When it comes to the world of metal and hard rock, there’s not a lot of praise to be found for the annual GRAMMY Awards. To be honest though, the die was pretty much cast back in 1989 when Jethro Tull took home the award for the then newly minted ‘Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance’, beating out Metallica, AC/DC, Jane’s Addiction and Iggy Pop.
If that was the first twist of the knife, having the metal and hard rock genre awards airing on a pre-show awards ceremony that is typically only livestreamed is surely the continued sprinkling of salt in the wound. But the general lack of visibility aside, there have also been countless flubs in recent years that have continued to draw a steady stream of ire.
From the technical issues that plagued Metallica‘s pairing with Lady Gaga (Adele got a do-over that year, Metallica and Gaga did not,) the music of Metallica being played during Megadeth‘s GRAMMY win and Tenacious D‘s divisive Grammy win for a Dio cover back in 2015.
And then there’s the various snubs of metal and hard rock musicians via the annual ‘In Memoriam’ segment, which pays tribute to the artists, etc. who passed in the year prior. Among some of those to have been overlooked are: Slayer‘s Jeff Hanneman, Gwar‘s Oderus Urungus, Static-X‘s Wayne Static, ex-Megadeth drummer Nick Menza and more.
Among the most egregious of the perceived slights during this year’s ceremonies was the absence of Pantera/HELLYEAH drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott during this years ‘In Memoriam’ segment. Pantera themselves notched up multiple GRAMMY nominations with their chart topping albums and multi-platinum catalog.
Also absent during this year’s segment this year was any mention of All That Remains guitarist Oli Herbert and We Came As Romans vocalist Kyle Pavone. Halestorm‘s Lzzy Hale, who presented at this year’s ceremonies, later expressed her dismay over the apparent lack of respect for the aforementioned musicians and the heavier genres.
Herbert‘s All That Remains bandmate Phil Labonte recently spoke on that snub during an appearance on the BREWtally Speaking Podcast (hear it below,) as well as giving his take on how the GRAMMYS treat metal in general and Hale taking charge to try to continue to campaign for the genre:
“Well I can’t say that I’m surprised because there’s a lot of really good people in the metal community. Like there’s a lot of really thoughtful, warm, sweet human beings and Lzzy is a great, is the perfect person to lead that charge.
As a heavy rock ambassador, I’d follow her to the ends of the earth. She is, I can’t come up with anyone better than Lzzy Hale.
I’m not surprised that the GRAMMYS did what they did. I mean, not that I have any expectation to ever be nominated for a GRAMMY, but I think Randy did the right thing. Randy from Lamb Of God. He didn’t go, and he auctioned off the thing [Randy auctioned it off for charity.]
Because metal is subversive, you know? Metal is supposed to be for the people that don’t want to fit in. So when people get upset, because the metal community is shunned, to me, I’m like ’screw them’. Why do you care?
They’ve crapped on us forever. I think I said something like that on twitter you know, the GRAMMYS have screwed up every single time since Metallica and Jethro Tull. Why would you expect them to do it right this time?
So as far as I’m concerned I’m not surprised. For the people that did care, I’m sorry that they were kind of bummed out.
Maybe I’m a little cynical, but I mean I don’t expect the GRAMMYS to get anything right, at all. At least when it comes to metal. So no big surprise to me. They just did what they do normally, which is blow it.”
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