ABSTRACT
Barry had long, curly, nicely groomed black hair. His features were dark; during the interview he said he was mainly of Peruvian and Italian ancestry, with some Irish and Polish as well. He had a muscular build, which was accented by the sleeveless black shirt he was wearing. It looked like he had not shaved in a while; there was maybe a week's worth of growth to his beard, all of it jet black. By "downers," he explained, he meant alcohol and marijuana; the "upper" he used was cocaine. He seemed to recognize that he had a problem controlling his substance use, although he did not see himself as being dependent on drugs. He saw heavy metal songs as expressions of his own views on the desirability of living a highly individualized life. The heavy metal songs reinforced and legitimized his resistance to the pressure he felt from others to comply with social conventions.
