lady gaga, the heavy metal lover

When you hear of a “metal” or “rock” blog, just like mine, you probably don’t expect to see Lady Gaga’s name in one of the posts. After all, Gaga is known for her hugely successful pop music career, and most of her songs sound nothing like the heavier music that is featured on blogs or sites like this. Having said that, I find her extremely talented but more interestingly, I’ve come across a lot of interviews and pictures of hers that suggest that she actually is a genuine fan of heavy metal and hard rock. I want to highlight her love and open-mindedness for heavy metal for two reasons; 1) Lady Gaga, one of the biggest performing artists of the last 10 years, prefers to be known “as the next Iron Maiden” as opposed to “the next Madonna” and that speaks volumes about the kind of respect she has for metal and its fans, and 2) people who have a ridiculous negative bias against metal but accept pop music as “fine” need to see that even their biggest pop idols appreciate it and they should keep an open mind too.

I remember hearing “Poker Face” when it was getting super popular. Must have been around the time the album came out. It was hard to avoid it because it was playing everywhere. And it was so catchy! But for the longest time I didn’t know who sang it. When the song became so popular that it was featured on practically every TV show, then I had to do some research and find out.

The name was Lady Gaga. A stage name, obviously, but it was hard to forget. And it sounded strange to some; but I noticed something that, from the beginning, signaled she and I may have something in common: being fans of the rock band Queen. The word gaga officially means “overexcited or irrational”, like “driving someone gaga” but honestly, that was nowhere near what popped into my head. It was the Queen song “Radio Gaga”; a Roger Taylor penned tune released as one of the singles from “The Works” album in 1984. Now, as far as I’m concerned, Queen is the best rock band that ever existed. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs since I was 10. So you can imagine how intrigued I got when I heard the name Lady Gaga. I wanted to know if this was indeed a reference to the Queen song or if there was a completely different reason to this stage name.

Turns out this stage name, as is well known by this point, is indeed influenced by the popular Queen song. Rob Fusari, the producer/songwriter who worked on Gaga’s first couple of albums, noted that it first started as a joke. During the early stages of her career, before she had released any material, Lady Gaga (then going by her real name, Stefani) played a song in the studio that, according to Fusari, was “like this super-Beatles/Queen theatrical ballad”, and he said to her “God, you’re so Gaga” and the name kind of stuck as it became a running joke. Fusari would start singing the Queen song every day when Stefani walked into the studio. The “Lady” part of the name came a little later. Fusari notes that it happened because of a text glitch when he typed “Radio Gaga” (most likely as part of this running joke they had between them) and autocorrect changed the word “Radio” to “Lady”. The timing of this incident could not have been more perfect because Stefani Germanotta was searching for a stage name. It sounded exactly like what she was looking for. She texted back “That’s it.” Fusari says after that day, she was Lady Gaga.

I personally didn’t pay too much attention to Lady Gaga’s music at first. Of course I knew “Poker Face” and I knew that she was a genuine Queen fan; but those were not enough to generate an interest to actively follow her career. Then I came across a YouTube video. I don’t remember when I saw it for the first time; it must have been late 2009 or early 2010. The clip was posted on a heavy metal forum I frequently visited. I took notice because I knew those forums really well and I knew how unusual it was to see a topic about a pop artist. The topic creator highly praised the video he posted, and urged fellow metal-heads to keep an open mind. It showed Lady Gaga performing an acoustic version of her hit song “Paparazzi” at a radio show. She was playing the keyboards and singing the song. There was nobody else singing or playing. There was no playback. It was just her bare voice and her playing. I will be honest, I was absolutely shocked. This version of the song sounded incredibly amazing to me. I loved the fact that the video highlighted her voice – much more so than the original version – and put it at the center of the performance. Not many pop artists can pull off this kind of thing. But there she was; giving the listeners another taste of her talent and how much more she was capable of doing than what appeared on her album.

Now I was interested in discovering more about her and her music. At the first chance I got, I bought “The Fame” and a little later “The Fame Monster”. For full disclosure I must admit that the style explored in these albums is not really my cup of tea so I can’t say that I was blown away by the music. However, I did get a much better sense of why Gaga was so different than other pop singers and I have been following her new releases ever since. First of all, Gaga wasn’t just a singer, she was a composer, an instrument player, an arranger and a producer. She did collaborate with other people on most of these things, most notably with Rob Fusari, but she definitely was a major part of the creative force that generated these songs. I don’t think that’s common in the pop music world and right off the bat I had a lot of respect for Gaga for that. The second thing you noticed was the diversity in the songs. I think both “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster” have a lot of elements of electronic music; but there were also songs that highlighted acoustic instruments or saw Gaga singing in a different style. Of course she’s now super popular and is able to take more musical risks, so she’s explored a lot more new genres and ideas since then. But even before all that, even with her first two records, there definitely were hints of what was to come.

Lady Gaga’s musical style has been covered a million times so I won’t go into more detail on that. What is much less publicized is the fact that she knows her shit when it comes to rock & metal and she is a genuine fan. A lot of pop stars cite Queen or some other rock band as an influence; and to be fair, perhaps those bands are influences to them in a certain way, but it’s really difficult to see it, either in their musical styles or in the creative choices they make. Gaga, on the other hand, means business and it’s becoming more apparent as she gets more vocal about her love of heavy metal.

The first action I saw from her that showed she meant what she said when she cited Queen as one of her favorites, was getting Brian May to play guitar on one of her tracks called “Yoü and I” from her album “Born This Way”. The collaboration didn’t stop there. The pair also performed the song together at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards as Gaga, or in this particular case her alter-ego Jo Calderone, was showing her influences beyond the pop music spectrum to the whole world by playing with a rock guitarist. After this performance there would be rumors flying around that Gaga would front Queen on a tour. Brian May even confirmed that Gaga’s name was talked about when they were discussing singers for an upcoming tour. That never happened (Adam Lambert eventually became the singer), but the fact that her name was considered by Queen was a big deal in and of itself.

It’s great that she’s a genuine fan of Queen; but Queen was so unique and covered such a wide array of genres that it’s hard to conclude that somebody might be a fan other hard rock or heavy metal bands. So imagine my surprise when I read that Lady Gaga was not only a fan of Iron Maiden; but she actually volunteered to be a roadie for their Tampa, Florida show in 2011. According to some sources who were there, she did this for no pay and she actually did do roadie work and didn’t use her pop star status to try to get backstage access. Even back in 2011 there were signs that she loved Iron Maiden and this kind of appreciation, dedication, and love for Iron Maiden was unheard of from a pop singer. Needless to say, I was super impressed. The metal sites started to talk about Gaga more now. There were pictures of her with Bruce Dickinson and Nicko McBrain after the Tampa show. The prize after a full day of roadie work? Hanging out with her favorite metal band!

Since then, Lady Gaga hung out with rock legends like Alice Cooper and Rob Halford, invited Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and his daughter backstage and got a picture with them, declared her love for New-Wave-of-Brisith-Heavy-Metal legends Saxon and had her picture taken with the band’s frontman Biff Byford, declared her favorite metal song as “Black Sabbath” from Black Sabbath and had her picture taken with Ozzy Osbourne, and was photographed many times wearing a metal band’s t-shirt. But for me and for a lot of other heavy metal fans, the boldest declaration from her came when, in August of 2015, she said that she was “the next Iron Maiden”. This may sound like not that big of a deal; but when you consider the fact that she is  a major pop star and Iron Maiden probably is not that well known by most of her fans, it is a big deal! Unlike some other pop artists who occasionally wear a metal band’s t-shirt only to look cool, she actually has a passion for the genre. There is no question about it, she is a genuine fan of metal – especially Iron Maiden!

 

Why did I list all of these connections and all these quotes? It is not to suggest that hard rock or heavy metal is the “best” genre, nor is it any kind of statement that claims one’s artistic worth is determined by one’s love for metal. No, that’s not where I am going with this. I want to highlight a mega pop-star’s love for heavy metal because that’s not what you usually read about her, but it’s worth noting. A lot of people assume that metal cannot be mainstream; yet mainstream artists are big fans of it. I’m sure she’s not the only one either – she’s most likely just the most vocal. After all, saying you’d like to be known as the “next Iron Maiden” is not exactly the kind of thing that’d make you a “sweetheart” in the hearts of teenagers and parents alike. But this is Lady Gaga. She’s never really cared about being that “sweetheart” anyway; she never fit into a certain pop star image from the beginning. That has likely made it easier for her to be more vocal about all of her musical influences, compared to some other mainstream pop artists. But above all else, I think the real reason she is so different than other pop artists is because she gets the passion that metal listeners have towards the bands of which they are fans – because she, too, is a fan!

Lady Gaga has been busy with her acting lately – but I have read recently that she has started working on her new album. She’ll likely have some guests and I know Elton John has confirmed that he will contribute in some capacity to the album. I like it when she takes risks and tries new things. The album she did with Tony Bennett (Cheek to Cheek) is simply amazing and shines yet another light on how diverse her singing style is. Who knows what else she’ll do in the future? My wish? It’s the same as Alice Cooper’s: “Now, if I was her, I would make a really hard rock record right now.”

Sources and Additional Reading:

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/lady-gaga-im-the-next-iron-maiden/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/lady-gaga-turns-roadie-for-iron-123811
http://gagadaily.com/story/news/lady-gaga-alice-cooper/
http://www.guitarworld.com/video-queen-guitarist-brian-may-performs-lady-gaga-mtv-video-music-awards
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/alice-cooper-explains-his-admiration-for-lady-gaga/
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2010/01/lady_gaga_her_outrageous_perso.html
http://www.contactmusic.com/lady-gaga
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6851032/elton-john-lady-gaga-new-music