Turkish Metal: Contesting Islamic Concepts of Morality “I got no problem with religion or religious people. My problem is they got a problem with me,” my counterpart with the long, blond dyed hair so aptly summed up. With his tattooed arms and the “pilot shades” on his head, he could be easily considered as the Turkish incarnation of American glam rock star Bret Michaels, who had just dropped by to have a couple of beers before hitting on the beautiful young women in the bar where we were doing the interview. In the eyes of the Turkish public, the appearance and behavior of Turkish rockers and metalheads—with their long hair, black clothes, tattoos, earrings and piercings, and their love for Turkish rak? and beer—are still often labeled as deviant and contradictory to prevalent concepts of morality and religion. The paper will look at Turkish heavy metal from a perspective of resistance and power, thereby addressing contemporary discourses on secularism and Islamism in Turkish society. Islamic actors, who, for a long time, have found themselves in a marginalized position resisting the laicist doctrines of the Kemalist state, are blaming Turkish rockers and metalheads for their supposedly loose morals and disrespect to Islamic traditions. Today, however, political Islam no longer represents an oppositional counterpublic, but with the electoral victory of the Muslim conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), has taken the dominant power position in state and society. Turkish metalheads todaysee themselves in a marginalized position, in which they resist the dominance of Islamic revivalism. The conservative government’s Islamization policies are usually seen as evidence for its intentions to subvert the secularist principles of the Turkish state. Consequently, many Turkish metalheads openly speak of their fears of Turkey “becoming Iran” and losing their individual freedoms to the orthodox interpretations of political Islam. The paper aims to explore how particular cultural practices associated with heavy metal are contesting Islamic concepts of morality in Turkish society. After a briefly introducing the history of Turkish heavy metal and providing an insight into the Islamization policies of the present government, it examines the public discourse on heavy metal, shedding light on the different forms of moral subversiveness ascribed to it by the Turkish media. Finally, it investigates how heavy metal culture is contesting Islamic morality in everyday life. In this respect, the presentation will refer to aspects of gender, religion, and anti-Christian blasphemy in a Muslim context.