Head Bangers Love Kittens, Too

 
If heavy metal music doesn't conjure up visions of playful puppies and fluffy bunnies, maybe it should. These metalheads are proving that nothing rocks like being kind to animals:

• One of the "hottest women in metal"  is also one of the most compassionate. Alissa White-Gluz, who sings in band The Agonist, says that as a vegan and a Canadian, she is "so ashamed to be even be remotely associated with" her country's annual seal slaughter.
• The "Vegan Black Metal Chef" can cube tofu with the same finesse as he can smash a guitar. His fun cooking lessons double as a concert. Are you ready to hear a chef scream that you need "TAMARIND SOOOOOUP"?
• Jackson Galaxy screams to audiences at night, but he whispers to cats all day. The "cat listener" visits homes, shelters, and rescue groups to help people understand cattitudes and how to work with them. Watch for him on the new show My Cat From Hell on Animal Planet.
• In other crazy cat-guy news, when he's not playing death metal, Donald Tardy, the drummer for Tampa Bay band Obituary, spends hours and thousands of dollars caring for stray and feral cats. "To think a cat could be out there, hungry, suffering, it eats you up inside," he said. "I can't live with my mind at peace knowing that."
• Drummer Rikki Rockett knows it's much more fun to rock out with drumsticks than to eat them. He played some sick beats with Poison, but he was sickened by the fact that animals are poisoned in laboratories and tortured on factory farms. Now the Rockett man speaks out about animal abuse and the benefits of a vegan diet everywhere he goes.
   

Written by Michelle Sherrow