Where did death metal come from? Death the band (“Death” metal) and their Death By Metal demo or Possessed and their Death Metal (straight to the point) demo is an eternal debate among headbangers up there with good old, “Who would win in a fight?” bar discussions or comparing sports legends across time and space. Maybe death metal came from somewhere else? I could easily see Rolling Stone or something calling Metallica’s Fight Fire with Fire death metal. The Simpson’s said Judas Priest were death metal in an episode that made a joke about just how popular death metal is in Sweden (There are two Swedish Death Metal Encyclopedias organized by city and year and an extremely comprehensive bathroom reading book about it). So where did death metal come from?

Google Books says Newsweek called Metallica and Megadeth death metal in 1987. I don’t believe that. There’s nothing with “death metal” as a reference in Google Books that predates 1986. The two demos predate it. There’s nothing in Google Scholar either.

A quick search on google for Celtic Frost and death metal on a hunch led me to this forum thread: http://www.triptykon.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711&sid=627214ae1d197da968d459d52cc8aa2f

Tom G. Fischer (“Tom Warrior”), the guitarist and frontman of Hellhamemr and Celtic Frost stated that the term “death metal” comes from photocopied fanzines and he still owns a few of them from the early 80s, well before the members of Death and Possessed had even begun to play hyper aggressive music.