In sixth grade, my friend popped in his older brother’s cassette single of “One.” I was immediately drawn in by the song’s tense simplicity and perfect storytelling. And then came the compressed, poured-on layers of heavy-metal guitar tracks. That is what music should sound like, I thought. When I got an electric guitar and Metal Zone distortion pedal, I tried to get that sound: the shoosh of distortion—as much as possible—with the high and low maxed on the equalizer, the mid turned way down. It took me a long time to stop seeing that sound as the peak and to develop an appreciation for a heavy sound where each guitar string is alive.
