In a new interview with Ultimate Guitar, Kip Winger shared his thoughts on the mix of classical music and rock music. He believes that simply overlaying an orchestra on rock riffs does not equate to a genuine integration of the two forms. He said:
“I’m really a purist. I don’t like a combination of a rock band with orchestra. I feel like you’re superimposing an orchestra on top of some rock riffs and you can’t really compete with a Marshall amp. I mean, a Marshall amp will blow away a whole orchestra. The whole ‘metal meets orchestra thing,’ it’s just kind of a superimposed element on top of a rock band.”
He continued by making a Steve Vai exception. He said:
“Steve Vai is a good example of somebody who is a very literate musician who can integrate his orchestra music into the music. You’re composing it all at once.”
Kirk Hammett Believes Classical Music Composers Would Go Metal If They Could
Kirk Hammett of Metallica, which is famous for their big concerts with orchestras, disagrees with Winger. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2019, he speculated that many early classical icons were looking for an outlet like heavy metal before the genre was fully realized. He said:
“I suspect that a lot of these composers were looking for something like heavy metal, and it just didn’t exist. If they had the ways and the means, they probably would have been heavy-metal artists. If you listen to Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition from beginning to end, that’s like a heavy-metal freaking opera to me. A song like ‘Gates of Kiev’ is so huge. If that guy were around today, it would be huge power chords and thunderous fucking drums. I totally see a similarity between heavy metal and classical music; it’s all an attitude.”
A completely different perspective from Winger’s.
Dani Filth Claims Classical Music Was The Heavy Metal Of The Day
An another different perspective comes from Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth.In a 2020 interview with Metal Injection, he said that classical music is similar to heavy metal in terms of capturing intense emotions. He said:
“I mean, you could go back to classical music of the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries. Classical music was like the heavy metal of the day, and it was up to them to express strong emotions. And as well as having a lot of very cheery classical pieces, there’s a lot of dark stuff. I mean, just off the top of my head, Berlioz ‘Fantastic Symphony.’ For example, Stravinsky was almost like a Slayer of his day.”
The harmony/incompatibility of metal music and classical music is a very controversial topic with different opinions coming from rockstars.
