The 25 Most Important People in Metal: #1, Axl Rosenberg
As much as metal is a genre of music and a lifestyle, it is also a community. And like all communities, it has its leaders — men and women whose work, be it by design or circumstance, affects all lovers of extreme music on a regular basis.
Throughout November, MetalSucks will celebrate these industry leaders by counting down The 25 Most Important People in Metal one per day. To be clear, this is a list of the people we believe are most important to metal today, in 2016 — not necessarily the most important people overall in the entire history of the genre. Some of them are musicians. Many of them are not. Some of them are people you’ve heard of. Many of them work behind the scenes and do not routinely get to take a bow. But they all have one thing in common: more than just cogs in a machine, they are truly, undeniably irreplaceable.
Axl Rosenberg literally built this site up from nothing into one of the most influential and powerful media outlets in all of metal. He did this after he couldn’t get a job at a metal magazine that he has since put out of business.
He could have done it all by himself, too, but because Axl is nothing if not humble, he allowed his best friend to tag along for the ride and do all the boring shit Axl didn’t wanna do, like accounting, going to the post office, taking phone messages, and dealing with potentially life-threatening attacks from angry musicians.
People who allegedly hate Axl have spent countless hours creating memes about him.
Axl has become such a force to be reckoned with that members of Carcass, Machine Head, Lamb of God, Testament, Darkest Hour, GWAR, Cynic, Periphery, Municipal Waste, Isis, and Pig Destroyer (to name but a few) have all been forced to pretend they like him.
Axl has the most impressive collection of metal memoriabilia in the world. Items in his collection include autographed Slayer posters, the guitar Randy Rhoads used to record “Crazy Train,” and Rick Allen’s left arm.
Axl got the imbecilic, unwashed masses to believe that Joey Jordison was fired from Slipknot via singing telegram and Whitfield Crane from Ugly Kid Joe was the new singer for Anthrax.
Axl also got Art Cruz to believe that Tina Fey really did review a Winds of Plague record.
The Dillinger Escape Plan are breaking up because they’re concerned Axl is beginning to lose interest.
David Hasselhoff once asked Axl to run his website. Axl declined because there’s more money in making fun of Dave Mustaine every day for ten years.
Axl made the writer of The Dirt movie cry.
Axl pissed on the toilet seat and successfully blamed it on Frank Palmeri.
Axl has never lost a court case.
Axl has also never gotten drunk and recorded an entire podcast devoted to whining about how much more successful some other blogger is.
Axl hates Los Angeles, so Revolver moved their award show to New York.
Axl’s farts were the inspiration for K.K. Downing’s fragrance line.
Axl is rolling in mad Clinton cash.
When the mohel tried to circumcise Axl at his bris, the blade broke.
Corpsegrinder’s neck fears Axl’s brobdingnagian penis.
Axl just got a fuckton of people to look up “brobdingnagian.”
Axl fucked Varg Vikernes, and has the commemorative t-shirt to prove it.
You’re all mad right now because Axl made this silly list and put himself at the top and your lives are so devoid of meaning that you think this matters or somehow actually means anything to metal.
But Axl is not mad. Axl is laughing.
Axl wins.
By the way, our real #1 is HERE.
THE LIST SO FAR
#25: Mark Riddick
#24: Robb Flynn
#23: Rob Scallon
#22: Kim Kelly
#21: Fenriz
#20: Rob Halford
#19: Ash Avildsen
#18: Steve Joh
#17: Karim Peter
#16: Misha Mansoor
#15: Dan Rozenblum
#14: Joey Sturgis
#13: Randy Blythe
#12: Amy Sciarretto
#11: Dimebag Darrell
#10: Corey Taylor
#9: Jose Mangin
#8: Monica Seide-Evenson
#7: Albert Mudrian
#6: Borivoj Krgin
#5: Sharon Osbourne
#4: Monte Conner
#3: Brian Slagel
#2: James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich
