HM Magazine is a monthly, digital and print on demand publication focusing on hard music and alternative culture of interest to Christians. It is headquartered in Houston, Texas.[1] 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."[2]
In 1985, Doug Van Pelt started Heaven's Metal as a fanzine. It was Van Pelt's friend who would later place a classified ad in the 100th issue of Kerrang!, a British magazine focused on covering rock musicians and bands. During that time, Christian metal as a genre began to gain more attention, with Heaven's Metal profiting from this as the only publication exclusively covering that genre.[citation needed] Soon, Heaven's Metal achieved more popularity and became an official publication, with five full-time journalists working for the magazine. Around this time, Heaven's Metal achieved a regular subscription base of 15,000 readers.[3]
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.[3] Later, it would be two specific articles that would cement HM's mainstream popularity: the first was the band King's X's vocalist Doug Pinnick using an interview with HM to talk about his sexuality, and the second being Alice Cooper's interview in 2002 about his spiritual beliefs.[3]
In February 2013, Van Pelt sold the magazine to current editor David Stagg under undisclosed terms.[4]
