Classical Music in Rock And Metal

For years, I have been hearing bands either sampling or playing a full piece of Classical music as a Rock or Metal tracks and or getting an orchestra in to give those tracks more body to them, or playing instruments themselves that are more at home in an orchestra. Most notably of these bands is Apocalyptica and more recently 2 Cellos who have done covers of AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, U2, Nirvana etc. Now there is another musician called Luna Lee, who has taken a traditional instrument of the far east, a Gayageum, which looks like (what I think it looks like), a cross between a piano, guitar and harp, and she has also done covers of AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana, but she has done covers of Metallica, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Derek and the Dominoes, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.

Ever since the mid 60’s, when singers and bands started to albums instead of singles, they experimented with orchestras and many different sounds of the more traditional. Over the years bands have used used ideas from the mid 60’s to varying degrees of success, but it wasn’t until the 90’s, with the rise the Symphonic Rock/Metal genre with bands such as Nightwish and Within Temptation, and their usage of orchestras and classical pieces within their music. It was around this point (or slightly earlier) that other genres of Rock/Metal such as Black and Death Metal, saw the potential of adding orchestral elements to the overall sound.

Recently, Pablo Barros of Brutallian fame, posted up a video on Facebook of Wolf Hoffman of Accept doing Night on Bald Mountain a very famous Classical piece of music, Hoffman is seen playing his guitar, with metal drums and an orchestra backing him.

I have been saying for years that Classical, Rock and Metal go perfectly hand in hand, as they have a pretty much same set up, and this is why they work well together.

I will be doing a review of Wolf Hoffman’s album Headbangers Symphony, when I get a copy of it.

Project Metal Music