In a report destined to be clipped and passed around by the concerned parents of 1982, medical journal The Lancet has published a study warning that headbanging to Motörhead has the potential to make your brain bleed. The article’s findings are based on the case of some punk 50-year-old kid who complained to German doctors at the Hannover Medical School of constant headaches, which he said had developed after he’d attended a Motörhead concert earlier that month. With no history of head injuries or substance abuse problems to further account for his pain—and with a CT scan revealing a chronic subdural haemotoma on the right side of his brain—the doctors came to the conclusion that his self-admitted “years” headbanging was the cause. They also concluded that, in their professional opinion, Motörhead kicks ass.
“Headbanging, with its brisk forward and backward acceleration and deceleration forces, led to rupturing of bridging veins causing haemorrhage,” the doctors wrote in their report, before ascribing their findings to a much larger hypothesis. “[This case] serves as evidence in support of Motörhead’s reputation as one of the most hardcore rock ’n’ roll acts on earth, if nothing else because of their contagious speed drive and the hazardous potential for headbanging fans to suffer brain injury,” they wrote, because sometimes being a doctor gets really dull.
With that in mind, the doctors ultimately cured their patient’s brain bleed by drilling a hole into his skull, documenting the procedure in a way that stops just short of pointing out where the guitar solo should go whenever Lemmy makes this into a song. In a follow-up interview with the Associated Press, they also provided the study with an appendix on why they’re totally cool.
“We are not against headbanging,” Dr. Ariyan Pirayesh Islamian said. “The risk of injury is very, very low. But I think if he had (gone) to a classical concert, this would not have happened.” Still, Islamian concluded, in words he actually said, “Rock ‘n’ roll will never die. Heavy metal fans should rock on.”
Islamian then sighed and returned to someone’s boring brain cancer.