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Short Stuff: Devil Horns · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hail Satan, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and this is our mid metal two
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: parter short stuff that's more metal adjacent than you can
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: possibly imagine. We're talking about the origin of the devil
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: horns hand sign that is as metal as metal gets,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: as far as hand signs go.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never had an opportunity to flash this, so
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I've never really done it, and I feel like a
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: bit of a nerd, but I'm practicing because of that
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Judas pre show. Yeah, I figure that'll be a great
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: time to whip it up for the first time for sure.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So where did this come from? Chuck?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: what it actually is, because there's a bit of irony
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: attached to this, because when you're at a metal show
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: doing this, you are you know, what you're really doing
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: is just a fun thing where you're like, this band rocks,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: and this is the appropriate sign that you do at
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a show like this to indicate that I think this rocks.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: But sort of the the sub the kind of funny
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: subtext is like, yeah, Satan's horns, But what it really
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: is in origin is sort of the opposite. It's it's
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: known as a corner, which is Italian for horn, and
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: it is what you do in old Italy or even
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: if you're you know, have a gram on Italy. He
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: was still you know, still sort of superstitious to ward
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: off the evil eye. It's not like, yeah, Satan rocks.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, get the out Satan, Yeah, exactly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So all of the metal fans are like, oh, that's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the problem. That's why Satan never shows up, right, We've
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: been doing this wrong. Yeah. So yes, and like you said,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is totally associated with metal, and the most people trace
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: it back to Dio, Ronnie James Dio, who we surely
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: have talked about by now in part one at the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: very least, we definitely do. In Part two he sang
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: for Elf Rainbow do O. Obviously. He also took over
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: after Ozzy Rip was kicked out of Black Sabbath in
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. Dio took over as the front man,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: which is a cool way of saying lead singer for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Black Sabbath, and Ozzy was known to like give like
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: double peace signs, yeah as like his thing, and Dio
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is like, I can't do that same thing, but I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: gotta come up with something. Everybody's gonna be expecting some
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: signature hand signal, So he turned to he turned to
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the corner.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: That's right, what does to deal with those hand signals?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's like definitely a hard rock to meddle thing, because
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: like Van Halen did with the with Sammy Hagar, they
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: did that thing, and I don't know, I just never
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: feel like I see other bands doing that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Essentially, what did Sammy Hagar and Van Halen do?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: They did the double I Love You put together in
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: such a way that you know it may have indicated
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: something sort of naughty.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that, oh got youa I remember White
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Lyon made the w with their two index fingers and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: thumbs coming together. Did they really No?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: No?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And then the Poison had the thing where you snap
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: your fingers and then slap your hand on top of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: your closed fist three times.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And then that was last mind would go whoooo exactly
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: all right. I don't believe that one. So I did
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: involve for that one. But you know, a lot of people,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: if you're just a casual researcher, you'll just see everywhere
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: that it was Ronnie James Doo. People have asked him this.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So it was an interview in two thousand and one
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: where he said, I doubt very much that I would
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: be the first one who ever did that. That's like
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: saying I invented the wheel, but I think you'd have
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to say that it made it fashionable. So he'd never
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: claimed to be the originator of that hand symbol, which
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: is great stand up guy, Ronnie James Dio rip of course. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: So where did it come from? I mean, Gene Simmons
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: in court said it was him, or tried to at
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: least he.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Gene Simmons really outed himself as
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a dipstick, which time well, this time in particular, right
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  Speaker 1: because he tried to trademark his his trademark hand sign,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: which is like the devil horns, but rather than the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: thumb closing over the two closed middle and ring fingers
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like you do with the devil sign, he stuck his
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: thumb out, so there's three digits sticking out right. That's
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I love you. It is. It's the American sign language
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: sign for I love you. Regardless of that, he tried
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to trademark it for himself, probably so he could sue
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: people who continued to use it, and yeah, he tried
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to trademark an American sign language sign that just kind
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: of is pretty dipsticky if you ask me. But what's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: interesting about it is all the press that this thing
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: got started to actually tease out the people who probably
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: really were responsible for introducing the metal horns to heavy
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: metal at least.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, should we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: be back with more of this mystery right after this.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So before we get to who possibly may have created this,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: we should mention Geezer Butler, the bass player for Black Sabbath.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: He said, Hey, look at our photo from nineteen sixty nine.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm flashing the sign. So I did it before Dio
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and I actually suggested that he do it. And also
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: this was on the cover of Yellow Submarine. Like John
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Lennon in animated form is making this sign on the
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: cover of Yellow Submarine. That doesn't really clear it up
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: because Geezer Butler is also wrong. So I'm gonna let
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: you lay it on us, my friend of you who
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: maybe started this whole thing.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for giving me this one, because this
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is amazing. It turns out that it was probably a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: blonde eighteen year old American girl named Jinx Dawson who
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was the lead singer of a band called Covin, which
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: would be I guess psychedelic rock maybe, but super dark
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: psychedelic rock. Yeah. Did you listen to much of it?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I did. It's not that great, but.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: It didn't even sound psychedelic to me. And if you
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: hadn't known the lyrics or the song titles, it didn't
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: seem even spooky.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: It's like a Paul Revere in The Raiders cover band.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Or something that's sort of It was interesting.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: There was a yeah, there was an article by a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: guy named Dom Lawson and Metal Hammer, and he called
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it he said it was scarcely any kind of metal,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: but it flowed with a similar dark magnetism. I think
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: he kind of nailed it on the head.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, what's interesting is like it is ultra metal
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: with imagery and lyrics and right song titles. But it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: such a weird thing for your brain to hear that
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: kind of thing coming out of something that's not metal sounding,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Right exactly. This is a nineteen sixty nine album called
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaped Souls, and it had songs
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: like for Unlawful Cardinal Knowledge on it packed with Lucifer
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and then very spookily. The first track on this album
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: was called Black Sabbath.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can I read a few other song titles White,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Witch of Rosehall, Choke, Thirst Die.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: That's just one song.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, commas in between.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Each Shoots and Leaves.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Wicked Woman is one, and those one called Dignitaries of Hell.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: She and so Jinks Dawson. The reason why she's like
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: probably the one who did this, she was actually raised
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in a Left hand Path house and was raised as
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a Satanist in the Anton LaVey Aleister Crowley since the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: occult sense, and another reason why it's attributed to her
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and her band Coven is because no one, no one
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: was doing this, especially in the States. They were from Chicago.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: They they essentially had no inspirations aside from the real
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: life Left hand Path initiations that Jinks Dawson had been
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: raised around.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the uh I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: think it's on the back cover right of their album
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: once again Witchcraft Destroys Mines and reefs Souls. I just
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: want to read that like five more times. They're they're
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: they're doing that sign. I mean, it's very clear, it's
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: not an accident, it's very much on purpose. It's exactly
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: what it is. And it was so convincing that in
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, when Gene Simmons was trying to trademark this stuff,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: they came forward and Gene Simmons was like, you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: didn't know about these guys.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Someone else who said they didn't know about these guys
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: was Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler and Black Sabbath. Yeah,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and supposedly, and I think it's even spookier the bassist
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: for Coven's name was Greg oz Osbourne. Yeah, this is
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: happening simultaneously in Chicago. Yes, as Black Sabbath is changing
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: their name from Earth to Black Sabbath. Yeah, and Black
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Sabbath has always maintained this is just some spooky coincidence. Sure,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: it's believable. There's an article by a guy named Dom
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Lawson that same Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer magazine who
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: basically says like their album got zero play. It just
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: didn't make it over the UK. There's almost no way
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: they would have heard this, and the reason why is
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: because their album was really right around the time of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the Sharon Tate murders, the Manson murders, and America was
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: not known for stuff like satanic rituals.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Or bad music.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, but Lester Banks heard it. He compared Black
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Sabbath to a combination of Cream and Coven. So, at
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: least in the mind of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Coven was a at least somehow related thematically to Black Sabbath. Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was like, take the music of Cream
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and combine it with the spooky imagery and lyrics of
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Coven or covin as I like to say.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, you could say it that way too.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I forgot, Uh, yeah, that seems to be the deal.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I guess it's unclear exactly how much direct
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: influence they had, but at the very least everybody tips
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: their hat to them for being pioneers in that respect.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, at the very least it shut Gene Simmons
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: up right exactly.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So hats off to jinksaw someome for that. And then
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: we can't talk about the devil Horns without at least
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: a nod to the Kitsunni side. Consumi means fox and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: in Japan, if you go to a metal concert, say
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like a baby metal concert that will come up at
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the end of part two. You will see something similar
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to Devil Sign, but rather than the ring finger and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: middle finger bent down in the thumb crossing them, the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: ring finger and middle finger come together and are pressed
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: against the thumb with the pinky and the index finger up.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And what you're doing is you're making a face of
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a fox. And this very Japanese. That's what they do
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: at Japanese metal shows.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: You know. I didn't understand any of that until I
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: just sort of did it as you were following along,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, yeah, look at that little
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: fox right makes a nose is what it does.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: It does a little fox face.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And you can be like, oh, if we have one
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: extra minute here, I would like to do a real
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: time update breaking news. In part one, I rattled off
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: my top five metal bands, and I forgot because I
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: was listening to hair Nation again later that day, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I have an update and I hate to do it,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: but I'm gonna, I guess bump the Scorpions out, okay
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: in favor of Tesla.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I could see that they're similar in level.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I I feel bad I forgot about Tesla, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: while I don't dive deep into Tesla, I think I'm
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: gonna go on record and say that like three of
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: their songs are some of the best songs of that
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: era out of any band, so I have to put
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: him in there.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, while we're talking, while we're doing updates, I
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: watched okay, you and me showed me some I guess
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Instagram clips of Ozzie's funeral and Sharon Osbourne just losing.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: It's so hard to watch. But then also she showed
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: me a clip of him singing coming Home. I'm coming home.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great song.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I think he's sitting on like a throne in this
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: stadium in Birmingham that last show, like right before he died.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. I hadn't seen him when we recorded Partner
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Heavy Metal, but it's yeah, it's quite stirring. It's really
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: neat to see. So I'm like, man, that is a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: really great way to go out, you know.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he practically passed away on stage, you know, right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So we've said it before, said it again. Rip Ozzy
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Osbourne one of the metal grats, and I guess Chuck
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: short stuff's out right that's right.
• 13:19
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• 13:22
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