I’m no music expert, by any means. I’m not in a band, in the music industry or even in sales. But I do listen to a lot of metal, own an mp3 player and have a website, so that pretty much guarantees that I’m like an expert.

I can’t help but notice that a trend has developed over the past few years with modern metal bands and especially guitar players these days. So, with the help of the internet, I’ve compiled a handy list of things to avoid when starting a metal band. Stay away from the items in this list and you will surely be on the road to metal success.

Number 1: Your main influence is listed as Meshuggah.

Yes, Meshuggah are bad-ass. Yes, you’re good at guitar and your drummer can count to infinity. However, there are already too many bands that list Meshuggah as an influence. Think of another popular band to use as your main influence that might work better, like Slayer.

Number 2: You sound like Meshuggah.

You have an 8-string guitar and a vocalist that yells a lot, and you love writing songs that are either 53 seconds or 12 minutes in length. Time to change it up a bit.

Number 3: It’s impossible to count how many times you play something because it sounds like MESHUGGAH.

I can’t stress this point enough. Most folks have a 2-3 Meshuggah song tolerance, max. Which means your amateur Meshuggah inspired song writing is going to be even less tolerable. If I’ve lost count after the first 10 seconds of the song, then there’s no hope for me trying to bang my head, let alone tap my foot.

Number 4: You have those weeee-oooo-wahhhhhh creepy guitar melody thingies that Meshuggah have.

You know what I’m talking about. Pick any bridge of a Meshuggah song, or the entire Catch-33 album for that matter. The guitar kind of sounds like a guitar, but maybe it could be a cat. Hey, I’m all for experimentation, but since Meshuggah use it in every song, it’s not really considered “experimentation” anymore.

Number 5: The word DJENT is listed somewhere on your myspace page.

Whoever coined this phrase is a genius. It instantly tells people “this band sounds just like Meshuggah!” What is DJENT? Technically it’s just the way the guitar sounds and is played, but really, it’s so much more. The counting, the tone, the everything.

And that’s it for this week’s Metal Survival Tips! Stay tuned next week for more ways to survive in this crazy, fucked-up metal world!