The musico-cultural integration process of David Fosberg on Death Metal Epic novels

David Fosberg – a young American bookseller based in Miami USA and an avid metal head – has a dream: to become a successful metal musician. After having “signed” a blood contract, he has a unique opportunity to go on a short European tour with the experimental death metal band Valhalla. Once in Europe, he experiences a lot of challenges and misfortunes while trying to accomplish the Eurometal dream. Hence, this article analyzes David’s new life in Gent, Belgium during the early 1990s, which involves both learning a new language -Dutch- and adapting himself to a different musical style: black metal. The novels used for such analyzes are the three Death Metal Epic novels: The Inverted Katabasis, Goat Song Sacrifice, and Sinister Synthesizer written by American novelist and metal music researcher Dean Swinford. This article emphasizes that such musico-cultural integration is both challenging and rewarding in terms of understanding different musico-cultural settings.