In today’s fast-paced music industry, there’s always a new music genre forming somewhere. Meanwhile, other scenes look to the past for inspiration instead, which has given us unique folk metal strains like Viking and pirate metal. Here we’re exploring what drives these genres and who brought them to the stage first.
Sea Metal Explained
Viking and pirate metal – let’s call them sea metal – are two distinct scenes that share a strange inspiration. Both are fueled by the blood-pumping exploits of past sea warriors, from the Viking Age (starting 800 A.D.) and the Golden Age of Piracy (starting 1650 A.D.). Those are two very different events but they share a lot in common – action, adventure, and the roaring sea.
The sea, and the promise and mystery it brings, has inspired a lot of stories in the past. It still does, across the movie industry and through online spaces like the iGaming sector. There, slot games are inspired by fishing, piracy, or even the promise of hunting sea monsters. Slots like Fishin’ Frenzy celebrate fishing, something a lot of people can relate to, while other nautical slots focus on fantasies like finding buried treasure or battling the mighty Kraken. Even in the music industry, we have seen other bands inspired by the sea. For example, we have metal tracks inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s sea-dwelling phenom, Cthulhu.
The Origins of Viking Metal
It won’t surprise you to learn that Viking metal came from the Scandinavian countries, starting with Sweden. If you know your metal, then you know that Scandinavia is home to the infamous black metal scene. While black metal pursued edgy occult themes in the late ‘80s, Viking metal looked back to the roots of Norse culture – paganism and their historical record of sailing the seas as Vikings.
As an honorable mention – Viking lyricism and themes actually predate what we’d call Viking metal. The single best example of this is Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. Manowar also gets mentioned a lot for their use of Viking themes, but their use of Norse myth is just part of a wider catalog that includes other themes.
No, it’s generally considered that the first Viking metal band was Sweden’s Bathory, in their 1988 album Blood Fire Death. Much of the album, even its cover art, was inspired by the pan-Germanic myth of The Wild Hunt. Norway entered the scene with Enslaved in 1991, argued by some to be the first exclusively Viking metal band. Others name Burzum, Mortiis, and Helheim as early influences in the genre.
The Origins of Pirate Metal
It probably should surprise you to learn that pirate metal came out of Germany, a country that isn’t very famous for its pirates. Others argue that Australia has the true claim on pirate metal, thanks to Black Jack’s ‘85 EP Five Pieces O’ Eight, and also their practice of dressing in pirate costume on stage. However, it was the German band Running Wild, and their ‘87 album Under Jolly Roger, that really launched the genre.
Other bands started to don the eye patch across Western Europe throughout the ‘90s, but it was Alestorm in 2006 that took the genre to new heights. Since then, dedicated pirate metal bands have become much more commonplace. Today, both genres are still going strong in their niche, with a wealth of historical inspiration that isn’t going to go out of style any time soon.
