This is a really difficult question for me to answer. It didn't just happen. There were building blocks.
I was exposed to metal at a very early age via my cousins, who were really into groups like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. As a little kid I loved the artwork associated these guys but always found the actual music, young as I was, not nearly as dark or scary or badass as I hoped it would be. When I was in junior high, I was exposed to a different generation of metal by my friends—stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Death, Obituary, Sacred Reich. This music had more of an edge I could get behind but still I didn't actively listen to much of it (though that would come a little later in life for me) because it lacked a certain weirdness I liked in my music. Nevertheless, these thrash and death metal metal bands, like the NWOBHM bands before them, were essential to me loving metal later in life.
Okay, I'll credit one band. It all changed for me in 1991 when I first Godflesh. I was already a fan of Minstry, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, etc. at this point, but Godflesh put a hard metal edge on that shit like no one I had ever heard before. It was a massive wall of sound. Impenetrable. Bleak. Cinematic. I loved it. They became one of my favorite bands and slowly they would influence me to check out more and more metal over the years.
This was the song that really, truly started it all for me:
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