy metal

31:22

brings us the death metal makes

31:25

Me a happier person than

31:28

you and anybody listening who doesn't listen

31:30

to death metal. Okay, not as happy as I am Okay.

31:33

Yeah, I would agree with that but there's

31:35

a whole litany of reasons for that.

31:37

No, it's all death metal We'll explore it now in a sec

31:41

I'm Alicia Wainwright And this is

31:43

when science finds a way a new

31:46

podcast from welcome about the science

31:48

that's changing the world I'll be speaking

31:51

to a truly global range of experts

31:53

working at the forefront of Scientific

31:55

progress as well as people who have inspired

31:58

and contributed to their work

31:59

We'll explore how science is helping

32:02

to build a healthier future for all

32:04

of us. When Science Finds Away.

32:07

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

32:30

Right, welcome back to part 2 of Why Would You Tell Me That?

32:57

We

33:00

are joined now by, listen to this list

33:02

Neil Delmer, a faculty of society

33:05

and design in Bond University Queensland,

33:07

Professor Emeritus, Distinguished Professor,

33:10

Macquarie University and the Adjunct

33:12

Professor in the University of New South Wales.

33:14

It is of course the one and only

33:16

Professor Bill Thompson. Hello Bill. How

33:18

are you doing? Hi. We're doing great

33:21

and thank you so much for joining us and obviously with

33:23

you being in Australia, we've had to

33:25

navigate time zones and it's one

33:28

day of the year for you, another day of the year for

33:30

us and we really do appreciate you making the effort.

33:32

Yeah, well the future is quite interesting

33:35

here. We're ahead. Yeah,

33:37

how is Wednesday? I can't wait to get into it. Yeah,

33:40

we've been alien invasion, I'll

33:42

just tell you that, I won't say anymore. Bill,

33:46

I've made a grand claim to Neil in part

33:48

one and to all of our listeners and the grand claim is this,

33:51

the grand claim is people who listen

33:54

to death metal, that would be me Bill,

33:56

I love it, I love, I love thrash metal, speed

33:58

metal, death metal. metal core,

34:01

matte core, I love it all, right? And

34:03

the claim I've made is that

34:05

people who listen to this music, this extreme

34:07

heavy music, are happier

34:10

than everybody else. Now,

34:13

have I simplified that too much? Are there

34:15

qualifications around this, Bill? Or is

34:17

it actually true? Well,

34:20

I'm certainly glad that you are

34:22

happy. And,

34:24

yeah, I guess I wouldn't put it that

34:27

way. We've been working

34:29

on death metal, and one of the things we noticed

34:32

about virtually all scientific research

34:35

on media

34:36

violence, as they call it, so

34:39

we're really only talking about

34:40

a certain type of death metal, that

34:42

is death metal, such as cannibal corpse,

34:45

that features violent themes, so

34:48

that, you know, in the lyrics and so forth. So not

34:50

all death metal obviously does that, you know. But

34:53

what we noticed was that all this research, which

34:56

was sending alarm bells everywhere, was looking

34:59

at the responses

34:59

of people who never

35:02

listen to death metal and who don't play violent, you

35:04

know, video games or anything like that. And they

35:06

were finding that,

35:07

gee, people are a bit disturbed.

35:10

But, you know, these were non-fans. And

35:14

so that's why we decided to look at the response of fans. And,

35:17

you know, as you point out,

35:19

you know, we found that they really had a

35:22

range of very positive outcomes

35:25

when listening to the music that they love. So,

35:27

you know, it's much more complicated

35:29

than a lot of the earlier research had suggested.

35:33

Okay, so let's dive into then, you know, when

35:35

you did begin your research. And so

35:38

the correlation between listening to bands like

35:40

cannibal corpse and then what did you use? Was

35:45

the original research before you the

35:47

violence in video games related

35:49

to that? Indirectly

35:51

in the sense that the people who

35:54

were formally researching violence

35:57

in media generally,

35:59

so video games,

35:59

games started to look at other

36:02

media, and they started to look at music. And

36:05

they were doing research

36:08

on non-fans, and they

36:10

kind of have an agenda. It's

36:12

almost political,

36:14

where they just feel

36:16

that there should be no violent

36:18

depictions

36:19

at all in popular

36:21

media. They don't seem to mind

36:24

if somebody goes to see Rich the Third and sees,

36:26

you know, I don't know, people being decapitated or

36:28

anything. But they do care if kids

36:31

are engaging in media that

36:34

seems overly violent, and they worry

36:36

about it. And you know, I just have to say, I

36:39

don't think that they're mean people

36:41

or unreasonable people. I think

36:44

that they've got

36:45

a valid concern that just

36:47

doesn't seem to be warranted by

36:50

what we've found. Because what we've found

36:52

is that the reason people

36:53

are motivated to

36:57

engage with intense, aggressive

37:00

music that

37:01

indeed has violent themes, that

37:04

motivation is often to work through

37:06

kind of

37:07

an understanding of the world,

37:10

getting a deeper sense of meaning

37:12

of how the world

37:14

works.

37:15

That includes the violence in

37:18

the world. But it's about

37:20

getting meaning, and sometimes

37:22

it's about working through people's own

37:25

issues and sort of discharging

37:27

their own feelings of frustration. But

37:29

other times, it's really just about

37:32

the performance, about the expertise

37:34

that the musicians have. It's about doing

37:37

something different than

37:39

what some people think of as mind-numbing

37:41

conventions of pop music, the verse,

37:43

chorus, verse, you know, sort of folk

37:46

song and pop traditions,

37:49

that it's really cutting edge, doing

37:52

something different. And the violence is actually

37:55

charging through the screens

37:57

of convention, I guess, in a way. So

37:59

it's having a sense of meaning.

37:59

a different function than merely

38:02

endorsing violence. Can I ask

38:05

a kind of a measurable question? So

38:08

you play Dave some

38:10

music that he loves, some death metal music that he loves,

38:12

and you said that he has a positive

38:15

outcome. How do you measure that?

38:18

What does that look like in your experiment?

38:20

Yeah, so there's different ways of looking

38:23

at it.

38:24

One is to just look

38:26

at sort of standardized measures.

38:28

So they're essentially surveys

38:31

that have been used that are

38:33

known to be reliable. The psychometric

38:36

properties have been established. And

38:38

one is called the pan-ass positive

38:41

and negative affect scale. But there are many. And

38:43

you can look at these scales

38:46

and simply have people

38:48

fill them out. People have also done

38:51

brain responses. And

38:53

they've done physiological, looked at things

38:56

like, is there cortisol released,

39:00

which is a stress hormone, or

39:02

are there other hormones released that are

39:05

more associated with pleasure?

39:08

So there's a kind of range of measures,

39:10

but there's also measures of aggression.

39:13

So for example, one of

39:15

the ones that they've used is called the

39:18

hot chili pepper technique.

39:22

I'll try to be as brief as I can to explain

39:24

it, but basically you listen to this really

39:26

death metal, and then you're put in a room

39:28

and you're told to allocate

39:31

a certain amount of hot chili pepper to

39:34

another person who you can't see behind a screen

39:37

and just say, they've got to

39:39

eat some rice and we'd like you to allocate

39:42

some hot chili pepper. And just

39:44

by the way, they hate spicy

39:46

food. It's

39:50

like a measure of indirect aggression. And

39:52

so what they found is these non-fans

39:54

were so annoyed by the death metal at the end

39:57

that they just piled on the hot chili

39:59

pepper.

40:00

And he said, great, they don't

40:02

like it? Okay, well then I'm going to give them

40:05

more. But they find that the fans actually

40:07

were like, oh gosh, like I'm

40:09

a vegan, so I'm not going to give them, you know,

40:11

like I just, I'm not going to give them any hot chili

40:13

pepper. They don't like it. And of course, it's.

40:16

So in that situation, Dave would be like, no, if they don't

40:19

like it, let's give them very little, the bare minimum.

40:21

Whereas I'm just like an alcoholic at a bar,

40:23

go and leave the bottle. I

40:27

hope it gives them scar tissue, because that's ironic

40:29

in terms of. Have you got a

40:30

Jollicaia ghost pepper mix, because

40:33

that's what we need. That's right. Wasn't

40:36

there another part of your research as well that involved

40:39

two pieces of music? So one

40:41

was a song called Eaton,

40:43

and that is a song. It

40:46

has cannibalistic images and it's

40:49

a very. The path to eat, right? Yes,

40:51

it is a very extreme lyrically,

40:53

very extreme song and also musically.

40:56

And the other one was Happy by Pharrell Williams,

40:58

which by its very title

41:00

is is happy. And then you did an

41:03

amazing experiment. Is

41:05

it Binocular Rivalry? Yes, Binocular

41:07

Rivalry. Please explain this to Neil

41:09

and to the rest of the audience, because this is fascinating.

41:12

Okay, so the way Binocular

41:13

Rivalry works is that you put two

41:16

different images to the two

41:18

eyes. And what you find

41:20

is that the brain really can't

41:22

handle that. I mean, so that when you're

41:25

looking at it,

41:26

basically what the brain does is it processes

41:28

one at a time and so it'll alternate

41:30

between the two images.

41:32

And what they found is that that alternation

41:35

also reflects the amount of attention that the

41:37

brain is paying to each of the images.

41:39

Now, normally people are quite sensitive

41:42

to violence. So if you have a violent image

41:44

and a neutral image, the brain will

41:46

allocate more attention to the violent image. So

41:48

what you'll find is that in that alternation, the

41:50

violent image will appear for longer. So

41:53

all people have to do is they press a button whenever

41:55

it changes. So that gives you a measure

41:58

of how long the brain is.

41:59

attending to each of the two images.

42:02

Now, what we were interested in

42:04

is the claim, a long-standing

42:06

claim, that all these depictions of

42:09

violence lead to desensitization

42:12

to violent material. So that when

42:14

you

42:15

witness other forms of violence, including

42:18

in the real world, you might just say, oh, yeah,

42:20

whatever. I listened to Cannibal Corpse this

42:22

morning, so I don't care that a person

42:24

was just stabbed three times. Well,

42:27

what we were showing was that

42:29

if that were the case, then the brain should

42:32

allocate less attention

42:34

to these violent images if

42:36

they're fans of music that has

42:38

violent themes than if they're not. And

42:41

we didn't find that. So what we found was

42:43

that actually, if anything, it was the

42:45

reverse, that we think that

42:48

some people who are attracted to

42:50

violently themed media actually

42:53

have a little bit of morbid curiosity. I mean,

42:55

they are kind of drawn towards

42:58

dark themes, but it's not

43:00

necessarily because they are violent, and it's

43:02

not because they're desensitized.

43:04

It's for other reasons that seem to be

43:06

mainly beneficial, psychosocially.

43:09

So that's the way it worked out.

43:11

And so then we started to work on the concept of

43:13

morbid curiosity and why some

43:16

people are kind of drawn towards dark

43:19

themes.

43:20

Well, I work in radio, and I

43:22

would meet the promoters

43:25

of huge festivals and gigs all

43:27

the time. I'd be friends with these people who do

43:29

it here in Ireland, and they bring people over, whatever. And

43:32

without question, and this

43:34

is anecdotal, absolutely. This is not a scientific experiment.

43:37

They will tell you that any

43:39

heavy metal concert or any festival

43:42

that involves heavy metal

43:44

of any description will be a peaceful

43:46

event. There will be very

43:48

little in the way of security having to do anything other

43:50

than carry people who've crowd surfed to the front of

43:53

the crowd, help them down, and lead them back

43:55

out into the crowd again. And that when there's

43:57

a pop artist or when there's a dance

43:59

artist or

43:59

a when there's a top 40 artist, they're

44:02

like, the security have to work 10

44:04

times harder. Because I'm

44:07

not actually sure what the reason is. I mean, maybe

44:09

there's a community, a sense of identity

44:12

and belonging to what is maybe

44:14

by perceived by the general public as

44:17

a niche piece of music. Therefore,

44:19

you've got a niche kind of black t shirt,

44:22

heavy metal wearing uniform

44:24

and you kind of maybe you feel a sense

44:26

of identity that other more general music

44:29

doesn't engender. I don't know if that's what it is.

44:31

But I've been to heavy

44:32

metal gigs since I was 13 years old,

44:34

I was in 1988, I saw Metallica in

44:37

a ballroom in a suburb of Dublin

44:39

here. And there was the first time I ever went to one

44:41

of those concerts. And I was knocked to the

44:43

ground

44:44

by the violence of what was going on, but immediately

44:46

picked up and immediately and looked at from was

44:49

I okay, because the lads who were there realized

44:51

I was only a kid. They were my other kid friend.

44:54

And that I don't know, there seems to be some

44:57

vibe and personality and

45:00

caring characteristic to

45:02

a heavy metal crowd. When lyrically,

45:05

the bands are up there screaming about slicing

45:07

people from one end to the other and

45:09

hanging them upside down and inverted crucifixes.

45:12

But ultimately, everything's like, look after each other

45:14

and mind each other. And there's no problems.

45:16

Yeah, I mean, I my intuition

45:19

and I mean, I could be wrong because we haven't studied

45:21

this or anything. But my intuition is that that

45:24

it's

45:25

kind of like art house music in the sense

45:27

that it's really going against conventions. And when

45:29

I first

45:30

listened to death metal, I mean, I

45:32

come from a metal background. But you know,

45:34

it's more pop metal, I guess, you know,

45:36

I've it's like come from Led Zeppelin, and then

45:39

up to Lincoln Park. And then I start like I started

45:42

to tend to not really follow what

45:44

was going on. I mean, I've listened to death tones

45:46

and and bands like that. And

45:48

what I learned really is to appreciate

45:51

just how different the music is

45:54

compared to conventional pop

45:57

structure. So you get these sudden

46:00

changes in tempo, a lot of

46:02

the riffs that are being

46:04

played by the guitar are kind of atonal.

46:07

So there a lot of the structures are very

46:09

different than what we're used to. And

46:11

this is something that I think

46:14

people who aren't fans

46:16

don't really hear. They just hear this crazy

46:18

noise and like this,

46:21

you know, happening. Oh, Neil

46:23

hates getting into my car when I'm playing any of this stuff.

46:26

No, that's just a general, that's a general feeling

46:28

of being unsafe. I mean,

46:30

that's how we meant it

46:32

was a lay by. It was just weird, to

46:34

be honest. I hope you're

46:37

not driving quickly or anything like that while

46:39

the music is playing. But, you know, it's

46:42

I do think that it's intended

46:44

to be edgy. I mean, let's, you know,

46:46

let's not pretend that it's

46:49

it's supposed to be like a lullaby. It's

46:51

obviously is edgy. It's

46:53

different. It's it's novel. It's

46:55

innovative.

46:56

It's about high

46:59

levels of expertise and skill

47:02

to play the machine gun type

47:05

drumming and so forth. And

47:07

the vocals are so bizarre

47:10

often and they become an instrument

47:12

in themselves. And

47:13

I guess what I want to say is I don't think that the

47:15

people who are concerned

47:17

are vilifying. I

47:20

just think that they don't really understand

47:22

the music and there's a bit of a fear of the unknown.

47:25

But you know, the problem is that the police,

47:27

they're actually censoring bands, you

47:30

know, in Australia, there's a one

47:32

for is another one example, but Cannibal

47:34

Corpse was banned from Australia entirely.

47:37

Like, so there's a lot of examples of censorship.

47:40

And I think it's born of

47:42

misunderstanding. I can absolutely

47:45

categorically tell you, Bill and Neil and everyone

47:47

listening, that I wear a hoop

47:50

fitness tracker, right? So it's a very

47:52

advanced 21st century fitness

47:54

track. And it tracks lots of different things, far

47:56

too much information for a sedentary man like me.

47:58

But anyway, I just I have it.

47:59

right. But I have just out of sheer

48:03

curiosity, because I

48:05

not only listen to heavy metal, but I play it on the guitar

48:08

along at the same time. And I have

48:10

watched my heart rate dip

48:13

unbelievably quickly, when

48:16

I put on

48:17

really extreme music, and

48:19

particularly when I put it on, and I play

48:21

along with it. And so if I'm sitting with a heart rate

48:24

of in the 70s, maybe even

48:26

in the 80s, I'm kind of busy running around the house,

48:28

I've got four kids, I'm putting them to bed and doing

48:30

homework, and you forgot to do this, and I've got to watch your uniform

48:33

and whatever it is. And then I kind of go, Oh,

48:35

God, they're all on to bed, right. And like, what I do, what

48:37

I watch telly, what I watch is no,

48:39

I put on Slipknot, I'll get a guitar

48:42

that's tuned drop a,

48:43

and I'll play along whatever. I'm just out of interest.

48:45

If I turn my phone sideways,

48:47

I have the within the app, I have

48:49

the live heart rate reading. And

48:52

I watch it and it goes from 80, 82, or

48:54

and goes down at 75, 70. And I'm, I'm

48:56

literally playing things

48:58

that are 150 bpm. I'm playing hugely heavy,

49:03

massive things. I'm screaming internally,

49:05

because my kids are asleep, I'm not singing the vocals. And

49:08

my heart rate is 62. And I'm like,

49:10

this is proof this music has an effect

49:12

on me, because I'm so familiar with

49:15

it. And because I crave it, that

49:17

it genuinely calms me down

49:19

and makes me happy

49:21

and relaxed and the things that

49:23

people in this would go, you cannot feel relaxed.

49:26

I'm like, no, I

49:27

really do. Are you not saying

49:30

though, there that fan of

49:32

thing enjoys the thing though?

49:34

I think that you're right. And like, it was a

49:37

people who enjoy music, enjoy

49:39

music, right? I mean, there's a little Yeah, yeah,

49:41

yeah. like topology going on. And

49:43

I wrote up an article for a popular outlet.

49:47

And it allowed comments and some people

49:49

said, Oh, my gosh, you know, this is really, you

49:52

know, just stunning shows, you know, the stunning

49:54

force of science showing that people who enjoy

49:56

a particular type of music enjoy it.

49:59

And that, okay, fair

50:02

point. But the thing is that what they weren't

50:04

saying is that it's a lot of censorship. But

50:07

I think that what we then have to understand

50:10

is the fact that when people look at, say,

50:12

mosh pits and they see people running

50:14

around and flailing their arms

50:16

and they, there's a lot of sort

50:19

of signaling, emotional signaling

50:21

that you could be forgiven for

50:24

thinking that there was something really

50:26

wrong because you're

50:28

not part of that culture. And we

50:30

talk about cross-cultural psychology

50:32

or anthropology and think, well, we have to think

50:35

about within Western society,

50:37

there are many different kind of subcultures.

50:39

There's many different sort of traditions

50:42

going on. And a lot of them

50:44

we don't understand unless you're inside

50:46

them. And

50:47

when you do analyses of

50:50

any kind of edgy music,

50:53

you are gonna find some subset

50:55

of the people who do have problems

50:57

of depression and so forth.

50:59

And in some cases, they're actually,

51:02

that music is helping them.

51:03

And I mean, I just wanna relay

51:05

one story. I was speaking at

51:08

a university of British Columbia

51:11

a couple of years ago and talking about

51:13

it. And a woman was there and she said that she had actually

51:16

suffered some kind of stroke in her 20s that

51:19

left her basically lying in

51:21

a hospital bed for a year. And

51:23

people tried to play music to her. And

51:26

she said, they finally figured out

51:28

that death metal was the only music

51:30

that could get through to her and

51:32

energize her enough to

51:34

the point where she said that that was

51:37

the stimulus for her recovery. That because

51:39

she said that was the only music that could reach her,

51:41

all the other music was sort of like,

51:43

like nothing, like throwing lukewarm, like

51:46

a piece of lettuce or something on her. Whereas death

51:48

metal actually got through. There you

51:50

go, Neil, there you go. Again,

51:52

it's all the anecdotal stuff. But I mean, I do feel

51:54

like metal is a natural,

51:58

maybe not anger management tool.

51:59

but an emotional emotions

52:02

processing fuel. Yeah, it's a valve

52:04

that, you know, like I'm not a violent

52:07

man. I am. I have had one fistfight

52:09

in my life and it lasted four seconds when I go ahead,

52:11

put it in me and I ran home to my house. Um, I

52:14

am very calm, very peaceful.

52:16

I just like getting along with everybody, but I

52:18

will listen to music that, as I said,

52:21

from an imagery point of view, lyrically,

52:23

you know, it will shock everybody

52:25

who listens to the lyric and can make out the lyric or maybe

52:28

read the lyrics. And then musically, most

52:30

of the people in the world will go, this is just, as

52:32

you said, Bill, a cacophony of noise.

52:34

I can't understand it, but, but it,

52:37

it, it just, it, there's something happening

52:40

psychologically in my brain and the brains

52:42

of metal fans that is,

52:44

that is allowing the maybe,

52:47

you know, pent up emotions to process

52:49

through this thing. And I suppose it

52:51

may be in the same way that you go through a bad breakup,

52:54

you listen to sad songs, you know, why

52:57

would you do that? It seems paradoxical, but you

52:59

would do it because it's helping you process your

53:01

own emotions. I think it's both, yeah,

53:03

the processing of your own emotions, but it's also,

53:06

you

53:06

know, that, that for me, music

53:09

is, is like an entry point or

53:11

a window into a kind of another space,

53:14

another world, and another

53:16

way of, of, of, of being. And

53:18

it reminds you of your sense of identity,

53:21

you know, of, of who you are. It's sort

53:23

of a comfort

53:24

because it's familiar to you and

53:26

it helps to define you. So can I

53:29

ask what your next, um, a

53:31

study is going to be about? And if

53:33

you don't have one lined up, could I suggest

53:36

that we slowly remove

53:39

death metal from Dave and

53:41

see how mentally he goes?

53:46

Yeah, I think, I think we need to do it. It

53:48

sounds like, you know, you've got a, you know, a serious

53:51

problem with slipknot and, and,

53:53

and, you know, there needs to be an intervention. Well,

53:56

I'll finish on a very quick anecdote again,

53:58

which is about my twin daughters who

53:59

now eight years old and they are as typical

54:02

girls as you can imagine. It's unicorns

54:05

and YouTubers and all the things

54:07

you would expect eight year olds to love, however,

54:10

they were brought up being exposed

54:12

to heavy metal or whatever. And

54:15

you know, as they were infants and whatever, and

54:17

I would listen to it, obviously at a lower volume or whatever,

54:19

but they would be in the room and they'd be sleeping, I'd be feeding

54:21

them doing the late night feed and I'd have slip on

54:23

or dark angel or whatever it would be. And

54:27

now when my eight year

54:29

old, one of my girls who has a little

54:31

bit more trouble sleeping than the other one, she will

54:33

often come downstairs and say to me, daddy, you

54:36

used to be, will you put on the loud music? Now

54:38

she knows what to call it. Like will you, will you put on

54:40

whatever? And the sitting room where I'm currently

54:42

sitting where the TV and my guitar amp is,

54:45

I will put on heavy metal. She sleeps directly above

54:47

and she will conk out

54:49

in like minutes. She will be asleep

54:51

because she can feel the familiarity

54:54

of this heavy vibratory,

54:57

you know, extreme music that she associates

54:59

obviously with having a good sleep when

55:01

she was an infant or whatever. So she'll just

55:03

go on. So it's even affecting eight year old

55:06

unicorn lovers. I think that's unbelievable.

55:08

That it like to think that death metal

55:11

is now like the new lullaby.

55:13

There you go. It is pretty

55:16

extraordinary. Professor Bill Thompson,

55:18

thank you so much for talking to us today, especially

55:21

the fact that, as I said, I know you had to get up very early

55:23

in the morning to do this. We're really grateful and

55:25

thank you for this insight. And as you said,

55:27

showing the world that death metal has a lot

55:29

more to offer than just a big pile of noise. Thank

55:31

you. That's great to meet you about. Thanks,

55:34

Bill. Cheers.

55:47

Right. Welcome back to, or should I say, welcome

55:49

back to.

55:54

I'm not a metal vocalist. That was absolutely

55:57

fascinating. I have to say there's a couple of things I thought

55:59

were really interesting. First of all, I

56:01

love the idea now of metal fans, the

56:04

opposite of Keith Moon, just metal bands,

56:06

collecting bits of televisions, putting

56:09

them back together, standing each

56:11

of the shoulders and putting them back into holiday

56:13

ends and all the rest. Because they seem really

56:16

nice people. And

56:18

I thought that what is the measure of whether

56:21

you're enjoying something or not? I thought it would

56:23

be a cortisol thing. I actually thought

56:25

it would be a stress hormone thing or a blood drawers

56:28

to test that sort of stuff. The binocular

56:30

stuff is amazing, but I

56:32

still think the finest part, apart from the

56:34

idea of death metal

56:36

not being as bad, I'm saying, in a vertical

56:39

as people think, the idea that you would measure

56:41

how positive you frame

56:43

a mind you're in by how much suffering

56:45

that you are willing to place upon

56:47

somebody else using hot sauce

56:49

is my favorite scientific factor. It's

56:54

fantastic. It is brilliant

56:56

and fairness. And like, I love the fact that this is how

56:58

Bill, a metal fan,

57:00

approaches his scientific research to try

57:02

and find this kind of information and study

57:05

these kinds of things. And look, I know my stuff is

57:07

anecdotal, but genuinely, like,

57:09

I have been to so many shows,

57:12

I have been to so many different, I

57:14

love a lot of music, I work professionally

57:16

in an industry where I'm required

57:19

gigs, and I go to everything from the

57:21

cheesiest pop stuff,

57:23

you know, through to classical music to opera,

57:25

right down to every kind of rocket popping

57:28

thing. And

57:29

genuinely, the nicest crowds, the

57:31

most friendly environments, the most,

57:34

for me, obviously, big sense of community,

57:36

like, it is always, always

57:39

metal. And I've gone to

57:40

all over the world. It's not an Irish thing. It's

57:43

not an American thing. It's not a UK thing. I was only

57:45

in Germany in the summertime to see Metallica

57:47

in Hamburg.

57:48

And I'd never been to Germany to

57:51

see a Metal gig. Everybody at

57:53

the show was the same. Like, yeah,

57:55

but let's, let's not overregga too much. If Metallica

57:58

had looked out from Hamburg and we went,

58:00

that's the boy who collapsed in the Port Marnock

58:03

gig years, years ago. I

58:05

mean, that would be like, wow, okay. These boys

58:08

are much softer than we thought they were. Okay, okay. That's fair.

58:10

No, I like the way you say it's anecdotal, but

58:12

I always think that

58:14

how does a scientist get an idea,

58:16

maybe not necessarily

58:19

in the kind of certain sciences, but

58:21

in the kind of social sciences and the behavioral

58:24

sciences, how do they get an idea for a piece

58:26

of research? It's because of anecdote

58:28

or something they have noticed themselves. And then they

58:30

set up an experiment to prove it. I

58:32

would imagine the people who do an experiment

58:35

are like you and they think loads of people

58:37

I know in metal

58:38

are very nice and I don't get annoyed

58:40

when I listen to metal. Maybe I'll figure out an

58:42

experiment to figure it out. And that's what's been done.

58:45

And I think given the fact that he's mentioned

58:47

cannibal corpse a number of times, Bill, in

58:49

the thing, I think we should have a quick blast of

58:52

a little bit of cannibal corpse just to expose you.

58:54

And then you'll just a little bit. See, see

58:56

how you feel after this.

59:01

See, you're so great. All

59:03

the doors. Yeah.

59:06

Love, love. And

59:09

I have done

59:09

that. What do you think of that? Is that something

59:11

you can imagine yourself, you know, chilling out to on a

59:14

Sunday morning with papers and orange juice?

59:16

Yeah. I mean, I would wonder,

59:18

is it the corpse of a

59:20

cannibal? Or

59:23

is it a cannibal about

59:26

to eat a corpse? I mean,

59:28

that would be my first question. No, I

59:30

mean, I'd like to know the specifics.

59:34

Yes. The super K the nominal

59:36

chatur. I can't even say the word of what's

59:39

going on first. And then I could listen

59:41

to the views. Well, if I could invite everybody

59:44

to listen to a bit of cannibal corpse while

59:47

reading the lyrics and then say,

59:49

Oh, Dave thinks this relaxes it, you know, look,

59:52

I get it. It's extreme. It's a hot

59:54

sauce thing. I'm still back on this. I

59:56

mean, who, who is like, like,

59:59

did they reject?

59:59

stuff was there. Okay, now we're going to see how

1:00:02

positive you feel about

1:00:04

the music by you get to decide how

1:00:06

much broken glass that you're going to put in the apple

1:00:08

tart if you're going to eat. Oh no, we're not allowed to do that. What

1:00:11

about hot sauce? Oh, hot sauce. Okay, that's

1:00:13

fine. Hot sauce, we can do that. That was a fascinating

1:00:15

episode. That really opened my eyes. Thank you very much, David.

1:00:18

No worries. And exposing anybody I can

1:00:20

to metal and death metal in particular makes

1:00:22

me a very happy, I'm happy. I'm just a happy

1:00:24

guy. What have you got for us next week, Neil?

1:00:27

Well, next week, you're going to like this because I

1:00:29

have.

1:00:32

Oh my

1:00:33

God, can't wait for that. Thank you,

1:00:35

Neil Denimer. This is Why Would You Tell Me That. Go

1:00:37

back and listen to all of the episodes. There's

1:00:39

so many of you to go back and enjoy if this is the first

1:00:42

you're listening to. And you can follow us as well.

1:00:44

We are on Instagram. We are at Why Would You Tell

1:00:46

Me That. He's at Neil Denimer Comedy. I am at DaveZilla.fm.

1:00:49

And thank you very much for listening.

1:00:50

Bye everybody. I

1:00:53

am a cannibal corpse.

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