In case you’ve never spoken to me for more than 5 minutes, I’m not a big fan of Christmas music.  After hearing “play some Christmas music!” every year of our young music playing lives, my brother and I swore it off years ago.

But, of course I have released a few Christmas songs over the years, including this year’s release, “Rudolph the Blood Soaked Reindeer”.

And for some reason, my Christmas songs tend to be much more metal and screamy than my other work.  So I thought it would be fun to dig into some of my favorite heavy metal Christmas songs.

As you can probably guess, I’m not really into the “earnest” metal xmas covers.  Some metal bands actually try to take these songs seriously.  Some of those will end up on my next post about the most embarrassing heavy metal Christmas songs.

Because, honestly, there’s nothing more joyous than waiting until everyone has had a large satisfying meal and is settling around the tree to open some presents, to put some of these songs on and make sure those people don’t spend too much time at your house.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer by a metal super group consisting of: Dez Fafara (vocals), Blasko (bass), Doug Aldrich (guitar), and John Tempesta (drums) – from the album Metal X-Mas.

It’s heavy, it grooves… And the line “all the other reindeer loved him..” cracks me up every time.

Santa Claws Is Coming To Town by Alice Cooper from the album We Wish You A Metal XMas

Dammit, I love me some Alice Cooper.  If you can get through all the bible thumpin’ he likes to do these days, Alice is still a badass.  This song may also end up on my list of most embarrassing heavy metal Christmas songs.

Last Christmas by 3 Feet Smaller from the unreleased album “Punk Goes Christmas”

I honest don’t know much about this band. But my girlfriend is a huge George Michael fan and I have to listen to “Last Christmas” blasting out of her office all year long.  This version needed to be done.

Carol of the Bells by August Burns Red from the album X Christmas

Ok, they do take a fairly straight forward and serious approach to this piece. But it’s one of the less irritating Christmas songs to begin with. You could almost slip this one by somebody and they might not notice til it really gets going.

Christmas Time Is Here by Steve Vai from the album

White Christmas by Zakk Wylde from the album Merry Axemas, Volume 2

Ok, this is so not metal.  But there’s no disputing Zakk’s metal pedigree.  I mean, come on, just look at how he spells his name. That’s got 80’s metal dude written all over it.  But besides that, he’s an awesome guitarist, particularly when he sets down the bulleye Les Pauls and picks up an acoustic like on this track.

Jingle Bells by Korn from the album The Essential Korn

Now we’re taking the piss out of a song, boys and girls!  It’s good to hear Korn lay off the “poor me” bit for awhile and have some fun butchering a Christmas classic.

12 Days of Metal by Roger Beaujard

I totally don’t know who this dude is, but I love this version of the song. Particularly how he hurries through the last 4 days of the countdown. Because nobody likes that part anyway.  You know it’s true.

Buried By Christmas by Wednesday 13 from the album Transylvania 90210

There’s a surprising lack of original Christmas music by metal bands, but this is a great example.  Killer guitar riff and it makes you want to bang your head right into your Christmas goose.

X-M@$ by Corey Taylor from the single X-M@$

Corey Taylor from Slipknot puts a cowpunk spin on the holiday season and expresses a lot of the same thoughts I think a lot of us have.  Favorite lyric: “Fa la la la la go fuck yourself.”

 That ought to give you enough ammo to scare off any potential carolers at your door.  But allow me to give you a little more.  Check these out…