However, most articles I seem to be finding claim that the term 'heavy metal' was born before the use of 'metal' on its own became common.

It is believed by some that Metal got it's name from a quote from (Van Halen?) while he was describing his guitar sounds as something along the lines of "Heavy metals falling from the sky" However, the sub-genre known as "Heavy Metal" didn't appear in the mainstream until at least 5 years later.

Didn't say that! It's derived from it. and I never heard of heavy rock either, but I saw it on wikipedia.

Lol, dude, if you're just looking shit up on wikipedia, instead of listining to the actual music, maybe it's best to keep your mouth shut, eh?

And, yeah, Norm, I can agree that it's a possibilty. I haven't spent huge amounts of time researching it, I just know what I've listened to, and the sounds and styles of the bands I listen to, plus their influences. Everything that I've said has been an opinion based on what I've heard from various bands and what I've read in album booklets. In other words, if what I've said about the roots of music is wrong, I'm not suprised, and I'm also completely open to where metal came from (Well, except the places it obviously wasn't from >.>)

I used Wikipedia for that word, zats it.

Wikipedia doesn't listen to Metal. It wouldn't know of the important things.

Metal is a form of Rock but I feel that Metal is a bit different (the fans, the speed, etc.)