Posted on 11/01/2004 7:18:25 AM PST by gobucks
Adam Gadahn was just another Riverside County devotee of death metal, but then he turned up on an FBI terror list
If the radical right wanted to paint a portrait of a terrorist, they couldn’t do much better than Yahiye Adam Gadahn. In fact, the FBI’s announcement last May that it was actively seeking Gadahn for questioning regarding his possible ties to Al Qaeda energized conservatives in ways they could not have imagined – helping to not only whip up fears of Islamic radicalism but also to fuel the deepening “culture war.” The 25-year-old former Orange County resident had a hippie upbringing, a short-but-fanatical devotion to death metal, converted to Islam, and spent two days in jail for attacking a member of his mosque. This story had it all.
Following the FBI’s revelation, Gadahn’s mosque, the Islamic Society of Orange County, and its religious director Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, issued a statement saying how “deeply shocked” they were that one of their members had shown up on an FBI terror list. Clearly concerned about retaliation, the mosque begged for restraint. “We certainly hope and pray that … this most recent rise in threat level will pass without incident.”
Within a day, an essay titled “Becoming Muslim,” apparently written by Gadahn in 1995 and originally posted to a USC website, was circulating on the Internet. In it, Gadahn details a preposterous journey, from an unconventional childhood as the son of hippie parents who raised him on a goat farm without electricity or indoor plumbing, to a short (it appears only one year) but fitful fascination with death metal music, to his subsequent conversion to Islam. “Having been around Muslims in my formative years,” he writes, “I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be.”
With it’s Satanic, anti-Christian overtones and penchant for referencing gore and nihilism, the death metal connection proved irresistible to the media across the spectrum from conservative to progressive. A spoof on pittsburglive.com by Tribune Review columnist Eric Heyl poked fun at the right-wing notion that kids who are into death metal are on a short track to Al Qaeda. The first line of his piece read: “If only he hadn’t cranked up the Ozzy Osbourne.”
A lot of hypersensitive metal fans didn’t get the joke. “The column thus far has inspired nearly 700 vitriolic e-mails,” Heyl wrote in a subsequent article titled, “Listen, all you metalheads: It was just a joke!”
In the Simi Valley offices of Metal Blade Records, where people did get the joke, everybody just shrugged. “Why would someone like that get into death metal and then become a religious fanatic?” wondered Metal Blade head publicist Kelli Malella. Metal Blade has handled death metal bands such as Cannibal Corpse since the early ’90s, when their theatrics and baroque affection for blood and body parts were a strictly underground taste. According to Jon Konrath, publisher of the now-defunct death metal ’zine Xenocide, and who knew Gadahn in ’93, he was a fan of Cannibal Corpse and “just the usual, run-of-the-mill death metal bands.”
Malella says, “They try to blame death metal bands for murders [and] suicides. Fact is, people don’t listen to a band and then go out on a killing spree. If they do, they probably have some serious mental problems. To most fans, it’s fiction, like a horror movie, and they don’t take it seriously.”
On the left, conspiracy theorists – no less energized than their right-wing counterparts – got busy, too. They thought it strange, they said, as if the government stitched the story together from scratch. Some kid who never before posted to the Internet drops a deeply personal revelation onto a USC website, a diatribe that is chock full of anti-government, anti-Christian sentiments, and then pretty much disappears from cyberspace. A person doesn’t just post his entire life story on the Web and never post again, they say. You’d think someone like that would have been on the Web all the time; at least you could find him on Islamic faith newsgroups, chatting about the Qur’an.
But Gadahn’s online presence is scant. Since stuff tends to hang around in cyberspace forever, it does raise questions that, other than “Becoming Muslim,” and a few news articles he’s appeared to have edited about jihad, why is Gadahn nowhere to be found?
There are other odd occurrences about “Becoming Muslim,” such as Gadahn’s statements that the U.S. government considered Muslims to be “bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists.” This is a mostly inaccurate conclusion to have drawn in 1995; though anti-Muslim sentiments in America rose after 9/11, the U.S. government had not previously taken such a hard-line position.
Meanwhile, people who spend a lot of time around the Southern California metal scene are still trying to figure out who this guy was and if they’d ever run into him in a club. Only two former metalheads, Konrath and Chris Blanc, have come forward to say they actually met Gadahn during his “metal years,” and both only interacted with him in letters and by phone. Gadahn contacted Konrath in ’93 and contributed album reviews and drawings to Xenocide. He contacted Blanc that same year and contributed flyer artwork for Blanc’s radio show.
“I find that so strange, that a kid who was a fan of this never went to any live shows,” Malella wonders, “because that’s what the underground scene is about. It’s not like being a fan of Britney Spears. One of the cool things about metal is that you can go to a show for 10 bucks. These bands are always touring; Cannibal Corpse was out there around that time. And in Southern California, every show comes through.”
† Mindcrimes †
Adam Gadahn was born Adam Pearlman in Orange County. His father, acclaimed ’60s underground psychedelic musician Phil Pearlman, was the one who chose the name Gadahn. Phil Pearlman founded the West Coast group Beat of the Earth, a band often compared by critics to their East Coast counterpart, the Velvet Underground.
Though this part of the story might have caused a few in middle America to pause, Californians are accustomed to living with leftover ’60s culture, from the Heal the Bay movement to the Krishna festivals on Venice Beach. So it’s not strange that a gifted ’60s counterculture hero, the son of a Jewish urologist and a Christian housewife, would change his name to Gadahn shortly after getting married because (according to a former band mate) they wanted a name that “meant nothing.” Also not strange was that they moved to a farm in rural Riverside County and took up the profession of raising and “humanely” slaughtering goats for market. Equally not strange is that Adam and his siblings were home-schooled and raised without running water and electricity. Eccentric, West Coast, out there in “la la land,” but not strange.
At around age 15, Adam moved out, changed his name back to Pearlman, and stayed with his grandparents in Santa Ana, presumably – among other things – to watch television and not have to shower out in the woods in the dark. What kid wouldn’t? He then became so obsessed by death metal that, as he writes in “Becoming Muslim,” he “didn’t clean his room” for a year.
According to his sister, Los Angeles environmentalist Nancy Pearlman, their father was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War. She told CNN, “Our family are strong believers in non-violence. We are strong believers in peace.”
The little available evidence supports this. If you go online to the Lama Workshop at lysergia.com, a source for all things folksy, retro, and psychedelic, you can read at length about Beat of the Earth. In an interview, former band member Karen Darby recalls her brief reunion with Pearlman in 1994, around the re-release of the band’s Relatively Clean Rivers album. (It’s one of those ’60s albums: two songs, one per side, each seemingly about 60 minutes long.)
“He had married a wonderful woman who was totally supportive and involved in his choice of lifestyle … .The Ranch had NO electricity, they also used a well for water. He was raising goats, which according to him he slaughtered personally and humanely whenever preparing them for market … . For some reason I had a hard time envisioning Phil killing anything. One of the funnier situations he described about his family situation was his utter disgust with his in-laws for giving his kids a battery-operated television. He said he was having to act as the TV police, trying to limit the ways in which television might damage his children permanently.”
† Here Comes That Weird Chill †
For its part, the FBI is not much interested in Adam Gadahn’s past musical life. “We aren’t targeting him for listening to death metal. The FBI isn’t interested in individuals who are expressing their views,” says FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller. “When those views turn into criminal activities, that’s when we become interested.”
Eimiller cautions that, despite information on the FBI website that Gadahn “may be armed and should be considered dangerous,” he has not been charged with any crimes. “We have questions about his activities based on the intelligence we’ve received. We receive intelligence from various sources, a multitude of sources, prisoners at Guantanamo, electronic sources. He is wanted for questioning and the investigation is ongoing.”
It’s also a stretch to suggest that Gadahn was motivated to train with Al Qaeda, if in fact he did, because of an early fascination with metal. His connection to the metal scene couldn’t have been that extensive if only two people have come forward to say they even knew him. So far, the FBI has only contacted and interviewed Konrath.
Konrath was at the University of Indiana in 1993, and working on Xenocide, when he says he met Gadahn through e-mail. “We never talked on the phone. He wrote some stuff. He seemed pretty decent and a creative guy. I didn’t do anything to change his copy. He did some drawings, too, just scribbled stuff.’
Gadahn’s tastes, Konrath says, were typical: “Death metal, gore metal, just stupid underground, but not in a bad way. He was into Judas Priest and Cannibal Corpse. He wasn’t into anything bizarre.”
Gadahn’s album reviews and art appeared in Xenocide issue five. “A few years later, in the fall of ’95, I got a few e-mails from him,” Konrath recalls. “This was pretty much around the time he was getting serious about Islam. He wrote that he’d gotten into some trouble in the mosque, but otherwise we never talked about religion or anything like that at all. By 1995, he wasn’t Adam, anymore. He was Yahiye Gadahn.” (Gadahn’s articles for Xenocide are online at www.rumored.com/xenocide/.)
Konrath now lives in New York and completed his second book in 2002, Rumored to Exist. He says it took a minute to remember Gadahn. “I got home from work and there was a message from a reporter. I thought, Who do I know? While it wasn’t a huge shock, it was still a shock. Once the FBI called, I realized it was kind of scary.”
Konrath notes that this doesn’t fit the profile for metalheads. “Most people who are into metal don’t go into Islam; they become Bible-bangers. So that seemed kind of strange. I didn’t think heavy metal caused jihad, or anything like that. So it must have been a family thing. The only reaction that anybody in the metal community would have to [becoming a Muslim] would be racism. We wouldn’t have known the difference between being a Muslim and a Buddhist.”
The thing Chris Blanc remembers most about Gadahn was that he was “seeking something.” Like Konrath, Blanc met Gadahn in the early ’90s. Blanc had a radio show and Gadahn helped out by offering music programming selections and creating flyers for the show. “I think he did have some identity issues. You didn’t get into death metal in that era unless you were rejecting modern society,” Blanc says. “There were people who intellectualized it and he was one.”
Blanc graduated from Pomona College and was actively involved in computer technology. He currently runs a computer-consulting firm in his hometown of Houston, Texas. But while Konrath remembers communicating with Gadahn by e-mail, Blanc has no such recollection. “He was not as Internet-friendly when I met him. I communicated with him only by phones and letters. He was a letter writer. Before the Internet you had to write letters worldwide, and I think he did that, but my impression was that he wasn’t too found of the computer.”
While Blanc admits “seeing Adam on that FBI list was alarming,” he considers the possibility that the FBI is wrong about him. “I don’t see Adam as an armed terrorist. He didn’t have a violent inclination.” Blanc worries about the FBI hunting for someone he remembers as a “good, sincere kid.”
“If I saw him listed as a translator for Al Qaeda, I could believe that,” Blanc reasons. “Adam was a born communicator and could relate to others. I see him channeling his aggressions through something artistic, much more than becoming a combatant. “He wasn’t a foaming-at-the-mouth type, which there are plenty of in metal. People forget that this was a nice guy.”
We need more Kenny G.
PLEASE NO.
Hmm...I used to listen to death metal but except for the occasional homicidal rages it hasn't affected me a bit. These days I stick to Mozart and occasionally decapitating small mammals...
Sorry. I meant "aunt." I had been reading about his father. Strange, indeed.
I put some stuff about her on the other thread last night.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1261878/posts
I think that this is his aunt.
========================================================
Los Angeles Community College District
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
NANCY PEARLMAN
Nancy Pearlman is an award-winning broadcaster, environmentalist, college instructor, anthropologist, editor, producer, on-air personality, and outdoorswoman who has made safeguarding the earth’s ecosystems both a vocation and an avocation. For thirty-three years, she has given her time and energy to the environmental cause. She was selected by the United Nations Environment Programme as a Global 500 Laureate and has received many other honors.
Since the 1970s when Nancy coordinated the first Earth Day in Southern California, she has worked with hundreds of conservation organizations, serving as administrator, founder, member of advisory councils, participant, and member of boards of directors. She founded the Ecology Center of Southern California in 1972 and Project Ecotourism in 1993.
Environmental Directions, her international weekly radio series, was started in 1977 and is now the longest-running environmental radio series in the country. These half-hour programs with one to three interviews per show have featured leading scientists, activists, and representatives from the business, academic, government, and nonprofit sectors.
As Executive Producer and Host of the three-time EMMY-nominated environmental television series ECONEWS, Nancy covers every ecological issue. Since 1984, she has presented her programs weekly to over 35 million homes via cable and broadcast television and over the Internet. Over 500 shows have aired on local origination, public access, governmental, school, and university channels, as well as on satellite to PBS Stations. Television specials that have won awards include “Gem in the Heart of the City” (the definitive piece on the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area), “A Focus on Environmental Education-Kimbark Elementary School,” “Wind: Energy for the 90s and Beyond,” and “Population Crisis USA.” Television show honors include ACE-nominations (Award for Cable Excellence), Hometown USA Video Festival, and Diamond Awards. There has been recognition at many film festivals. Nancy’s public service announcements have won numerous Buccaneer Awards from the Public Interest Radio and Television Educational Society. Recent all-on-location ecotourism specials include India, Nepal, Fiji, Kenya, Tanzania, Malaysia’s Borneo, Mexico’s Yucatan, St. Kitts and Nevis, Canada's Vancouver Island, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.
As Executive Director to Educational Communications, Nancy edits the bi-monthly Compendium Newsletter and the yearly “Directory of Environmental Organizations” (now in its 28th edition). She is also president of a media consulting firm which creates audio-visual materials. She has taught Cultural and Physical Anthropology, Broadcasting, Journalism, and Mass Communications at the college level. Nancy is a blue-ribbon judge for the Chevron Texaco Conservation Awards.
Nancy Pearlman is a member of the Gypsy Folk Ensemble. Her athletic achievements include completing the Western States 100-mile run, finishing the Ironman Triathlon, climbing more than 100 listed peaks in California, winning long-distance races such as the 1980 Regional Championship 50-mile race, and performing in equestrian events.
70 posted on 10/31/2004 10:04:51 PM PST by Rockpile
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To: Rockpile
Looks like Nancy Pearlman is a 1966 alumnus of the Verde Valley School of Sedona, Arizona. Appears that the school was established by Harvard products named Warren whose goal is to change the world though cultural diversity.
Perhaps Gadahn's aunt helped to send him down his currently diversive path.
71 posted on 10/31/2004 10:20:11 PM PST by Rockpile
I just saw on ABC News, that Adam Gadahn was raised by a hippy father. Not surprising.
"I just saw on ABC News, that Adam Gadahn was raised by a hippy father. Not surprising."
What was the report, Good Morning America? I am not pleased to see Adam is in the news again...
>I am not pleased to see Adam is in the news again...
He's baaaaccckkk!
I noticed...
What is amazing is how quiet he's been up to now.... it's been almost 2 yrs...
Thanks very much for all of your info, very interesting. Followers of trends in social sickness may be interested in knowing that original vinyl albums from The Beat Of The Earth are currently being listed on eBay for $600.00 - $800.00....whether anybody is paying that sort of money for awful noise, the only unique aspect of it being that it was done by the hippie father of a terrorist and a traitor, remains to be seen.
Thanks again for starting this great thread...I hope that it will get far more exposure than it has up to this point.
"hippie parents who raised him on a goat farm without electricity or indoor plumbing"
He could use this very line and get of in an American court. Wasn't his fault, he's a victim of his environment.
You are welcome...
Good backgrounder. I just posted the link to it in a thread about Mr. Pearlman’s latest video performance.
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