These days, Demi Lovato is one of pop music’s most recognizable faces.

The former Disney star and singer had a significant career reinvigoration with the release of 2015’s “Cool for the Summer,” and has since become a vocal proponent for body positivity, sex positivity, and the belief that humanity is living in the aftermath of an ancient war between giants and ‘reptilian’ lizard people (for the record, the ‘reptilian’ conspiracy is one shared by High on Fire’s Matt Pike).

But while Demi may be widely known as a public figure these days, we know them as something very different: a diehard metalhead!

In a 2008 MTV interview, Lovato listed Richmond groove master Lamb of God, Arizona face-breakers Job For A Cowboy and black metallers Abigail Williams, and icy Norsemen Dimmu Borgir as some of their favorite bands.

“It’s so completely different from anything else,” Lovato has said of their love of metal. “You’ve got vocals that I can’t do, the double bass drums, the incredible guitar solos … every part of the band does more difficult stuff than your average rock band does. I listen to these bands, and I wish I could do all of that, but I can’t.”

What kicked off Demi’s love of metal? As reported by AP, the singer got in a mosh pit at an Unearth and Dimmu Borgir show when they were 14, and the rest, as they say, was history.

“I was in the middle of the crowd. In the middle of the mosh, actually,” said the singer. “I was only 14 and I was a tiny little thing. I was in the middle of the mosh and there were these grown-ass men headbanging and I was living. But then I got claustrophobic and a little scared so I crowd-surfed to the front.

“I loved moshing because you could just get your aggression out and nobody cares.”

And Demi still hasn’t chilled out. As late as 2019, the pop star posted footage to their Instagram of them rocking out in their car to bands including North Carolina’s He Is Legend, Bring Me the Horizon, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and The Devil Wears Prada.