New Year, New Admins

It is with some regret however that we start 2017 with the announcement that two veterans of the MMA admin team, Steve (Colt) and Jonas (UMUR) have chosen this time to step down from their roles due to decreasing time to work on the site. Please show your appreciation for their service over the years. It doesn't end here of course as both will be remaining on the active collaborator lists as part of the Errors & Omissions team, helping out as and when they can, while you can still expect to read regular reviews from Jonas. 

Having previously lost a couple of admins prior to this the time is right to bring in some new blood so I'm also pleased to announce that Nicole (666sharon666), Patrick (Vim Fuego) and Paul (Nightfly) have all agreed to make the step up to the admin team. We've confident that they'll all do a great job. Here is a little about them and their relationship with metal, in their own words:

Nicole: It will sound very cliché to say but I always like to think that I was raised on heavy rock and metal music from a young age. That was what my Dad was into so I had an upbringing that included many records round the house ranging from the early classics like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Budgie to NWoBHM giants like Iron Maiden and Saxon to the Big Four of thrash metal. In time, especially when the internet become part of everyday life, I was finding out about much more extreme bands and genres like black metal and death metal and suddenly it was me introducing my Dad to new stuff. My Dad and I still regularly talk new discoveries with each other. Some of my favourite bands include but certainly aren't limited to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Blind Guardian, Immortal, Nile, Hail Spirit Noir, and Falconer. I like a little of everything from all styles of metal but currently am mostly listening to power metal, black metal and as part of my roles here on Metal Music Archives, hard rock. I used to admin on the metal forum Heavy Metal Haven until its closure in 2015.

Patrick: I've been a metal fan since the 80s, and have tried most things metallic, but prefer thrash, death, grind and a bit of glam. I've been writing about metal for a number of years, and have interviewed a number of bands. I work on a dairy farm in New Zealand, and have found out the hard way that cows do not like death metal.

Paul: My love of music goes back to the 70’s when I discovered in my early teens that there was life beyond the force fed chart fodder of the singles charts that the radio stations threw at you all day long. I tended to gravitate towards the heavier stuff like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and a bit later Rush and Judas Priest. In parallel to this I was also listening to a lot of prog like Yes and Jethro Tull.  A part of me has always enjoyed more extreme forms of music enjoying the speed and aggression of early punk though this lacked the great musicianship I appreciate. This was more fulfilled in the 80’s by NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden and especially by the thrash metal movement with Slayer, early Metallica, Exodus, Celtic Frost and Voivod being favourites. This later led me to early death metal bands like Morbid Angel and Entombed. To be honest though, back then, as now, I found much to enjoy in most sub-genres of metal including glam and might be going to see Ratt one week and Slayer the next!

Be on the look out for the upcoming feature of the MMA Collaborator's Best of Year 2016, voting for which is currently underway.