Well... wether or not you grow out of metal depends on what you're really looking for in music and in life; if you're happy sticking to just one genre, then fine. No offense, I'm a metalhead myself, but I never supported it as "the only way of good music", or even the dreaded "trveness" of some ignorant shitheads. Music is about feelings, emotions, stories and rebellion, about freedom and imagination, but not about finding the holy grail of music that appeals to everyone. So I often don't understand the urge of fanatic metalheads to convert everyone they encounter to the glory realms of (heavy) metal. It's a personal thing.
That being said, I think I'm not grown out of metal, but out of our subculture. I hate to say it, but like in every other subculture, the half of it are total idiots. And the whole metalcore - movement makes things even worse. As you mentioned the moshpits - I liked them when I was younger, for the same reasons as you did. I always respected the hidden "codex", so when anyone was falling down, I helped him up. This year at RockHarz festival in Germany someone lost his glasses (or maybe earplugs, i guess) while Kreator were playing, and we formed a circle aorund him against the moshpit to help him.
But the mosh itself were brutal and respectless, and I partially blame the metalcore teenies for this. It's not okay, jumping around, kicking and punching everyone in sight in the faces. At Darkness over X-Mas in Hamburg in december last year, I got the knee of 15 - year old crowdsurfer in the face, because he stupidly jumped from the stage into the crowd during the gig of Dark Tranquillity. My nose bleeded as it never bleeded before, and I remember how moshpits were a little less dangerous just a few years ago.
Okay, but that's maybe beside the point and yeah, I still love metal to the death, but I'm a bit emberassed to be put into the same scene like those morons. And that's sad, because it should be all about the music, not about genres, T -Shirts, ideologies etc. And if you're saying that there's just one true way of metal like almost half of the metal world, than you're nothing better than any religious leader on this planet.
Well... I started with german punk in my early teenager days, then made my first contact with Subway to Sally, a german medieval - metal/goth band. Than, my emo - phase with Linkin Barf and AFI began, interrupted by short outbreaks of the Offspring/BadReligion/Green Day - virus. Then, finally, I arrived at metal. First with stuff like Finntroll, fueled by my interest for fantasy and the medieval ages, then i discovered In Flames (when they still did melodic death) and soon "The Jester Race" and "Reroute to Remain" became my favourite albums. At the same time, I learned to know Children of Bodom and Nightwish, and they all together formed my "starting trio". From there I expaneded my knowledge about metal, through Iron Maiden, Equilibrium, and a short period of Darkthrone, then finally got to the classics in the last two years. I have to admit, I'm a bit more focused on the european metal scene; I never really got into Slayer, sorry, because I found Kreator and in common the german Thrash movement (Sodom, Destruction...) much more interesting because I found them more... rough, in terms of overall sound. Then the skandinavian ones, like Immortal, Dark Tranquillity, Hypocrisy, Arch Enemy and of course, Therion. Back to germany with Rage, and SuidAkra, to Holland with Epica. Then there came the big flood of medieval/pagan/folk - metal bands over europe, which I refused to follow. I looked out for more Synths and less bagpipes, the result (strangely) was Dream Theater. Last year, I found out about Behemoth and Shrinebuilder. And this year about Ayreon and Nile. Classics? Motörhead and Megadeth.
Oh, and Yesterday, Star One. Pure awesomness.
You see? You don't outgrow metal, if you live it and love it. And even if the scene is becoming more and more balls, and besides, why is it so important what non - metalheads think of us? Like a shirt from Die Apokalyptischen Reiter (german for the riders of the apocalypse) says that I own, metal will never die. Because of People like you and me.
Sorry for the long post.
