Obama Commends Finland On Its Many Heavy Metal Bands

The word is out: Finland is maybe the most metal country out there, down to the emojis on their phones. In fact, the Finnish propensity towards metal is so widely known that even the POTUS is getting in on it.

While welcoming the US-Nordic Summit at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama took a moment to note Finland’s headbanging legacy. You can watch the video below, but in case you want it in writing, President Obama said the following:

“I do wanna point out that Finland has, perhaps, the most heavy metal bands in the world per capita and also ranks high on good governance… I don’t know if there’s any correlation there.”

And then fewer laughs than I hoped for.

That said, man, Finland is really cleaning up when it comes to metal culture–which is weird, given that a) Sweden and Norway were always the big European metal hubs of my youth, and b) from what I’ve gathered, the stereotype is that the Finns are a bit more romantic and personable than the people of those other two countries (Scandinavian readers, feel free to skewer me in the comments for this).

Maybe it’s that heavy metal is a lot of what Finland has going for it, given that Nokia phones are popularly accepted as just the worst. While Sweden and Norway have metal as only a portion of their culture, Finland are really throwing their hat in with the hesher crowd.

Anyway, watch the video below, and pray that it strengthens US/Finland relations enough that there’s a weekend-long metal festival on the White House lawn.

[via Loudwire]