Right through the ages, the world has been dominated by men. Men went to war, men passed and enforced the laws, men voted and for quite some centuries only men could work. Even when women were allowed to or attained the right to hold certain positions, these jobs were strictly limited due to various factors which saw them as “unsuitable”. And so it has been in the music world for a long time, remaining so even today. While there are female rock artistes, and bands fronted by or having ladies in their number, and while pop music tends to be the genre most amenable to allowing women to break through and establish themselves, Heavy Metal, long a holdout of the male, cavemanlike mentality, remains in general an arena dominated by men.
But there are of course many female contributions to this genre, and here I'll be taking a brief look at them; nothing too in-depth, but just enough to show that though this is still a genre very heavily weighted on the side of the male, the women are beginning to make their mark. I could of course have called this “A look at women in Heavy Metal”, or “The Fairer Sex: can they also be Heavy?” or even “Not just pretty faces”. But instead I'm going to go for the much snappier, sexist and possibly even mildly offensive (it is Metal Month, after all!)
There can't be a metalhead worth his or her salt who doesn't know of Iron Maiden, and of course if you know them then you know bassist and founder Steve Harris. But did you know that Steve has a daughter who is also in the Heavy Metal music business? You did? Well I'm going to tell you about her anyway.
Lauren Harris
Obviously, being the daughter of such a metal icon is going to give your career one hell of a boost, and Lauren has toured with her dad's band, supporting them on the
Somewhere back in time tour and the
A Matter of Life and Death tour, and has studied under Ross Ballard and David Grant. She has only released the one album to date, and typically dad plays bass on it, but has since formed a new band and a solo project, neither of which I can find any recorded material for. Which leaves us with just this to check out, her to date only full album.
Calm Before The Storm --- Lauren Harris --- 2008 (Demolition DR2 Records)
I have to be upfront and honest here: I think this may turn out to be a lot less metal than I had originally expected, or hoped. As she kicks off her new band, Six Hour Sundown, she mentions in an interview that the last record (this one) was more “pop-oriented”, which does not bode well. Also, look at her stated influences while growing up: Belinda Carlisle, Shakespeare's Sister, Alanis Morisette, Heart, Foo Fighters ... not exactly Motorhead, Metallica or Maiden, now is it? Still, you wouldn't expect her to just clone her father's music, and maybe listening to all that heavy metal drove her in another direction. If so, and the album turns out not to be what I had thought, then I apologise in advance. Still, she is Harris's daugher, and how could I not at least give her a chance here?
So, “Woe to you, O Earth and Sea ....”? Perhaps not.
Okay, well there's a very satisfying hard guitar and a driving beat to open “Steal your fire”, and it's got some real mean rock hooks about it, certainly. I can see the early Heart influence here and another of her heroes, Def Leppard, show their, er, spots in the more melodic chorus, but it's reasonably heavy. Dad's signature bass is evident all through of course, and Judas Priest's Richie Faulkner takes guitar duties, and does as you would expect from such a seasoned axeman. As for Lauren, well her voice is strong but at least on this track it doesn't immediately grab me as I would have expected it to. Nice keyboard arpeggios there from Tommy McWilliams, leading in the buildup to the end, then straightaway “Your turn” gives me a very Meat Loaf feel, a slightly rawer, dirtier edge to the guitar, but you can hear the pop influence on “Get over it”, which is kind of like a rocked-up Debbie Gibson or maybe if Miley Cyrus went metal! Great guitar work from Faulkner sure, and it keeps heavy enough to qualify, however I wonder if this is as heavy as we can expect the album to get? The vocal harmonies really bring the pop, although in fairness her voice is a lot better here. Perhaps she's better suited to singing this kind of music?
“Like it or not” has a sharper edge to it, though that riff seems like it's robbed from somewhere. Good vocal here too and a great solo from Richie, whiel the first real ballad (you knew there would be ballads, didn't you?) comes in the form of “From the bottom to the top”, and is pretty good in fairness. She really sings her heart out on this, and she hasn't gone for a slow, piano or acoustic-guitar-led song; rather it's more a kind of power ballad but without the cheese. Yeah, pretty damn fine really, possibly the best track on the album so far. Very Guns'n'Roses guitar solo from Faulkner, and he does himself proud on “Let us be”, which has another driving rhythm pulling it along and some fine keyboards too.
Nice acoustic opening to “Hurry up”, which seems to be the second ballad, with a very Country feel to it and more of the Heart influence. Another great track, though I've still to really hear the band totally rock out in a way that could be described as metal ... hold on though, this could be promising. Yeah, “Come on over” kicks it up several notches, with some good old seventies hard rock thrown in. Good stuff. “Hit or miss” keeps up the pressure, though it's sliding a little more into AOR territory here; good riffs keep things from getting too commercial, while “See through” goes more in that direction with some very catchy hooks and a chorus that could have come off
Hysteria or
Pyromania. The album ends on “You say”, which again brings in something of a Country influence but has a nice rolling beat and Lauren sings well on it. Definitely has something. But is it metal?
TRACKLISTING AND RATING
1. Steal your fire
2. Your turn
3. Get over it
4. Like it or not
5. From the bottom to the top
6. Let us be
7. Hurry up
8. Come on over
9. Hit or miss
10. See through
11. You say
It certainly wasn't as poppy as I had expected/feared, but at the same time I doubt anyone outside of Iron Maiden's fanbase would be likely to buy this, unless they just happened to stumble across it and found they liked it. Still, a decent effort and she certainly didn't disgrace her famous dad. Wonder what Six Hour Sundown sound like?
Of course, female involvement in male bands isn't restricted to just singing. There are some all-female metal bands, such as Girlschool and, but another area where ladies shine, and which is perhaps not as recognised is on the frets. I guess because you often may not realise it's a woman on the guitar; when a lady sings you can (usually) make out that it's a female voice, and of course most singers are also frontmen or women, so they will be front and centre. As well as that, whether we like it or not, female frontwomen will push their image based on their femininity, either as a “rock chick” like Jill Janus and Alissa White-Gluz, or as a sexy diva, like Maria Brink.
Your average female guitarist tends to get much less press, and yet some of them are excellent and deserve some sort of coverage. So let's look at a few, beginning with this lady.
Liz Buckingham (Electric Wizard)
By and large, you don't often expect to see women in doom metal bands. I know of the few I've experienced, with one exception other than this, it's been male-led and indeed male-exclusive all the way, so it's good to see women breaking into the male stronghold of doom metal. Liz Bucingham has been with British doom favourites Electric Wizard since 2003, appearing for the first time on their fifth album
We Live, released in 2004. I've looked around but without going too far into research I can't see when it happened, but she is now married to frontman and founder Jus Oborn.
Self-taught, she took up guitar at nineteen and believes “I ought to be better!” Have a listen for yourself and judge if that's even possible...
Power metal has its fair share of the fair sex too. What about a Norwegian Naiad?
Ida Haukland (Triosphere)
Personally I don't know this band, but then, what I don't know about metal as a genre could fill several warehouses and still leave a tailback of laden forty-foot articulated lorries blocking the road all the way back to the docks, so, you know, I'm learning as I go. Triosphere come from one of the spiritual homes of power metal, Norway, and Ida plays bass and also sings lead vocals for them. She's also one of the three co-founders of the band, which was formed in 2004. She tells the story of how she “accidentally” learned to play the bass. Having been a keen guitarist since sixteen years old, she and her friends were trying to sneak into a rock show. The age-limit was eighteen and she was under that, and got stopped by two guys. Thinking she would be thrown out, she was delighted to learn that they were a band playing there and needed a bass player. She figured it out and has been playing ever since, making it into Metalholics magazine's “Top 15 Female Hard Rock and Metal Bassists” list for 2014. Her band had their third album,
The Heart of the Matter released last year.
Here she is in action from their debut album
Onwards.
Keeping with power/progressive metal, and returning to vocalists, this is perhaps an unfortunate surname to have, but it hasn't stopped her leading one of Pennsylvania's newest power/prog metal bands through two albums so far.
Sarah Teets (Mindmaze)
Sarah brings an extra string to her bow, the unlikely addition of flute (settle down there at the back! Take this seriously or get out. Oh...) and she can also play the oboe. She's currently attending school (I'm assuming this is college: you Americans call every goddamn educational establishment a school, for us school stops at age 18 and you move onto college if you want, but you don't say you're going to “school”. Anyway...) studying graphic design and apparently also works full time in a bakery... what? No, I am NOT going to make the obvious pun that she must be making a lot of bread, shut up. What's her music like? I haven't heard much so let her describe it herself, as she did in an interview in
Femme Fatale webzine in 2013 (the question was “how would you describe your music?) Her answer...
”This kind of depends on what type of person I’m describing us to. For people who aren’t truly “metalheads” I usually honestly describe us as more of a hard rock band, because we aren’t THAT aggressive and for unfamiliar people, the term metal often suggests something heavier than what we do. For the metal crowd, I often say we’re a mix of classic traditional metal (Iron Maiden, Dio, Savatage), with some modern power metal (Firewind, Gamma Ray, Edguy) and also some old school progressive metal/rock (Queensryche, Fates Warning, Rush). We definitely have a fairly broad sound at times, that’s hard to really narrow down in a description.”
And here's what her band sounds like: