Killer Was Fan of ‘Speed Metal’ Music of Alienation, Friends Say : Violence: Experts dismiss any link between the aggressive style of groups such as Pantera and the rampage that left the boy, his father and an officer dead.

Ever since Metallica burst on the scene with its city-leveling sound 10 years ago, parents have alternately celebrated the wild freedom and denounced the forged-in-the-furnaces-of-Hell sounds of metal music.

Now, as analysts sort through the wreckage and gore of Christopher Golly’s short life, eyes are once again turning toward the metal culture that he drifted into at the end.

Friends describe Christopher as a devotee of what is known as “speed metal” music, favoring one band called Pantera. According to experts, speed metal is virtually identical to thrash, and is a subgroup of heavy metal music. The difference between speed metal and the older metal bands such as Metallica is the staccato-like sound of the guitars, influenced as much by the English punk bands of the late 1970s as by the American heavy metal groups of the early ‘80s.

“Disenfranchised youth that have problems are drawn to this kind of music,” said Toni Isabella, a former assistant to deceased rock impresario Bill Graham and the onetime manager of Bay Area heavy metal band Exodus.

Los Angeles Times pop music writer Richard Cromelin agreed.

“There is a lot of the punk tempo and some of the punk attitude,” he said. “Maybe more so than in metal music itself it has an anger, alienation vibe to it.”

This apparently was a vibe that Christopher found resonant with his own soul as conflicts with his father and disaffection with school worsened. Still, experts familiar with the speed metal subculture dismiss any possible link between violence and the music.

Elliot Cahn, a former manager of the band Testament, said killers such as Christopher “are very unhappy people from horrible families. The music of alienation comes very naturally to these kids.”

Christopher had been an indifferent student, first at Granada Hills High School, then at West Granada high, a continuation school where attempts to correct his truancy were unsuccessful. By the end of his life, the 17-year-old boy was doing schoolwork at home through an independent study program and had developed a daily habit of snorting crystal Methedrine, even selling some on the side.

Unlike acid rock of the late ‘60s, according to Isabella, there is no specific drug connected to the speed metal culture. Though the racing rhythms of speed metal might seem to be a perfect match to the racing heartbeat and edgy nerves of a speed freak, Isabella said the explanation for Christopher’s drug use is much simpler.

“Speed is a very popular drug with young people,” she said.

Christopher’s drug of preference, apparently, was Pink Champagne, a form of speed named for its coloring that sells for $20 per quarter gram.

One adult who knew the boy at school said too much was being made out of Christopher’s supposed descent into an urban subculture, blaming instead another common target for public outrage: the easy access to firearms at home.

“I don’t think outside pressures had anything to do with it,” said this person, who asked not to be identified. “His father kept all those damn guns in the house.”

But friends said that after Christopher began getting high, he would sometimes talk crazy, and sometimes the talk would be about killing his father, Steven Golly, a Vietnam vet known as a disciplinarian.

“He thought about it a lot,” said James Carieri, 18, a friend of Christopher.

The lifeblood of the speed metal subculture are the concerts: loud, non-melodious demonstrations featuring vocalists who one ex-manager said sometimes sound more like they are barking than singing. Down in the “moshing pit,” according to this man, fans flail around and jump up on top of the mass of bodies to do what is called “crowd-surfing.”

The vast majority of fans within the speed metal culture are young males. The dress is basic black and there are lots of tattoos and chains. In the past, satanic themes showed up in the music, but Cahn said the groups were rarely serious about the things they said.

“Devil rhymes with revel the same way moon rhymes with June,” he said.

Experts said the metal subculture is basically a working class phenomenon, with politics a little to the right of center. Indeed, when the Gulf War was going on, Cahn received many letters from kids in foxholes.

“They said Testament gave them hope,” he said.

The song lyrics are dramatically different from the sugary themes of sex and love that sustained the boys at the front in World War II. Instead, speed metal trades on anger, alienation, people who portray themselves as mad at society.

Ever since Elvis shook his pelvis, people have worried that music with anti-Establishment and anti-parent themes exacerbates the natural alienation teen-agers feel as they grow up and leave home. Tipper Gore’s campaign against obscenity and violent themes in rock music several years ago tapped into the same concern: that young people should not be exposed to violent, obscene material when they purchase music. She called music companies “cultural strip miners, profiting from the sex and violence and ignoring the scars.”

But Isabella terms any linkage between the revolting act Christopher carried out with the music he listened to and the subculture he belonged to as “ridiculous.”

“This music serves a purpose by allowing most people a good outlet” for their aggressive feelings, she said.