Piercings and passports Exploring the social mobility of Adelaide’s metalcore ‘scene kids’ As young people continue to confront transition issues such as school-to-work pathways, they are concomitantly developing their own social and cultural priorities and responding to them in new and innovative ways. This process warrants a greater focus on young people’s identity work as they navigate their transitions through increasingly fluid social and cultural environments. Drawing on her current PhD research, Paula Rowe focuses attention on Adelaide’s ‘scene kids’, a community of interest based on a subgenre of heavy metal music. She utlises Bauman’s (2000) liquid modernity thesis to parallel the social dynamics of ‘liquid’ metal subgenres with those of the ‘liquid’ modern world. Exploring the social processes of scene kids highlights ways in which socioeconomic circumstances can affect young people’s level of engagement with lifestyle options. This in turn raises questions as to how “scene kid identities” might impact on other life pursuits and social transitions. by Paula Rowe outh transitions have dominated the youth research agenda for several decades, with a continuing focus on structural processes and institutional arrangements that Y shape and constrain young people’s holistic development, particularly in geographic locations characterised by conditions of social and economic disadvantage (Heath et al. 2009). More recently, there has been increasing interest in the ways in which young people’s identity work intersects and influences various social transitions within school, domestic and broader social contexts, and vice versa (Stokes & Wyn 2009). Despite the known social, economic and psychological constraints of marginalisation, young people still manage to find a space in which to express their identity and live a “life of one’s own”, yet not enough is known about the ways in which young people use cultural affiliations and lifestyle choices to express their identity and demonstrate personal agency in their social worlds (Miles 2000; Shildrick 2006). This paper is based on data from current PhD research investigating the significance of heavy metal music and lifestyles for young people’s identity work and social transitions. For those unfamiliar with heavy metal scholarship, there has been a steady increase in robust metal studies in Australia and internationally with increasing interest in young people’s engagement with heavy metal lifestyles (Rowe 2011). Heavy metal music and lifestyles have long since fractured away from the stereotypical parent genre, which was traditionally associated with 8 Youth Studies Australia VOLUME 31 NUMBER 1 2012 white, working-class males who typically projects, the “success” of which rests on the adopted standard-issue uniforms of long lightness and speed with which an individual hair, jeans, denim cut-off vests or leather is able to navigate prolific and fluid choices of jackets with sew-on band logo patches on the selfhood (Bauman 2008). So too have liquefied back, perhaps completed by leather, studded metal lifestyles become transient rollercoaster wrist bands and bullet belts (Weinstein 2000; rides through cross-pollinated styles, symbols, Brown 2003). preferences, practices, meanings and multiple Today, there is barely a mention of the “metal” identities (Kahn-Harris 2007). term “heavy metal” among metal fans, Bauman (2000) is quick to emphasise unless it is used in a historical sense. that liquid modernity’s promise of infinite Instead, contemporary metal preferences options and opportunities for identity work are more likely to be indicated in terms of does not come “cheap” – rather it is fraught subgenre affiliations, such as thrash metal, with uncertainty, risk and fear of making the death metal, black metal, doom metal or wrong choices. Furlong (2009, p.344) further metalcore. In fact, the boundaries around cautions that forms of consciousness may metal subgenres are being erected with such indeed have changed, “but people’s locations rapidity that preferences are now likely within power structures still strongly impact to be indicated with multiple suffixes and on life chances”, even if people perceive they prefixes, such as tech/death/core, prog/ have increased opportunities and greater doom/sludge metal or black/grind/death scope for individual agency. Given that metal; the possibilities and combinations heavy metal has gained prominence as an (of metal preferences, fashion styles and accessible, global youth culture (Kahn-Harris symbolic practices) are highly fluid and 2007), it seems timely to investigate how seemingly inexhaustible.1 young people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds access and engage with Liquid society, liquid metal? metal lifestyles. The proliferation of individualised, “do it yourself” subgenre options now available to The research contemporary metal fans strongly reflects the This paper draws on current, qualitative broader social conditions and processes that doctoral research which is utilising a critical impact on young people’s social transitions. ethnographic approach to support attempts to In fact, Bauman’s (2000) metaphor of the first describe the experiences of “becoming” “liquid” modern world can be borrowed and and “being” metal and, second, to consider applied directly to the ongoing liquefaction of how policymakers and service providers metal music and lifestyles. Elliott (2007, p.13) might usefully align with the interests of succinctly summarises the liquid modern young people in order to facilitate empowered thesis by suggesting that, for Bauman, youth transitions. modernity in the age of industrialisation Early findings presented here are drawn was about solidifying fluid social things into from stage one data collection. To date, 27 a form of imagined permanence, whereas in-depth interviews have been completed modernity in the age of liquid globalism with participants ranging in age from 18 to represents an embracing of impermanence 23 (recruiting flyers called for young people and flow in interhuman bonds. aged 18–25 who identified with any or all “Heavy” modernity was more likely metal subgenres). The subject matter of stage to produce a “cradle to the grave” identity one interviews included “becoming metal” proposition in terms of community bonds, (first memories, introduction, reactions, push– employment, class and culture (Bauman pull factors); background and contextual 2000); just as “heavy” metal was once largely information (family, school, community, peer occupied by a more fixed and enduring networks); experiences of “being metal” (in community of shared tastes and identity various spheres of social life); post-school work (Purcell 2003). “Liquid” modernity is experiences and future aspirations. Although now more likely to force individual identity Youth Studies Australia VOLUME 31 NUMBER 1 2012 9 broad and scoping in nature, topics have (see Hodkinson & Deicke 2007), and the been discussed in considerable detail with term “scene kid” has often carried negative many interviews lasting for several hours (at connotations when used by those outside the the insistence of participants who had much metalcore scene to describe those within the to say about their lifestyle preferences and metalcore scene, the terms “scene” and “scene subgenre affiliations). kid” are used throughout this paper in the Participants from a range of metal manner used by participants themselves – as subgenres – and from diverse social and a catch-all for the metalcore scene and the economic backgrounds – have been recruited young people engaged with it. from various geographic locations around The common musical elements within Adelaide, South Australia. Recruiting flyers metalcore are the growling, screaming vocal were placed in retail music stores in the styles in the verses (often accompanied by metal section, at metal shows, metal apparel “clean” vocal choruses), down-tuned guitar retail stores, rehearsal rooms, music stores riffs and breakdowns, and blistering guitar (instruments and equipment), and posted solos layered around emotional lyrical online in metal forums. content. The fashion elements of metalcore Future reporting of findings will include distinctive hair styles (presently long, investigate multiple themes and issues “swept” asymmetrical fringes), “skinny” around young people’s levels of engagement fit jeans, tattoos (for those over 18 or those with a wide range of metal lifestyles and who can afford them) and multiple piercings practices, and will examine the interplay (particularly “fleshies” or “stretches” which between these lifestyle choices and social are the oversized holes in ear lobes): transitions. However, this paper makes no You look at metalcore and obviously those attempt to prematurely address issues of guys are attractive to girls, and it is more transition here, but does hope to encourage about image than music. It’s easy to become dialogue around the intersection of youth a deathcore kid, cut your hair right, lose cultures and transitions prior to more some weight, wear skinny pants, there you detailed results and analyses being available. go you’re in, put a coke can through your The focus of the following discussion stems ears. At normal metal gigs you can be a really from a data subset that highlights a current ugly guy and you can be best friends with phenomenon known in Adelaide as the everyone, but if you go to a deathcore gig, “scene kid”. Interview quotes include gender, you’d be pushed to the back, it’s