Dan Rubin

Dan Rubin — American musician — works in the metal and heavy rock circuit of the United States. American metal has a trait distinguishing it from smaller national scenes: its geographic scale. A continental country produces regional scenes with identities of their own — Bay Area thrash, Florida death metal, northeastern metalcore, southern sludge — and musicians often work within one of those regional circuits, with local audiences and infrastructure. That has practical consequences. A band can maintain constant professional activity without ever reaching national visibility, sustained by a circuit of venues, smaller festivals and a loyal audience within a specific area. It is a different model from the European one, where the festival circuit tends to be continental and a mid-sized band can play in ten countries in a single summer. In the United States the distance between scenes is great enough for entire careers to unfold within a single region.