Written by Sometimes, it takes someone you wouldn’t immediately associate with the heavy metal scene to perfectly sum up exactly what makes it one of the most exciting, vibrant and passionate movements in all of music. This week, that someone has been none other than respected Turkish-British author Elif Shafak, writer of such critically acclaimed novels as The Bastard Of Istanbul, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In The Strange World and The Island Of Missing Trees.
In a new interview, Elif reveals that she is in fact a lifelong metalhead, and that metal is often her soundtrack of choice when in serious writing mode.
“I’m a metalhead. I’ve always been a metalhead since since my early youth,” she tells the How I Write podcast. “It never abandoned me. But what has changed over the years is I move towards more subgenres of heavy metal. So, I usually listen to melodic death metal. I love industrial metal, a bit more Gothic, metalcore. I like many Nordic bands, Scandinavian bands, but I’m also very open to discovering many bands from all over the world.”
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When asked exactly what she gets out of listening to metal by bemused host David Perell, Elif gives a lovely response, paying tribute to the metal scene as a whole.
“It’s such an amazing scene – or kingdom, I should say – the heavy metal world, because it’s so dynamic, so creative, always new bands are coming,” she replies. “So when I like a song that speaks to me in that moment, I can listen to that song on repeat maybe 70 or 80 times. It becomes a loop. I don’t jump from one song to the next. I stay with that song and it becomes, like, circles and circles, and that’s how I zoom in and zoom out and then I’m in a different place.
Heavy metal is so honest. It’s so raw
Elif Shafak
“I think heavy metal is so honest. It’s so raw, you know, it’s all about raw emotions,” she continues. “And I love the dialectics, the the contrasts, particularly in melodic death metal. You know, the clean vocals with the contrast [of vocals that are] a bit more guttural, the harshness, the intensity of it. It’s it’s not pretentious; it is what it is.”
Elif isn’t alone in her appreciation of melodic death metal. The subgenre, whose roots are largely credited to British extreme metallers Carcass but whose impact was mostly keenly felt in the Gothenburg scene that gave us At The Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, is one of the most influential movements in metal history, inspiring everyone from Killswitch Engage and Trivium to Bring Me The Horizon.
It’s not just the musicality of metal that Elif is keen to pay tribute to, however; she also stresses that many preconceptions of the metal scene and its inhabitants are way off.
“Actually, I think it’s a myth to believe that people who listen to this kind of music are aggressive souls,” she notes. “Many metalheads are actually very gentle souls, including many metal musicians. I think it’s always been a genre that spoke to me and when I listen to this kind of music, maybe I feel calmer.”
Watch the full interview below.
