Here’s my first column for Molten, a great new Irish rock and metal print magazine. It’s only £3 per issue, head on over to their website and subscribe!

When those handsome chaps at Molten asked me to write a rant column it took an hour for my already over-inflated ego to calm itself before I noticed a problem.

I hate rant columns.

Actually no, it’s not the columns themselves that bother me. There are however a number of arguments that frequently pop up in metal columns, magazines, and blogs that I’m sick of reading. These views are quickly joining such clichés as excessive beer consumption, substandard intelligence and long smelly hair in the metaller stereotype. Over the next few months I’ll paradoxically be ranting against rants. This month…

The Pop Machine Rant: I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read scathing attacks of the, ‘sheep,’ that follow The X Factor, Justin Beiber and other pop music products. If only these fans knew about REAL music by underground rock artists! They’re all unwillingly being brainwashed by Simon Cowell!

Sorry metal journos, but what do you hope to achieve by attacking X Factor fans? Yes I’m sure my middle-aged Mum, half the punters of the Kremlin and my neighbour who goes to the corner shop in her pyjamas are going to really dig Slayer if they were on prime-time instead. I’m also sure they’ll put down their latest copy of Heat, pick up a music magazine, read about how they’ve been wrong all along and purchase a ticket for Wacken.

Unless Derren Brown is somehow involved this is NOT going to happen. A column should challenge the readership, not be an outlet for a good whinge.

I’ve just realized I may have inadvertently done both. Balls.