So I've recently been on a kick of blues music lately. I've really been enjoying the slide guitar sound from it and the general feel of the genre and I feel like it could work well with an electric guitar and stuff.
So yeah, the title says it, Blues-inspired metal. Do you guys know of any artist who make blues-y metal? I'd love to hear it if so. If you're looking for more on exactly what I mean here, the closest stuff I've heard are some of the songs from "CLUTCH". Particularly "Electric Worry" and "The Regulator".
There is a genre of rock called "Southern Gothic" that may be worth taking a look into. It may not be exactly what you are looking for, but it may be close enough.
Having a bit of trouble finding that stuff on that genre. Google play music is particularly unhelpful, by googling it I find it spits back the artists Delta Rae, Johnny Cash, The Civil Wars, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Lauren O'Connell. Does this sound right?
Listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club right now, doesn't seem like what I'm looking for yet. A friend suggested The Civil Wars earlier though, I'm checking that out next.
This is a Ted Nugent song where you really hear his blues background. Written after the death of his friend and mentor Fred Bear it is sad, mournful even yet still has that edge. You will never hear this on an FM station due to rank cowardice.
There's a lot of music in the hard rock to lighter metal spectrum that has obvious blues roots. Technically all rock music has blues roots, but I've found it harder to find bands that are both straightforward "metal" and still retain a lot of bluesy characteristics.
Here's a few short playlists I made from some bands:
Black Label Society. - sometimes these guys get a bad rap, but I enjoy quite a bit of their stuff. They also have a ton of much lighter bluesy songs, but I only tried to include heavier ones since you had mentioned metal.
Alice in Chains - pretty much the first hard band that I think of when someone says hard rock/metal and blues. Pretty much their entire sound (and most of their grunge rock peers') revolved around melding blues with hard rock. Jerry Cantrell also released some solo albums. Check out Degredation Trip.
Its pretty clear to hear the blues influence with a lot of Mastodon's stuff - especially their newer albums (i.e. Crack the Skye, The Hunter).
Pantera is another obvious choice.
Almost all doom metal bands share some foundations in blues. Check out the Southern Lord record label.
Well, there's the obvious Black Sabbath. They started as a blues band as I recall and then invented Heavy Metal. And then innovated heavy metal. And then revolutionized and reinvented heavy metal a few times.
But anyway, their early stuff showed plenty of blues influence (first album is arguably a blues rock or blues album). From what I understand, Fast Blues of the 1960s was the primary lead in to metal, with some mix ins of Hard Rock (which itself was influenced by blues). Really, all metal is influenced by blues to some extent, though it's grown further and further away, and though I don't think a lot of people are that familiar with the closer related Fast Blues any more.
In any case, obligatory example, Paranoid is especially fast bluesy:
Debated by whom? If it is, you see where I stand on the matter. There was a time I looked into the origins and possible other contenders, but it seems that at least the other, formerly popular contenders are no longer even considered metal at all (like Zeplin and Deep Purple anyway) and even they have said in interviews that they may have been influences on metal, but the fathers are Black Sabbath. There are a few other lesser known groups that I'd say got closer to metal like MC5 but still never crossed that threshold.
That said, if you have some other contenders and reasons, I would actually like to see it as I enjoy the history and development of metal, but I may be going a bit far astray from the topic now.