@Triceratopsoil Well, I wasn't actually
suggesting the Yardbirds for this site as such. Not yet. I wanted to see what
people had to say about them as a band that included very early elements of
metal in some of their songs, particularly the ones I mentioned above. Honestly
I wasn't sure which forum was the best for such a discussion but I see I
mistook Metal Music Recommendations (or perhaps as I was doing this on my
iPhone I accidentally touched the wrong forum link). Whatever, you are right,
now that I look at it, I put this in the wrong forum. All apologies there.
As for the Yardbirds music, they started
out as a British electric blues band for sure but with Eric Clapton that meant
that guitar solos would figure in prominently. By the time Jeff Beck came on
board there was the addition of distortion, power chords, and more experimental
solos that sound closer to metal than anything in Clapton's time. Then came
Page and for a short time there were two lead guitarists, both using distortion
and guitar effects. Finally Page led them through their psychedelic phase and introduced
more proto-metal type solos and some heavier guitar work. Finally, the
Yardbirds inspired bands like Rush, Aerosmith, Motorhead and many more hard
rock and heavy metal bands of the seventies. They may not be proto-metal or
even hard rock, but they definitely had an influence on the early stages of the
genre's development. And of course they eventually became Led Zeppelin in a
round about way.
