Satanic Panic, Heavy Metal, & Shout At The Devil!
“People’s interpretations are weird… If they’re ignorant of it and they don’t understand it, then it’s evil” — Mick Mars
All is silent as he slips into the house. Tiptoeing lightly across the plush carpet, he makes his way upstairs, careful to keep his jacket wrapped tightly around his torso. He does not risk turning on a light, for the yellow glow might seep under the door and into his parents’ bedroom. They would rub their tired eyes and step into the hallway to flip the switch, only to be greeted by their son slinking around in the wee hours of the morning. Then, the onslaught of questions would ensue. No, it was too great a risk. He fumbles around in the dark before, finally, he slips inside his bedroom, the door gently clicking shut behind him as he heaves a sigh of relief. He is safe. He unzips his jacket, careful not to let the hidden contents fall to the floor. His fingers graze the smooth finish of the thin cardboard as he pulls the record out of its hiding spot. Its black matte exterior is almost imperceptible in the dark, save for the glossy symbol on its cover — an inverted star with five sharp points enclosed in a shiny circle. Below it, fat red capital letters scream: SHOUT AT THE DEVIL. He peels back the edge of his quilt that perfectly conceals the space under his bed and carefully slides the record into the blackness, praying his parents would never find it.
As the 80s took hold, blossoming like an electric pink rose, a deadly nightshade was simultaneously blooming in the American Garden. The ugly weed reared its head in quiet suburbs and small-town churches. Horrified whispers had dubbed it Satanic Panic. The rumblings of this belladonna could be felt as far back as the 1969 Manson Murders. It fed on the unspoken air of suspicion that had been lingering since the Salem Witch Trials. Satanic Panic was a case of what might otherwise be called mass hysteria, rooted in conspiracy theories of cults and satanism oozing into Americana. There was an increasingly popular fear that ordinary people could be turned to “The Dark Side,” forced to worship the Devil and partake in cult rituals. Heavy metal music would be one of the many things caught in the Satanic Panic crosshairs. A fear that metal lyrics encouraged the listener to commit acts of violence began to linger in the shadowy corners of many minds. In 1985, this fear was vindicated by one James Vance.
Two days before Christmas, 20-year-old Vance and his friend, 18-year-old Raymond Belknap, spent their night listening to heavy metal and drifting between various highs from the drugs and alcohol they had ingested. The pair eventually decided they needed a change of scenery and headed for a church playground in the dead of night. There, they shot themselves with a 12-gauge shotgun. Belknap did not survive, but miraculously, Vance did. He kept his life but paid the ultimate price, suffering extreme facial disfigurements. When questioned by police as to why he did it, he used his finger to spell “Life sucks.”
The parents of both Belknap and Vance were ravenous for someone on whom to lay the blame. Ultimately, heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest would take the brunt. The families claimed that the band’s album Stained Class contained subliminal messaging that had driven their sons to make the attempts on their lives. They sued the band for $6.2 million in damages, but, luckily for Judas Priest, the case was dismissed.
Vance lived another three years before he passed away in 1988 from complications caused by the painkillers he took to cope with his horrific injuries. It’s speculated that Vance had a hand in his premature death, perhaps downing one too many painkillers on purpose. One can only wonder whether or not Judas Priest’s 1990 album Painkiller, and its titular track, has anything to do with Vance.
In the same year as the Vance incident, Tipper Gore spearheaded a committee known as the Parents Music Resource Center and proposed legislation concerning how albums should be rated. She suggested that albums should have warning labels if they contained any lyrics or imagery pertaining to sex, violence, drugs, and/or the occult. The committee created a list of fifteen songs they deemed inappropriate to serve as a template. Dubbed “The Filthy 15,” the list contained nine metal songs, including Judas Priest’s “Eat Me Alive,” Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” and Mötley Crüe’s “Bastard.”
“Out go the lights / In goes my knife / Pull out his life / Consider that bastard dead.”
“Bastard” is one of the many controversial songs found on Mötley Crüe’s scandalous 1983 album Shout At The Devil. Widely considered to be among the best metal albums of the era, it is undoubtedly the band’s most eminent work. Heavy metal artists love to lean into fantastic imagery of all things wicked and vile in the hopes of appearing dangerous, and Mötley Crüe was no exception. Frenzied Americans, however, were quick to double down on anyone with ties to Satanism and Devil worship.
Although Shout At The Devil was Mötley’s second album, it was the first to be released under their new label, Elektra. Elektra Records had taken a risk signing the notorious band, having had no prior experience with metal acts. Their major artists were The Eagles, Bob Dylan, and Linda Ronstadt. Having no mold to fill and an insatiable desire to stick it to the man, Mötley Crüe played by their own rules, much to the chagrin of Elektra. Their rise to fame was swift, hastened not only by their musical talent but their innate ability to spark controversy and tactical use of Satanic imagery.
The name Shout At The Devil garnered enough backlash on its own, but the album’s cover art would quickly prove to be another sore spot. It was relatively simple, solid matte black with cherry red lettering and, of course, the glossy pentagram gracing its face. The contents inside the album only added fuel to the fire.
The album opens with “In The Beginning,” a menacing, post-apocalyptic monologue that divulges the startling details of a world overrun by evil. Just before the grainy voice fades away, it commands the youths of 1983 to “Be strong and shout at the devil.” Then, the titular track kicks the album into high gear. The song “Shout At The Devil” did precisely what the band had hoped it would, arousing thousands of pounding fists and devil horns into the air as crowds chanted, “Shout! Shout! Shout!”
The evil qualities of Shout At The Devil were further exacerbated by the band’s wickedly glamorous appearance. The four members (Vince Neil, vocals; Nikki Sixx, bass; Tommy Lee, drums; Mick Mars, guitar) were typically swathed in skin-tight black leather, pointy spikes, shoulder pads, and chokers. They towered over audiences in stiletto boots, their height exaggerated by their hair, tall enough to rival that of Marie Antoinette.
Whenever Mötley Crüe faced interrogation over the album’s title, they were careful to mention that it was Shout AT The Devil, not Shout WITH The Devil — although it very well could have been. The album’s original name had, in fact, been Shout With The Devil. Elektra Records, however, had been deeply disturbed by the band’s choice to, in their eyes, uphold an ideal of Satanism. Tom Zutaut, who had signed the band to the label, found it increasingly difficult to get Elektra to promote the record given its title and subject matter. Even this would not encourage the band to budge. “It just looks cool. It’s meaningless symbols and shit. I’m just doing it to piss people off. It’s not like I worship Satan or something,” Sixx had said.
Of each of the band’s members, Sixx was perhaps the most infatuated with all things evil. As both the founder and lyricist of the group, this fascination would inevitably seep into their work. He had wanted the album, and its consequent tour, to explore the concept of evil — an evil that he believed had taken human form in President Ronald Wilson Reagan. That each of Reagan’s names was six letters long only seemed to substantiate Sixx’s claims. “He was the devil I wanted everyone to shout at,” Sixx recalled.
Sixx, however, would undergo a change of heart following a visit from Zutaut. When Zutaut arrived at Sixx’s home, shared with his then-girlfriend Lita Ford, he began to notice bizarre and frightening phenomena. Objects would move without being touched, while photos might come crashing off the walls. The final straw for Zutaut came when a knife allegedly flew off the kitchen table and punctured the ceiling. Zutaut recalled the experience in the band’s 2001 autobiography, The Dirt:
“I looked at Nikki and freaked out, saying ‘There is no more Shout With the Devil. If you keep shouting with the devil, you’re going to get killed.’ I truly believe that Nikki had unknowingly tapped into something evil, something more dangerous than he could control that was on the verge of seriously hurting him. Nikki must have realized the same thing because he decided on his own to change the album title to Shout At the Devil.”
Shout At The Devil was released on September 26, 1983. The record peaked at #17 on the Billboard album chart while simultaneously piquing the outrage of Christian groups that had been offended by the title. Parents globally were infuriated to find the sign of the Devil within their children’s clutch. Later issues of the album saw a noticeable change: the pentagram had disappeared, and in its place now stood the widely recognized image of the four band members.
Most metal artists are not Satanists or cult members. More often than not, they are outcasts making music for other outcasts. Their songs are not fiendish incantations but reflections upon their own experiences of being beaten down and cast off. “It was just being young and rebellious… We were trying to dig underneath the surface and find messages we could spit back out… For me, it was always about unifying a message that lots of people could identify with,” said Sixx.
If one were to take a moment to inspect the contents of Shout At The Devil, one might see that the band was not being so literal in their use of the word “Devil.” The “Devil” they were encouraging listeners to shout at was not Satan himself, but authority. If Mötley Crüe listeners could scrounge up one positive message from the notorious band, it was to live their lives unapologetically and precisely as they pleased. “Shout at whatever is holding you back from what you want to do,” said Sixx.
References:
https://norselandsrock.com/shout-at-the-devil-motley-crue/
https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5e/feature/dnd-satanic-panic
https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2016/11/30/satanic-panic-americas-war-on-heavy-metal-in-the-1980s/
https://39adamstrand.tumblr.com/post/105956512829/on-23-dec-1985-18-year-old-ray-belknap-left-and
