Speaker 1: Hail Satan, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and this is our mid metal two
Speaker 1: parter short stuff that's more metal adjacent than you can
Speaker 1: possibly imagine. We're talking about the origin of the devil
Speaker 1: horns hand sign that is as metal as metal gets,
Speaker 1: as far as hand signs go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never had an opportunity to flash this, so
Speaker 2: I've never really done it, and I feel like a
Speaker 2: bit of a nerd, but I'm practicing because of that
Speaker 2: Judas pre show. Yeah, I figure that'll be a great
Speaker 2: time to whip it up for the first time for sure.
Speaker 1: So where did this come from? Chuck?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: what it actually is, because there's a bit of irony
Speaker 2: attached to this, because when you're at a metal show
Speaker 2: doing this, you are you know, what you're really doing
Speaker 2: is just a fun thing where you're like, this band rocks,
Speaker 2: and this is the appropriate sign that you do at
Speaker 2: a show like this to indicate that I think this rocks.
Speaker 2: But sort of the the sub the kind of funny
Speaker 2: subtext is like, yeah, Satan's horns, But what it really
Speaker 2: is in origin is sort of the opposite. It's it's
Speaker 2: known as a corner, which is Italian for horn, and
Speaker 2: it is what you do in old Italy or even
Speaker 2: if you're you know, have a gram on Italy. He
Speaker 2: was still you know, still sort of superstitious to ward
Speaker 2: off the evil eye. It's not like, yeah, Satan rocks.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, get the out Satan, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So all of the metal fans are like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: the problem. That's why Satan never shows up, right, We've
Speaker 1: been doing this wrong. Yeah. So yes, and like you said,
Speaker 1: is totally associated with metal, and the most people trace
Speaker 1: it back to Dio, Ronnie James Dio, who we surely
Speaker 1: have talked about by now in part one at the
Speaker 1: very least, we definitely do. In Part two he sang
Speaker 1: for Elf Rainbow do O. Obviously. He also took over
Speaker 1: after Ozzy Rip was kicked out of Black Sabbath in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. Dio took over as the front man,
Speaker 1: which is a cool way of saying lead singer for
Speaker 1: Black Sabbath, and Ozzy was known to like give like
Speaker 1: double peace signs, yeah as like his thing, and Dio
Speaker 1: is like, I can't do that same thing, but I
Speaker 1: gotta come up with something. Everybody's gonna be expecting some
Speaker 1: signature hand signal, So he turned to he turned to
Speaker 1: the corner.
Speaker 2: That's right, what does to deal with those hand signals?
Speaker 2: It's like definitely a hard rock to meddle thing, because
Speaker 2: like Van Halen did with the with Sammy Hagar, they
Speaker 2: did that thing, and I don't know, I just never
Speaker 2: feel like I see other bands doing that.
Speaker 1: Essentially, what did Sammy Hagar and Van Halen do?
Speaker 2: They did the double I Love You put together in
Speaker 2: such a way that you know it may have indicated
Speaker 2: something sort of naughty.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that, oh got youa I remember White
Speaker 1: Lyon made the w with their two index fingers and
Speaker 1: thumbs coming together. Did they really No?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: And then the Poison had the thing where you snap
Speaker 1: your fingers and then slap your hand on top of
Speaker 1: your closed fist three times.
Speaker 2: And then that was last mind would go whoooo exactly
Speaker 2: all right. I don't believe that one. So I did
Speaker 2: involve for that one. But you know, a lot of people,
Speaker 2: if you're just a casual researcher, you'll just see everywhere
Speaker 2: that it was Ronnie James Doo. People have asked him this.
Speaker 2: So it was an interview in two thousand and one
Speaker 2: where he said, I doubt very much that I would
Speaker 2: be the first one who ever did that. That's like
Speaker 2: saying I invented the wheel, but I think you'd have
Speaker 2: to say that it made it fashionable. So he'd never
Speaker 2: claimed to be the originator of that hand symbol, which
Speaker 2: is great stand up guy, Ronnie James Dio rip of course. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So where did it come from? I mean, Gene Simmons
Speaker 2: in court said it was him, or tried to at
Speaker 2: least he.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Gene Simmons really outed himself as
Speaker 1: a dipstick, which time well, this time in particular, right
Speaker 1: because he tried to trademark his his trademark hand sign,
Speaker 1: which is like the devil horns, but rather than the
Speaker 1: thumb closing over the two closed middle and ring fingers
Speaker 1: like you do with the devil sign, he stuck his
Speaker 1: thumb out, so there's three digits sticking out right. That's
Speaker 1: I love you. It is. It's the American sign language
Speaker 1: sign for I love you. Regardless of that, he tried
Speaker 1: to trademark it for himself, probably so he could sue
Speaker 1: people who continued to use it, and yeah, he tried
Speaker 1: to trademark an American sign language sign that just kind
Speaker 1: of is pretty dipsticky if you ask me. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting about it is all the press that this thing
Speaker 1: got started to actually tease out the people who probably
Speaker 1: really were responsible for introducing the metal horns to heavy
Speaker 1: metal at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll
Speaker 2: be back with more of this mystery right after this.
Speaker 2: So before we get to who possibly may have created this,
Speaker 2: we should mention Geezer Butler, the bass player for Black Sabbath.
Speaker 2: He said, Hey, look at our photo from nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: I'm flashing the sign. So I did it before Dio
Speaker 2: and I actually suggested that he do it. And also
Speaker 2: this was on the cover of Yellow Submarine. Like John
Speaker 2: Lennon in animated form is making this sign on the
Speaker 2: cover of Yellow Submarine. That doesn't really clear it up
Speaker 2: because Geezer Butler is also wrong. So I'm gonna let
Speaker 2: you lay it on us, my friend of you who
Speaker 2: maybe started this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for giving me this one, because this
Speaker 1: is amazing. It turns out that it was probably a
Speaker 1: blonde eighteen year old American girl named Jinx Dawson who
Speaker 1: was the lead singer of a band called Covin, which
Speaker 1: would be I guess psychedelic rock maybe, but super dark
Speaker 1: psychedelic rock. Yeah. Did you listen to much of it?
Speaker 1: I did. It's not that great, but.
Speaker 2: It didn't even sound psychedelic to me. And if you
Speaker 2: hadn't known the lyrics or the song titles, it didn't
Speaker 2: seem even spooky.
Speaker 1: It's like a Paul Revere in The Raiders cover band.
Speaker 2: Or something that's sort of It was interesting.
Speaker 1: There was a yeah, there was an article by a
Speaker 1: guy named Dom Lawson and Metal Hammer, and he called
Speaker 1: it he said it was scarcely any kind of metal,
Speaker 1: but it flowed with a similar dark magnetism. I think
Speaker 1: he kind of nailed it on the head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, what's interesting is like it is ultra metal
Speaker 2: with imagery and lyrics and right song titles. But it's
Speaker 2: such a weird thing for your brain to hear that
Speaker 2: kind of thing coming out of something that's not metal sounding,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. This is a nineteen sixty nine album called
Speaker 1: Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaped Souls, and it had songs
Speaker 1: like for Unlawful Cardinal Knowledge on it packed with Lucifer
Speaker 1: and then very spookily. The first track on this album
Speaker 1: was called Black Sabbath.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can I read a few other song titles White,
Speaker 2: Witch of Rosehall, Choke, Thirst Die.
Speaker 1: That's just one song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, commas in between.
Speaker 1: Each Shoots and Leaves.
Speaker 2: Wicked Woman is one, and those one called Dignitaries of Hell.
Speaker 1: She and so Jinks Dawson. The reason why she's like
Speaker 1: probably the one who did this, she was actually raised
Speaker 1: in a Left hand Path house and was raised as
Speaker 1: a Satanist in the Anton LaVey Aleister Crowley since the
Speaker 1: occult sense, and another reason why it's attributed to her
Speaker 1: and her band Coven is because no one, no one
Speaker 1: was doing this, especially in the States. They were from Chicago.
Speaker 1: They they essentially had no inspirations aside from the real
Speaker 1: life Left hand Path initiations that Jinks Dawson had been
Speaker 1: raised around.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the uh I
Speaker 2: think it's on the back cover right of their album
Speaker 2: once again Witchcraft Destroys Mines and reefs Souls. I just
Speaker 2: want to read that like five more times. They're they're
Speaker 2: they're doing that sign. I mean, it's very clear, it's
Speaker 2: not an accident, it's very much on purpose. It's exactly
Speaker 2: what it is. And it was so convincing that in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, when Gene Simmons was trying to trademark this stuff,
Speaker 2: they came forward and Gene Simmons was like, you know,
Speaker 2: didn't know about these guys.
Speaker 1: Someone else who said they didn't know about these guys
Speaker 1: was Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler and Black Sabbath. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and supposedly, and I think it's even spookier the bassist
Speaker 1: for Coven's name was Greg oz Osbourne. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: happening simultaneously in Chicago. Yes, as Black Sabbath is changing
Speaker 1: their name from Earth to Black Sabbath. Yeah, and Black
Speaker 1: Sabbath has always maintained this is just some spooky coincidence. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's believable. There's an article by a guy named Dom
Speaker 1: Lawson that same Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer magazine who
Speaker 1: basically says like their album got zero play. It just
Speaker 1: didn't make it over the UK. There's almost no way
Speaker 1: they would have heard this, and the reason why is
Speaker 1: because their album was really right around the time of
Speaker 1: the Sharon Tate murders, the Manson murders, and America was
Speaker 1: not known for stuff like satanic rituals.
Speaker 2: Or bad music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, but Lester Banks heard it. He compared Black
Speaker 1: Sabbath to a combination of Cream and Coven. So, at
Speaker 1: least in the mind of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs,
Speaker 1: Coven was a at least somehow related thematically to Black Sabbath. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it was like, take the music of Cream
Speaker 2: and combine it with the spooky imagery and lyrics of
Speaker 2: Coven or covin as I like to say.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, you could say it that way too.
Speaker 2: I forgot, Uh, yeah, that seems to be the deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I guess it's unclear exactly how much direct
Speaker 1: influence they had, but at the very least everybody tips
Speaker 1: their hat to them for being pioneers in that respect.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, at the very least it shut Gene Simmons
Speaker 2: up right exactly.
Speaker 1: So hats off to jinksaw someome for that. And then
Speaker 1: we can't talk about the devil Horns without at least
Speaker 1: a nod to the Kitsunni side. Consumi means fox and
Speaker 1: in Japan, if you go to a metal concert, say
Speaker 1: like a baby metal concert that will come up at
Speaker 1: the end of part two. You will see something similar
Speaker 1: to Devil Sign, but rather than the ring finger and
Speaker 1: middle finger bent down in the thumb crossing them, the
Speaker 1: ring finger and middle finger come together and are pressed
Speaker 1: against the thumb with the pinky and the index finger up.
Speaker 1: And what you're doing is you're making a face of
Speaker 1: a fox. And this very Japanese. That's what they do
Speaker 1: at Japanese metal shows.
Speaker 2: You know. I didn't understand any of that until I
Speaker 2: just sort of did it as you were following along,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, yeah, look at that little
Speaker 2: fox right makes a nose is what it does.
Speaker 1: It does a little fox face.
Speaker 2: And you can be like, oh, if we have one
Speaker 2: extra minute here, I would like to do a real
Speaker 2: time update breaking news. In part one, I rattled off
Speaker 2: my top five metal bands, and I forgot because I
Speaker 2: was listening to hair Nation again later that day, and
Speaker 2: I have an update and I hate to do it,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna, I guess bump the Scorpions out, okay
Speaker 2: in favor of Tesla.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I could see that they're similar in level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I feel bad I forgot about Tesla, and
Speaker 2: while I don't dive deep into Tesla, I think I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go on record and say that like three of
Speaker 2: their songs are some of the best songs of that
Speaker 2: era out of any band, so I have to put
Speaker 2: him in there.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, while we're talking, while we're doing updates, I
Speaker 1: watched okay, you and me showed me some I guess
Speaker 1: Instagram clips of Ozzie's funeral and Sharon Osbourne just losing.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to watch. But then also she showed
Speaker 1: me a clip of him singing coming Home. I'm coming home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great song.
Speaker 1: I think he's sitting on like a throne in this
Speaker 1: stadium in Birmingham that last show, like right before he died.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I hadn't seen him when we recorded Partner
Speaker 1: Heavy Metal, but it's yeah, it's quite stirring. It's really
Speaker 1: neat to see. So I'm like, man, that is a
Speaker 1: really great way to go out, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he practically passed away on stage, you know, right.
Speaker 1: So we've said it before, said it again. Rip Ozzy
Speaker 1: Osbourne one of the metal grats, and I guess Chuck
Speaker 1: short stuff's out right that's right.
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