Glam rocker Marilyn Manson
Another week, another school shooting, another scapegoat?
Ever since the Columbine school shooting on 20th April 1999, heavy metal music has been at the centre of a raging debate about whether it has driven young people to kill. Is it possible that music can influence a person to take lives? The media certainly seem to think so…
Take the case of Robert Steinhauser, the 19 year old who opened fire on students and teachers at the Johann Gutenberg school in Erfurt, East Germany in 2002. Thirteen students, two teachers and a police officer were killed before Steinhauser committed suicide. Steinhauser had been expelled from the school the year before, but rumours soon began to spread that the killing spree had been triggered by his taste in music.
The German tabloid newspaper Bild ran a story claiming that a song called School Wars by the band Slipknot was to blame. The song allegedly contained lyrics encouraging listeners to take a gun into their school and kill all their teachers. However, the band later released a statement insisting that they had never recorded the song, and that no such song had ever existed. Slipknot have always maintained that their music is a form of escapism, and have never encouraged violence.
It is not the first time that metal has been blamed for school shootings. The news of the aforementioned Columbine school shooting shocked America when two students, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, murdered 13 people before shooting themselves in a bloodbath at the school in Colorado. When it was discovered that the pair listened to bands such as Slipknot and Rammstein, there was an immediate backlash against them.
In response, the German band Rammstein issued a statement saying that they wanted to make it clear that their lyrics were in no way connected to the school shootings in Colorado. They explained that they had children of their own, in whom they instilled non-violent values. Other bands were also quick to distance themselves from the events at Columbine, expressing their sympathy to the families of the victims and stressing that they did not condone violence.
Following Columbine, the finger was increasingly pointed in the direction of glam rocker Marilyn Manson. Though Manson initially kept quiet about the allegations, he wrote a response to the claims in Rolling Stone magazine a month later in an article titled Columbine: Whose fault is it?
Manson wrote, “I think that the National Rifle Association is far too powerful to take on, so most people choose Doom, The Basketball Diaries or yours truly. This kind of controversy does not help me sell records or tickets, and I wouldn’t want it to. I’m a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people’s ideas in a world that is watered-down and hollow. In my work I examine the America we live in, and I’ve always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just each one of us.”
So, what drives young people to take the words of a song so literally that they pick up a gun, walk into a school and shoot? Some scientists believe that it’s down to subliminal messages; secret messages hidden in songs. Judas Priest found themselves subject to civil proceedings after two young men formed a suicide pact and shot themselves after listening to the band’s ‘Stained Class’ album.
It was claimed that the songs allegedly contained hidden phrases such as ‘Try suicide’ and ‘Do it, do it’, which encouraged Raymond Belknapp, 18, and James Vance, 20, to shoot themselves in 1985. However, it could not be concretely proven by audio experts that such messages existed.
A similar case was brought to court after John McCullom shot himself while listening to the song ‘Suicide Solution’ by Ozzy Osbourne. Though the case was later abandoned, it raised questions about how influential music could be.
One of the most horrific cases in recent history was that of Luke Mitchell, the teenager jailed for the murder of his girlfriend Jodi Jones. She was just 14 when she was stabbed to death in a forest near her home in Dalkeith, Scotland, in 2003. Mitchell admitted idolising Marilyn Manson, and had an obsession with the occult and Satan. Both Jodi and Mitchell were fans of heavy metal music. The police suspected that Mitchell took drugs, was depressed and, above all, was probably genetically predisposed to violence, but his taste in music came under intense scrutiny in the media.
Worryingly, we are hearing more and more cases of such murders. In the past year alone, there have been another two high profile killing sprees linked to heavy metal.
In spring of last year, Seung-Hui Cho, a student from South Korea at the Virginia Tech school in America, shot 32 people, including himself. The only peculiarity that the media could find was that Cho had downloaded heavy metal music onto his computer and had written some song lyrics on his Facebook profile. Similar lyrics had been sprayed onto a wall and Cho was assumed to be the perpetrator. The papers made much of this, and once again the usual suspects were held accountable; Manson, Slipknot, Rammstein.
Then came the big one. The world was just beginning to recover from the news of Virginia Tech when Pekka-Eric Auvinen walked into his school in Tuulsa, Finland, and shot dead nine fellow classmates before killing himself. Prior to the shooting, he uploaded a video onto Youtube in which he posed with a gun and described what he planned to do, as ‘Stray Bullet’ by the German rock band KMFDM played in the background.
Heavy metal in general is regarded to be the cause of many school shootings and some murders. But how can these bands, irrespective of how brutal their lyrics are or how extreme their music may be, be responsible for such violence? It’s not the bands who pick up a pistol and decide to shoot their classmates and lecturers. It’s the person themself. If that was genuinely the reality, then every fan of Slipknot- and there are thousands of them- would be out there killing their parents, friends or teachers.
Contrary to popular opinion, these bands are harmless. They express their feelings through their songs, in the same way that young people themselves do, in that they listen to their music as a form of escapism from real life. They can identify with the lyrics and use them as an outlet for their feelings, rather than committing violent crimes, raping or murdering.
Without an obvious motive, the finger will always be pointed in the direction of the bands that a person listens to. But the lyrical content of a song is far from a justification for violence. People are always looking for someone to blame, because it makes it easier to deal with tragedy. Instead of trying to find an adequate solution, people just want a scapegoat. It isn’t the bands who are the problem; it’s the unstable young kids who kill.
The warning signs are there. When Pekka-Eric Auvinen stuck that video on Youtube for millions of people across the globe to watch, it was a cry for help. Maybe if someone had stepped in, he could have been saved, along with the eight people who died simply because he was mad at the world.
The reason that so many kill themselves afterwards is because they know what they have done is wrong. They just can’t see any way out other than death. They are suffering, and want other people to suffer too. Luke Mitchell’s teachers have said that they were concerned about his state of mind after he covered his books in Satanic scrawls. Rather than ignoring it, they could’ve got Mitchell the help he so badly needed, and Jodi Jones would still be alive.
After the shooting in Finland, a comment was published in the national newspaper Aamulehti saying, “Nobody here could have dreamt that something like the Columbine massacre would also be possible in Finland.” Why not? There are unhinged kids everywhere, all over the world. And until we know how to deal with them, you can expect to keep reading about massacres in the media, and how metal is responsible. After all, it’s easier to pin the blame on a band than it is to admit to our own failings.
Marilyn Manson hit the nail on the head with his concluding comment in Rolling Stone. “Don’t expect the end of the world to come one day out of the blue- it’s been happening every day for a long time.” Because it has.
Kay Weston
March 31st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Had a feeling you’d just written something so I checked… and you posted this like less than an hour ago.
Weird eh?
March 31st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Good article!!
People kill around the world every day, people who dont listen to Marilyn Manson. Maybe the lifeless boring music they have listened to urged them to kill in desperation for this world? I dont see anyone blaming Rihanna..?
Since when does bringing a subject up for discussion mean agreeing with the subject in the first place? Because that is all these musicians do, they try to make people open their eyes, not close peoples eyes by killing them.
And yes, some killers have listened to heavy metal. But I am pretty sure they have heard their share of poptastic tunes too.
There is clearly something majorly wrong with people who kill other people, but I have great trouble seeing a type of music loved by people all over the world, being their main fault.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:18 pm
grand! The same argument is used against people who play violent video games and watch ‘unsuitable’ films, I cant remember the specific example but everyones heard of the game ‘manhunt’
April 1st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
If I were to listen to anything other than heavy metal, for example, spend an hour listening to Leona Lewis, Hear’Say, Britney Spears, S Club 7 etc… I’d be a lot more likely to grab a random fire arm and keep shooting until the noise stops.
The amount of narrow-minded, sub-retarded people working in the media nowadays makes me want to shoot them =).
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 am
Good article…
Music has definately the power to influence people and what they do, however, if somebody goes on a shooting spree bacause they heard a song that talked about killing, they definately had something wrong to begin with.
Music could not be blamed for others peoples actions and we can’t censored different styles of music that we might not agree with just because we don’t like it.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Fair enough Manson doesnt make kids kill themselves, but he’s a bit of an idiot and makes absolutely rubbish music.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Everyone has their ax to grind when a mass shooting happens. But they are most likely caused by a simple problem of human physiology and Subliminal Distraction.
SD was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle was designed to deal with the vision startle reflex to stop the problem by 1968.
There is evidence in the stories of mass shooters that they created the “special circumstances for exposure.
The Virginia Tech shooter used his laptop to study in the suite common room while others walked by ignoring him. That’s a description of SD exposure.
Mark Barton, Atlanta Day Trader killer and Jeff Weise, Redlake School shooter both have similar evidence in their stories.
April 9th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I like how the artists accused of being dangerous are always the harmless poppy ones that have fanbases mostly consisting of 14 year olds.
I’m wondering when someone who listens purely to NSBM is gonna go shoot up a school, and what the media reaction will be then. They’d probably gloss over the particulars and blame it on Manson again as the kid will have a solitary mp3 of his on their computer. Or they’ll have played GTA II when they were a kid, and the 2D graphics had propelled their blood-lust ever since.
But yeh, the vilification of ‘metal’ is, and always will be stupid, and always originates from the mouths of the woefully uninformed. If someone who listens to Marilyn Manson and Slipknot goes out and shoots people after hearing lyrics so ‘controversial in a safe middle-class way’, then it’s probably safe to say that the individual had a natural disposition towards violence and homicidal thoughts in the first place.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I don’t have any argument with what you say here - the so-called “influence” of music and lyrics is ridiculous- people who go on killing sprees dont do it because of some lyrics they heard!
However, knowing a great deal about the Luke Mitchell case, I have to correct some of your claims about him. He did not “admit” to idolising Manson,(actually, he had one cd, which he got after Jodi died), was not shown in evidence to be “obsessed” with satan and the occult, there was no evidence whatsoever regarding doubts about his mental state, he was not depressed, was not proven to have any genetic predisposition to violence, and, unlike all of the others mentioned here, he did not commit suicide, but is still alive, and still protesting his innocence. What you report here is lifted directly from the same sensationalist media coverage that blames bands for “influencing” people in the first place. In this particular instance, the media leapt on the bandwagon to paint a horrific picture of an ordinary kid (and an innocent one at that) and that picture was used to convict him, in the absence of any concrete evidence whatsoever.In all of the other cases, the media has been free to assert that the kids involved were influenced by this, that, or the other, because those kids are no longer here to give lie to their claims. Any proper examination of Luke Mitchell, who was 14 at the time of his girlfriend’s death, shows an oridnary, undisturbed, typical teenager, who is still fighting to prove that he had nothing to do with the murder, despite the media’s worst efforts. It’s the people who believe that media coverage who are by far the more dangerous!