Spoke In The Wheel

Steppenwolf

Born To Be Wild1968

Built on the blues-rock foundation that John Lee Hooker established, Steppenwolf took raw electric power and pushed it into harder territory with "Born to Be Wild." Released in May 1968 and produced by Gabriel Mekler at American Recording Co. Studio in California, the track featured the line "heavy metal thunder"—language that would define an entire genre. The song hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went gold, then became the theme for *Easy Rider* in 1969, cementing its place in rock history. Lead vocalist John Kay's commanding delivery and the tight rhythm section created a template that bands like Helix would follow into the 1980s, proving that motorcycle attitude and amplified aggression could sell millions of records.

Allen Toussaint

Southern Nights - 2003 Remaster1975

Allen Toussaint's "Southern Nights" bridges from modern metal back to the funk and soul roots that powered R&B for decades. Born in New Orleans, Toussaint became one of popular music's great backroom figures—a musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer who shaped the sound from the 1950s onward. He produced Dr. John's "Right Place, Wrong Time" and Labelle's "Lady Marmalade," proving his range across genres. "Southern Nights," released in 1975, showcases his command of rhythm and blues with the groove and sophistication that made him essential to New Orleans' musical identity. This 2003 remaster lets you hear why his influence rippled through generations of musicians looking for soul and funk foundation.

John Lee Hooker

Rock with Me1980

John Lee Hooker recorded "Rock with Me" in 1980, bringing his decades of blues mastery into the rock era that would lead to Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild." Since starting in 1948 with "Boogie Chillen," Hooker had perfected a "talking blues" style that blended boogie-woogie rhythm with raw electric guitar—exactly the sound that powered hard rock's engine. By 1980, Hooker proved the blues foundation wasn't fading. His ability to layer driving rhythm and conversational vocals created a blueprint for rock artists who needed backbone beneath their amplified rebellion. "Rock with Me" sits at the intersection where Detroit blues electricity met the swagger of 1960s rock, showing that the genre hadn't abandoned its roots—it had weaponized them.

Ozzy Osbourne

Flying High Again1981

"Flying High Again" marks Ozzy Osbourne's fresh start after Black Sabbath fired him in 1979 due to substance abuse. Released as a single in 1981, the track showcases his solo confidence with Randy Rhoads' blazing guitar work, Bob Daisley's solid bass, and Lee Kerslake's powerful drumming. Where "Spoke In The Wheel" by Black Label Society would later channel the raw heaviness of metal's founding era, Ozzy's track leans into glam metal's accessibility—proving the Godfather of Heavy Metal could thrive outside the band that made him famous. The song became a cornerstone of his comeback, demonstrating that his voice and persona carried enough weight to lead his own legacy in heavy metal.

Sammy Hagar

Heavy Metal1982

Sammy Hagar's "Heavy Metal," released January 6, 1982 on the album *Standing Hampton*, arrives just before Helix's "Heavy Metal Love" the following year, establishing the early-80s trend of bands naming tracks after the genre itself. Co-written by Hagar and Jim Peterik and produced by Keith Olsen, the track showcases the Red Rocker's hard rock credentials built during his 1970s rise with Montrose. The song balances pop-rock accessibility with genuine metal edge, a formula that would define Hagar's solo success before he replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen three years later. Where Helix and Styx would make the metal label more ironic or cautionary, Hagar treats it straightforwardly—a celebration of the sound itself at the moment when MTV was about to make the genre's visual spectacle as important as its music.

Helix

Heavy Metal Love1983

Built on the engine Steppenwolf fired up in 1968, Helix—a Canadian hard rock band formed in Kitchener, Ontario in 1974—weaponized the swagger of "Born To Be Wild" into pure heavy metal territory. "Heavy Metal Love" captures the band at their most direct, stripping back the mystique to expose raw desire and pure sonic power. The track appeared on their 2016 live album *Live in Buffalo*, proving the song's enduring grip on their setlists. A year before Sammy Hagar's direct-titled anthem "Heavy Metal," Helix was already making the connection between lust and distortion, proving Canadian metal bands could match the intensity of their American counterparts without apology.

Styx

Heavy Metal Poisoning1983

Building on Sammy Hagar's direct 1982 proclamation of metal as a lifestyle, Styx shifted the angle toward metal's dangers. Released on their 1983 album *Kilroy Was Here*, "Heavy Metal Poisoning" showed how the Chicago rock band—known for blending progressive rock with hard rock guitar and theatrical storytelling—could tackle heavy metal themes without abandoning their signature sound. Where Hagar celebrated metal's raw power, Styx treated it as a cultural force worth examining critically. The track bridges the gap between arena rock spectacle and metal's growing influence, setting the stage for how later bands like Nevermore would mine metal's darker philosophical territory and complex narratives in the 2000s.

Lita Ford

Close My Eyes Forever1988

Lita Ford's duet with Ozzy Osbourne bridges the hard rock legacy that defined the late '80s metal scene. Released February 2, 1988, "Close My Eyes Forever" became Ford's signature track, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989—a rare chart victory for a female-fronted metal song. Ford, who'd led The Runaways in the late '70s, brought her sharp guitar work and vocal power to this collaboration, produced by Mike Chapman. The track's success marked the height of her solo glam metal career. Twenty-one years later, Bring Me The Horizon would reference metal's commercial viability again, showing how artists continued testing the boundaries between mainstream appeal and genre credibility.

Rory Gallagher

The King Of Zydeco1990

Rory Gallagher takes the hard rock energy that Ozzy Osbourne channeled in "Flying High Again" and roots it firmly in blues-rock soil. As an Irish multi-instrumentalist who formed the band Taste in the late 1960s, Gallagher built a career on bridging metal's power with authentic blues feeling—a connection that leads directly toward John Lee Hooker's grittier electric blues approach. "The King of Zydeco" showcases Gallagher's ability to strip away excess and deliver raw, guitar-driven blues rock with real swagger. His albums sold over 30 million copies worldwide, proving that this blend of accessibility and authenticity resonated across generations. Released in 1990, this track represents Gallagher at a point where his influence stretched across both the hard rock world and traditional blues circles.

★ Black Label Society

Spoke In The Wheel1998

This is the starting point of the lineage, and it leads directly into Ozzy Osbourne's "Flying High Again" from 1981 — a track that shaped the template Zakk Wylde has spent his career honoring. Wylde formed Black Label Society in 1998, the same year "Spoke In The Wheel" appeared, essentially as a vehicle to explore the heavier, blues-soaked guitar work he'd been refining since joining Ozzy's band in 1987. The song sits at the root of this lineage because it captures Wylde at his most unfiltered — raw Southern-flavored metal that points backward to the Ozzy era while standing entirely on its own. It's the trunk the rest of this tree grows from.

Nevermore

Evolution 1692000

Nevermore took the metal vocabulary that Styx explored in "Heavy Metal Poisoning" and rebuilt it from the ground up. Formed in Seattle in 1992, the band combined groove metal's rhythmic crunch with progressive metal's structural ambition—a approach that would echo directly into The Grand Astoria's "Evolution of the Planet Groove" nine years later. On this 2000 track, Jeff Loomis's riffs and Warrel Dane's vocals carve out space between power metal precision and contemporary heavy metal aggression. Engineer Andy Sneap's production work gave the band's sound clarity without sacrificing weight, helping define what Seattle metal could be when it rejected grunge's shadow. "Evolution 169" shows how metal could evolve by honoring its own past while refusing to repeat it.

The Grand Astoria

Evolution of the Planet Groove2009

The Grand Astoria's "Evolution of the Planet Groove" continues the evolution theme Nevermore explored nine years earlier with "Evolution 169," but shifts the focus from progressive metal to groove-driven heaviness. Released September 1, 2009, on the Saint-Petersburg band's debut album *I*, this four-and-a-half-minute track demonstrates how Russian metal bands were adopting groove metal's rhythmic approach in the late 2000s. Where Nevermore used evolution as a metaphor for technical complexity, The Grand Astoria grounds it in pure instrumental physicality—the kind of headbang-ready riffing that connects back to groove metal's American roots while establishing a distinct Eastern European voice.

Bring Me The Horizon

heavy metal (feat. Rahzel)2019

"Heavy Metal" strips back Lita Ford's guitar-driven 1988 power ballad into something rawer and more fractured. Where Ford's duet with Ozzy Osbourne leaned on traditional metal swagger, Bring Me the Horizon—formed in Sheffield in 2004—built their reputation on deathcore and metalcore before gradually absorbing electronic influences. This 2019 track, featuring beatboxer Rahzel, shows how far the band had shifted toward alternative rock textures while keeping metal's aggression. The collaboration with Rahzel's vocal percussion work signals a move away from pure heaviness toward something more experimental, bridging the raw metal lineage Ford represented and the electronic-inflected post-metal sounds that would follow.