“So then Varg Vikernes killed Euronymous with hopes of usurping his title as the most evil man alive,” says Mike La Rocco as he recounts the dark and evil legend of the infamous Norwegian Black Metal band Mayhem. I was naïve to think that metal-related injuries and death were exclusively the bad luck of mosh-loving concertgoers, and before Mike set the record straight, I was naïve to think that goth and metal culture were two sides of the same strange coin. A visit to the current Renaissance Society exhibit, “All the Pretty Corpses,” prompted me to go to a local source of darkness for insight into what exactly makes one dark, evil, or just plain goth.

La Rocco, himself a Black Metal guitarist in an Indiana Jones tribute band called Sallah, sat with me in the Pub to hoarsely talk over the sound of The Cranberries and the Allman Brothers Band and make sense of the often confused subcultures of goth and metal. I want to know: I saw art made by people aren’t self-proclaimed goths, so how can theirs be gothic art? At the heart of this dilemma is a particular piece in the gallery—a poster alphabetically listing metal albums from around the world: is that goth, too? Which genre encompasses the other?

We begin by considering the two subcultures, historically concurrent and close on the sociological family tree, as a Venn diagram. “The overlap isn’t as great as you might think,” La Rocco tells me, and at the heart of that is an inter-group hostility. “Goth people are inherently sissies,” he continues, “when you were in high school, that’s why those kids were Goths.” While goth culture is an offshoot that developed from the post-punk movement across the late 1970s and 1980s, it is now defined by appearance and lifestyle or attitude rather than by musical devotion. Metal, on the other hand, is not necessarily something you can see—La Rocco, for example, is wearing a nice black shirt and a blazer that is borderline hip—but you cannot be metal if you’re not a fan of the hornsand- headbanging music genre. Black Metal is a culture-inclusive exception that will be addressed later.

The genetic links between metal and goth, however, are as undeniable as a widow’s peak. Good old rebellious rock is the “missing link” that made possible the evolution of both other genres, though goth had to pass through the punk generation, and they have even intermingled in the Gothic Metal subgenre. And why shouldn’t they? They are both explicitly preoccupied with life’s darker colors. Each subculture’s monochromatic fashion and creation of self-selecting society stem from a strong impulse to break free of and oppose mainstream society.

Scandinavia is the birthplace of black metal, and Norse bands, who have been especially important in metal music, take pride in their heritage and homeland. Their music manifests the fascination with the Nordic landscape’s cold, snowy darkness and their cultural pride—or rather their cultural indignation. The sentiment that Christianity overtook Norse culture and religion like an invasive species is forefront in the attitudes of Black Metal bands, “and they’re livid,” explains La Rocco. Thus the rash of church arson inspired, if not perpetrated, by Mayhem. Thus the themes and sense of mythology and folklore that ostensibly inform death—not black—metal lyrics and style. It is not quite clear if the corpse paint and swords-and-leather regalia are meant to faithfully represent their Viking ancestors or if we should interpret these musicians as risen-from-the-dead avengers of their epoch. Are the metalheads thrashing along to their songs as concerned with history and cultural preservation? Not that I can tell, and while black metal culture demands a lifestyle choice of adherence to “evil in its most pure state,” the descriptor Euronymous so boldly coined as the principle of his own label, Deathlike Silence Productions, metal in general is the sort of thing you can love in your car, on the weekends, and in your iPod without jeopardizing your day job. As long as you cut that headbanger’s hair. In that sense, being a metal fan is a lot like being a fan of 80s music, Ludacris, or Melissa Etheridge. But I digress.

Goth culture, like metal, has many permutations within its culture, and you can also hide your underworldly tendencies from the boss if you so choose, but it is inherently more about lifestyle and less about musical taste. What began as an offshoot of 70s/80s post-punk culture in Britain spread across the pond and around the world, and now has its own manifesto, written by Canadian artist Charles Moffat two decades later. Moffat describes the Neo-Gothic movement (neo-gothic and gothic tend to be used interchangeably) as counterculture, seeking rebellion against government, mainstream society, and existing norms of sexuality and religion. There it is, the neat intersection of goth and metal. Goth and metal have influenced each other, from fashion choices to music. While Goths no longer seem to be defined by their music, goth music and its several subgenres exist and overlap on occasion with metal.

Since the surface similarities may confuse us, we must delve deeper order to apply these labels adeptly to art galleries, concerts, or people walking down the street. The politics and personalities of these two groups appear to bisect at one crucial point, that strange ethos regarding women and sex that is the line in the sand that divides so many groups and institutions. My own perception of goth culture—and mind you, I grew up in Los Angeles—is that it is a very coed collective, with perhaps a slight surplus of females. La Rocco’s estimation is that the balance of the audience at metal concerts rests at 10% female, but he doesn’t think that metal is inherently anti-woman. “Mostly it’s pro-sex,” he says, “but there is some black metal that might advocate rape.” Mayhem’s lyrics (check out darklyrics.com) don’t explicitly recommend violence against women per se, but I could never sing along to them the way I could to even explicit cuts of rap and hip-hop. There are some women in the bands, though, like Arch Enemy which is also goth music and Lacuna Coil, an Italian metal band with a female singer. I ask La Rocco about Evanescence, but apparently Evanescense : metal :: Hillary Duff : rock&roll. A lot of goth sexual imagery overlaps with sadomasochism, and indeed there is a sub-subculture known as fetish goth, but also has strong tendencies toward androgyny and Victorian aesthetics. Goth music is also known for its ambient quality rather than aggressiveness. La Rocco and I ponder whether we might posit the relationship between metal and goth as a complementary pairing between dominants and submissives, respectively.

Extremism, however, is one problem that plagues metal culture, however, but does not seem to infiltrate the goth world. Often, metal lyrics glorify warfare and violence—because they lead to evilness and death?—and over time this aesthetic has spawned or been co-opted by xenophobic and racist groups. The potent blend of anti-establishment ideas with primal aggression creates a unique ambiguity surrounding the principles of the music. The metal icons are presumably against “the Man,” but are they against democracy? Against peace? One website, www.metalheadsagainstracism.org, has confronted the problem by asking labels, bands, and metalheads to disavow the racist ideologies that have sprouted under the umbrella of metal culture. La Rocco describes the situation this way: “Despite its extreme right-wing tendencies, it’s very left wing,” pointing to the British group Napalm Death as one political example. “The skinheads are only into shitty metal.”

La Rocco and I have finished our cheap beers. As we head out of the bar so that I can hear some choice metal singles off his iPod, we run into Ralph Patrello, another local keeper of metal lore. We pose the goth-metal relationship question to Patrello, who verifies La Rocco’s theories with the pat explanation, “Your average [high school] Joe is afraid of the goth kids, but you bought your weed from the metal guys.” At the end of the day, that is what all the leather paraphernalia, red eyeliner, necromancy, and mayhem boil down to. Satisfied that the boundaries of subculture identity are as fluid, contradictory, and airborne as any, I walk out into the night, and it is oh so cold and dark in Chicago.