Being a Fan of Metal and Being Neurodiverse 

Being a Fan of Metal and Being Neurodiverse 
By Dark Juan

It may come as a surprise to you, although it is more likely that it probably isn’t, that Dark Juan is slightly left of normal. In fact, I am neurodiverse (I do not wish, however, to ascribe a label to what my peculiar experience is beyond this, because that is no business but my own) and this leads to some difficulties, especially as I am a fan of Metal, which is famously noisy and sweaty. I wish to share with you some of my experiences of why shitty brain chemistry can make things challenging.

I’ll tackle the big tamale first – gigs. I simply don’t experience them the same way a neurotypical person does. There is too much that is beyond my control – I don’t like being touched by strangers anyway, and especially not bouncy, sweaty ones who are having the time of their lives, to whom Dark Juan does not want to be a downer for. The same goes for pits – that’s a massive no-no for me. The music is too loud, and it overwhelms my senses, and this causes some distress, as does being confined in an area where there is not much room for manoeuvre. I can’t hear conversation properly when overstimulated, and everything just becomes a torrential wave of white noise in which nothing can be discerned with any clarity. This probably makes me a really shit night out. There’s the temperature too – it gets too hot, and panic starts to set in because I simply can’t cope with many things happening to and around me all at once. You might be surprised to learn that I enjoy a quiet and retired life. 

Then there are interpersonal relationships – there are few people I can tolerate for any length of time. I’m fortunate that Mrs Dark Juan is one person who is tolerable, considering I have lived with her for a very long time. Ever-Metal.com’s own Rob Sutton can attest to how fucking useless Dark Juan is at introducing himself and making friends, when I basically cornered him at The Blind Pig in Sowerby Bridge when Thrashatouille played there. I have few people skills and absolutely no ability at small talk. This can be very isolating for the neurodiverse person because they can’t find anything to fucking talk about when meeting people. I mean, neurotypical people can talk nonsense about pretty much nothing for hours. My conversation NEEDS a subject to address. I am incapable of chatting about banalities. If you want a one-way conversation about the 24-cylinder Bristol Centaurus aero engine, though, I am YOUR MAN.

Add to this a natural shyness and a reticence to impinge myself on someone who might not actually give two fucks if they have met me or not, and you have a recipe for marginalization which is, to an extent, self-inflicted. I, as a neurodiverse person, would LOVE to be able to talk about football, or sport in general, or the weather, or get the latest tea on whoever is the unfortunate du jour, but I just can’t do it.

However, I do occasionally venture into the world of live music because I am not going to let my brain make me a fucking prisoner in my own home. To do this, I have to be very drunk and find myself distracted by inconsequential things at gigs rather than listening to the music and enjoying the performances of the bands – I get mesmerized by lights, or a very loud voice cutting through the rest of the omnipresent background noise, or just being fixated on the fingering of the guitarist to the detriment of everything else. I don’t experience anything the way a neurotypical person does.

Let me briefly touch on overstimulation in a bit more detail – I am friends with many, many people in the British and Welsh Metal scenes on Facebook and Instagram. This does not mean I will recognize you in real life if we fetch up at the same gig. In fact, the more faces there are, then the more blank and unrecognizable they become, until they are almost bereft of features whatsoever. It is the same with noise – too much noise becomes a long and disturbing load of grating sound that is not enjoyable in the slightest. I listen to music through headphones at home, at a comfortable volume, where my home is at a comfortable temperature and because I am undisturbed. As this isolates me from everything else it enables me to fully appreciate it. I can’t do that at a gig. Like I say, in order to navigate through a social engagement like a gig, I am very drunk before I even leave the house or hammer the first few beers to get over the shock of it.

So, I’m not a person who enjoys being in a large group of others. I am a friendly person and would love to shoot the shit with you. It’s just that there are many barriers to it, and it is not a pleasant experience for me in the same way as it is for the neurotypical person. Noise sends me a bit mental, and I have to have long periods of time away from gigs in order to cope with them. I’ll never stop going to them because, dammit, there are bands I WANT to see live, but it has to be on my own terms in order for me to successfully cope with it.

This ties in with the larger narrative about how bands are struggling to make ends meet, and the fans of live music (and the bands too, sometimes) exhorting people to attend their shows on the use it or lose it principle. They are of course correct, and we should be all supporting live music and especially the underground, but I am not going to sacrifice my own wellbeing for anyone by going to a shedload of gigs and turning myself into an overstimulated, dribbling mess who is no use to anyone, hence you all get to enjoy my ridiculous babbling about records, instead. I give as much as I can within my limitations. This is also why I rarely do interviews with musicians.

I do my bit for the music with my writing, because I desperately want bands to make successes of their careers and the British Metal scene in particular is the most vibrant and exciting it has been in years at the moment, and hope that this piece helps you all understand that I simply cannot get to many gigs. I haven’t even gone into my pitiful level of disposable income, and that is not relevant here, but, put simply, most gigs are not pleasant experiences in general for me. I can enjoy them, but it has to be on my terms and my own mental timeline.

Thank you for reading this. It is not an excuse. It is an explanation, and personal to me. Other neurodiverse people might get a fucking massive kick out of gigs.

The point is, we are all different. Embrace that difference rather than adopting a policy of screaming that people aren’t proper Metal fans if they don’t go to gigs. That’s bullshit. My knowledge of Metal is encyclopaedic, as it should be, after being a fan for nearly FORTY years, and Metal runs through my veins just as much as it does as the guy or gal who attends five or six gigs a week.

Disclaimer: This article is solely the property of Dark Juan. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this article, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.