HM (magazine) - History

History

In 1985, Doug Van Pelt started Heaven's Metal as a fanzine. The classified ad Van Pelt's friend placed in Kerrang! happened to be in the British rock magazine's 100th issue—an issue with 100,000 extra copies. This affected on the number of people ordering subscriptions. During that time many Christian record labels became interested in Christian metal, and they advertised the newly signed metal bands on their roster on Heaven's Metal since it was the only publication exclusively covering the movement. Soon Heaven's Metal achieved more popularity and became an official, professional publication, with five full-time journalists working for the magazine. Heaven's Metal achieved a regular flock of 15,000 readers.

The name was changed to HM Magazine in 1995, where the HM can also represent "Hard Music". Despite name and format changes over its history, the magazine's spiritual focus remains identifiably Christian, as it follows both the Christian rock and the Christian metal movement. Bands' sales usually rose when the ensembles were covered on the magazine. For example, during the mid-1990s, HM was the only magazine that covered P.O.D. The band's label appreciated HM for this and eventually Atlantic Records bestowed upon Van Pelt the gold P.O.D. plaque. Gold records are given to industry figures that impact sales. During the 1990s, HM sealed a distribution deal with a major magazine wholesaler that immediately increased its print-run from 13,000 to 22,000 copies and allowed Van Pelt and his co-workers to double ad rates, making HM a stable business enterprise.

Two specific articles greatly bolstered HM's popularity. The first was the band King's X's vocalist Doug Pinnick revealing his homosexuality. The second was Alice Cooper's interview in 2002 when he, for the first time in public, admitted being a Christian, though he had avoided becoming a "Celebrity Christian," since other news portals in the world quickly noted this interview.

On October 2004, Van Pelt brought back the Heaven's Metal name by starting a new fanzine under that title. Christianity and hard music are also themes of this venture, but produced in a smaller, less formal format. The Heaven's Metal fanzine also focuses on the more traditional styles of heavy metal and bands that are not as mainstream as those featured in the HM Magazine. The Heaven's Metal fanzine is released between issues of the primary HM Magazine.

HM has expanded to include acts other than those that would fit into the hard rock or metal category. It is not unusual to find an article on a softer rock band like Deas Vail or a synthpop group like Owl City.

Van Pelt currently remains the editor and publisher of both the HM Magazine and Heaven's Metal Fanzine.

In an attempt to get out of debt, HM has launched a "Save HM Magazine campaign" through their website to raise funds in order to continue printing the publication. As a thanks to donors, they are offering a collection of songs available for download. After more than 26 years of publishing as a print magazine, with simultaneous digital editions starting to run in May 2007, the publication went exclusively digital starting with the December 2011 Issue #151 and changed to a monthly format. The digital editions are password-protected.