Miles Beyond's Superfan Number One... Tweet

Tweet’s story is one of a metal prodigy - pain, persistence, patience and the POWER of METAL.

Tweet’s introduction to metal came at the age of five. He found a copy of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds that was left by someone at his house. He played that cassette and had never heard any kind of music like that before and said, “I want more!”

At six years old he found more albums by AC/DC at the store and knew he needed to have them. Birthdays only come once a year and that was too long of a wait for him to get his fix of metal. His mother made a deal with him that for every A or two B’s he got on his report card she would by him a new cassette. From that point on Tweet got all A’s and B’s in school and his metal collection started to grow.

By the age of seven he picked up a metal magazine which had AC/DC on the cover and it introduced him to other bands like Megadeth and Iron Maiden. Three years later he purchased Megadeth’s Rust in Peace album which made him see how metal could be an art form. To this day Rust in Peace remains his favorite all time album. Other favorites being Anthrax’s Persistence of Time, Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Somewhere in Time.

Tweet picked up new music all the time whenever he could. Even the money he received for his report cards wasn’t enough to quench his thirst for metal! So, he had to look for additional means of acquiring the music he loved. For instance, he had tapes smuggled to him from his first girlfriend when he was ten. She had an older brother who was a die hard Iron Maiden/metal fan. She would steal tapes from her brother and give them to Tweet, bringing him a “fist full of metal” each time she saw him.

All of this wondrous music was absorbed by a young Tweet while sitting in his metal sanctuary, aka his Rocking Chair. The chair is the way Tweet judges his metal, “if it gets the rockin’ approval, it’s good”. While “rockin’”, he would listen to the music and feel as if he was “gaining powers”. He felt like he knew a secret that no one else understood. As a small child he would look at people as if to say, “Do they even know what’s going on?” Sometimes he would take a cassette to school and just look at it and it would relax him and help him focus. Metal was his soul and his savior until…the 5^th grade.

Tweet attended Hamady elementary in Flint, MI and his 5^th grade teacher noticed all of the logos of bands he would draw on his folders. His teacher didn’t see the positive effects that metal had on Tweet’s life. His teacher believed all the bullshit clichés surrounding metal at the time such as AC/DC standing for “All Children Devil’s Children” or Black Sabbath being “Devil Music” etc. A phone call was made to Tweet’s parents and they came up to the school. The school told his parents to “Take away the metal or take him to a different school”.

Tweet’s parents took his music away, his mother saying, “No more of that devil shit” and his father telling him that music was “nothing but garbage”.  Tweet was heartbroken, feeling as if he’d lost his soul.  Feeble attempts at compromises were made like trying to get Tweet to listen to Christian metal. Tweet lost hope and said to himself, “this will never be the same.” His attitude changed to “fuck the world” and his grades, focus and zest for life plummeted downwards during this dark period.

Being a true fan of music, Tweet soldiered on and made the best out of a bad situation. He became a die hard Elvis fan and started to learn about the history of Rock n Roll. He was introduced to bands like CCR, Led Zeppelin and other classic rock groups but something was still missing. 

Finally, when he was sixteen he picked up a Megadeth CD and got the ball rolling again! Megadeth brought back the memories of the power he felt from listening to metal. Tweet got his soul back that day and hasn’t stopped “rockin’” to the metal music he loves ever since.