“Furious? That’s putting it mildly. I was counting how many people I was going to have to kill”: Randy Holden’s 1970 album pioneered doom metal. But he was never told it had been released

Randy Holden.

In the the ‘60s, Randy Holden gained a reputation for being a louder-than-loud player who could make the likes of Pete Townsend and Jimmy Page quiver at the knees. But he was jumping from band to band, guided by a free-spirited nature and sounds swirling around his mind that he couldn’t describe.

“I was hearing this sound all over the place,” Holden says. “I thought, ‘Is this Hell’s bells or something?’” As it turned out, his hypersensitivity meant he was picking up hums from everyday appliances, which influenced his vision.