Doug Van Pelt

HM Magazine

HM Magazine, Issue #117, January/February 2006
Editor	David Stagg
Categories	Christian metal
Frequency	Monthly
Founder	Doug Van Pelt
First issue	Summer 1985
Final issue	2011 (print)
Company	HM Publications LLC
Country	United States
Language	American English
Website	hmmagazine.com
ISSN	1066-6923

HM Magazine is a monthly, digital and print on demand publication focusing on hard music and alternative culture of interest to Christians. The magazine states that its goal is to "honestly and accurately cover the current state of hard music and alternative culture from a faith-based perspective." It is known for being one of the first magazines dedicated to covering Christian metal. The magazine's content includes features; news; album, live show and book reviews, culture coverage and columns. HM's occasional "So and So Says" feature is known for getting into artists' deeper thoughts on Jesus Christ, spirituality, politics and other controversial topics.

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 the number of people ordering subscriptions. During that time, many Christian record labels became interested in Christian metal, and they started to advertise newly signed metal bands on in 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 subscription base of 15,000 readers.

The name was changed to HM Magazine in 1995, where HM stood "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 in 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 it 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.