The First Heavy Metal Song Ever Made (Bitter Creek - Plastic Thunder, 1967)

If you're thinking the Beatles' Helter Skelter came first you're wrong! And In A Gadda Da Vida may be a great tune but it isn't the FIRST heavy metal song.

Actually it's kind of hard to tell because of style differences and the existence of "proto-metal" and possible inaccuracies in when songs were recorded/released lead people to different conclusions. I have my money on Bitter Creek's Plastic Thunder (1967).

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[fickifickmaster]

this song rocks and whoever posted it should be praised. Where on earth can I buy this recording and how did you find it OR is this a ruse made by someone trying to find a band more obscure than Blue Cheer for the invention of heavy psych rock, come clean!

[Styxhexenhammer666]

@fickifickmaster I got it off a compilation called "Psychedelic States in the 60s" for Georgia. There must be a B Side recording but I have never acquired it.

[goldeneggg5]

I think I heard this was vermont's first heavy metal band.

[Styxhexenhammer666]

@goldeneggg5 Bitter Creek, as far as I know, was from the south.

[TIMOTHYSAARINEN]

@stashproductions, I agree with you! Black Sabbath were the first. Number One! 

[suitcase4343]

Black Sabbath was the first heavy metal band. Period.

[CleanAirMeister]

@TheSentientParadox I don't doubt your word. If you were in the music business, you probably did hear that. I am just saying that it was not so much widely-used at first. By the way, Born To Be Wild - I meant to say "Heavy Metal Thunder" as being his loud 'thundering' exhaust pipes on his bike.

[TheSentientParadox]

@NotMe2776 And I would agree with the band's feelings about this, but it isn't the bands that decide. It's the fans. And fans did indeed start calling Zeppelin and Deep Purple Heavy Metal, in the Seventies. Almost everyone I knew did by the time I graduated from high school, in 1978. In the Eighties, the definition became quite a bit more refined and specific. By then, DP was losing it's acceptance as metal, at least by many fans. Not all though.

[TheSentientParadox]

@CleanAirMeister Well, from my perspective, which included quite a lot of musicians, it was what I would consider widely used long before the Eighties. In fact, I distinctly remember discussing with quite a lot of musicians and fellow fans how the term Metal was becoming redefined during the Eighties. That may not have been happening in your circles at the time, but it sure was in mine. Also, look up Todd Rundgren's Heavy Metal Kids. You may be surprised. That was from 1972.

[NotMe2776]

@TheSentientParadox I completely agree with you on this. There is a strong attraction for peoples own personal reasons to re-write music history afterwards and turn it into something it never was or never did. Just look at what's going on with Michael Jackson...its only a matter of time before he sold 3 billion records, always looked the way he did and his 'Moonwalk' step was a secret method for walking on water. It's fans being fans and 'fixing' it afterwards.

[abhikoolblue]

1:33 ..sounds like purple haze by jimi hendrix ..which was also released in 1967 ...nd heavy too..

[fickifickmaster]

@Styxhexenhammer666 thanks! I'll try to seek out the compilation and if I find the single I'll let you know!

[CleanAirMeister]

@TheSentientParadox

I don't doubt that the term was not ever used at all in the 1970s by A FEW people. It was just not common parlance, though. "Hard Rock" was the term used for Sabbath, etc, back then. As for "Heavy Metal" I did not hear it in WIDE USAGE until the 80s (that's my own perception of it)

[TheSentientParadox]

Psychedelic. Not Metal IMHO. Sorry I'm not buying your revision of rock history. Though many bands that did play psychedelic later played metal, the two styles are distinctly different. This, IMO, is Psychedelic, not Metal.