Metal Band Mascot

Surprisingly, Eddie is neither Iron^note except maybe partially on the cover of Somewhere in Time nor a Maiden.
Photographed by by Rob33703 and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

For some reason, Heavy Metal bands often have a mascot character that appears on their album covers, posters, T-shirts, and other forms of merchandise. The mascot is usually scary-looking but often has an everyday or even silly-sounding name, tying in with the tongue-in-cheek attitude present in even creating such a character.

This trope seems to apply mainly to hard rock and heavy metal (and sometimes punk as well), with band mascots virtually unknown in other genres of music.

A music-specific, non-talking counterpart to the Horror Host in its promotional role and attitude.

Examples:

• Aborted has The Doctor.
• Alestorm has two. An undead pirate and an undead rat. According to Christopher Bowes, they're called Jimmy McFucknugget and Barry Shitpeas respectively.
• Anthrax had the Not Man.
• Arsis has the demon that appears on the covers of their full-lengths.
• Avenged Sevenfold has the Deathbat.
• Black Label Society has a nameless skull that appears on all of their album covers (often nicknamed "Skully").
• Black Sabbath's Henry the Fallen Angel/Ascended Demon, one of the earliest examples.
• Black Veil Brides has Legion, the humanoid creature on the cover of their fourth album.
• Blind Guardian has the eponymous Guardian, a dark-robed figure.
• Bloodbound has Nosferatu, a strange creature that looks like a cross between a giant goblin and a vampire. Possibly a nod to the movie.
• Children of Bodom has none other than the Grim Reaper, usually in different colored robes depending on the album. Word of God says his name is Roy. The Grim Reaper is also used by Grave Digger, Artillery and Grim Reaper.
• Cryptopsy has the unnamed dragon/gargoyle that was originally on the cover of Whisper Supremacy.
• Dangerous Toys had Bill Z. Bubb, an eighties-coiffed Monster Clown.
• Danzig and Samhain have Crystar; a demon skull.
• Death Angel uses a trio of skull-wearing wolves on the cover art for Relentless Retribution, The Dream Calls For Blood, and Humanicide.
• Demon Hunter has... well, what is it called anyway? You'd recognize it if you saw it. Word of God says that their mascot is a demon skull with a bullet hole in its forehead.
• Destruction has the Mad Butcher, a fat, bald, Ax-Crazy butcher. Named after a song on their debut EP before getting his own EP, and has appeared on several covers since then.
• Dethklok has Facebones, which doubles as a company mascot in-universe.
• Devin Townsend has begun using Ziltoid the Omniscient as a mascot since Ziltoid's creation.
• Devourment has the unnamed mutant that was first seen on the Butcher the Weak cover, in addition to the weird larva-looking critter on the cover of Unleash the Carnivore.
• Dio has Murray the horn-throwing demon with a very un-demonic name. He actually has a rather interesting story behind his creation.
• Disturbed has "The Guy", a scary-looking hooded demon^note As revealed in The Vengeful One, actually a humanoid nebula-thing with glowing red eyes and really sharp teeth.
• Ensiferum uses Finnish folk hero Väinämöinen as their mascot.
• Exhumed has Dr. Philthy, who doubles as their stage tech and merch guy.
• Knucklehead of Five Finger Death Punch, who has appeared on every one of their album covers. He once punched a man in the soul.
• Gamma Ray has Fangface.
• Gwar themselves might count as their own mascot due to their stage presence.
• HammerFall has Hector, a knight wielding a large hammer.
• Helloween has Jack O. Lantern, an evil Pumpkin Person.
• Iced Earth has Set Abominae, main character of their Something Wicked Saga.
• In Flames with Jesterhead, who first appeared on the cover of The Jester Race. He's undergone many transformations since. He's most known for his distinctive spiky jester-hat.
• Ingested has the Venus flytrap/dinosaur abomination from the cover of Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering; Word of God is that the monstrous humanoid on the cover of The Architect of Extinction is its ascended form.
• Iron Maiden's Eddie the Head is probably the most famous metal mascot in the world. Many of the others listed here are blatant expies of him.
• Job for a Cowboy has been known to use a ram's skull as their symbol on their albums. The creature becomes more and more fully-embodied as their artwork progresses.
• Judas Priest has the Painkiller, a winged cyborg that rides a huge motorcycle, fights to save humanity, and wins! Sometimes it appears as a more androgynous being like in the Angel of Retribution album.
• Kataklysm has Heartbeast, a two-faced winged demon who appears on the cover of three of their records.
• Kreator has Violent Mind, a demon with an exposed brain containing nightmarish images.
• Korpiklaani has Vaari, a forest spirit depicted as an old man with antlers.
• Korn doesn't technically have a full-term mascot, but the doll featured in the standard cover of their album Issues (nicknamed "Phil") is arguably the most recognizable visual entity of the band, so much that they later asked Ron English to make his own take of it for the cover art of The Serenity of Suffering.
• Led Zeppelin has the Fallen Angel, a winged man with Barbie Doll Anatomy. This was also used as an icon for their record label, Swan Song.
• Lich King has the eponymous Lich King, a skeletal undead wizard who wears a Burger King crown.
• Lorna Shore has the wooden effigy on the Immortal cover.
• Lovebites have a wolf that appears on all their album covers.
• Manowar has the Manowarrior, a Conan-like barbarian warrior with glowing eyes and a shadowy face.
• Megadeth's Vic Rattlehead is possibly the second-most famous metal mascot. In the cover art of the United Abominations album, he got some of his skin and hair back, but after how knows many years in the future, he's back as a skeleton cyborg.
• Meshuggah has the unnamed pale androgynous guy on the cover of obZen.
• Metallica has Scary Guy, a crudely drawn skull with fangs, horns, and a mohawk (drawn by James Hetfield himself, no less). They also have Vulturus, which is basically Scary Guy with wings and talons.
• Monster Magnet has Bullgod, a bull that looks...rather pissed off.
• Mötley Crüe used to use Allister Fiend, a character dreamed up by Nikki Sixx.
• Motörhead has Snaggletooth (often nicknamed the War-Pig). Another of the earliest examples.
• Nonpoint has the unnamed frog that appears on most of their album covers, which is often mistaken for a spider.
• Oceano has the dripping crescent moon.
• Orden Ogan has Alister Vale, an immortal Humanoid Abomination who wears a longcoat, top hat, and red scarf and has appeared in every album cover art since Vale. Alister Vale is doomed to walk the earth and leave everything behind him in decay.
• Overkill has Chaly, a skull with bat wings. Avenged Sevenfold has the Deathbat, who has frequently been accused of being a rip-off of Chaly.
• Pantera's unofficial mascot seems to be a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake appears on the cover of their album The Great Southern Trendkill, and rattlesnakes (or a rattlesnake skeleton) appear on countless pieces of Pantera merchandise.
• Powerwolf has, well... a humanoid wolf. It's currently unnamed, though.
• Quiet Riot's character simply called the Man with the Metal Mask, which first appeared on Metal Health and most of their albums after that. A very literal Metal Head.
• Soundchaser from Rage.
• Riot has Johnny, a rather infamous mascot that seems to have human form with a weasel/rat/owl/seal-head.
• Captain Adrian of Running Wild, an Undead werewolf Pirate thing who is also the Son of Satan.
• Six Feet Under has a crudely drawn skull with a backwards 6 in the middle.
• Skeletonwitch had Skeleton Mitch, the skeletal demon/lich that appeared on their first five full-lengths. He was pushed off to the side on The Apothic Gloom before being retired completely on Devouring Radiant Light, likely due to Chance Garnette's ejection in 2014.
• Skelteria has St. Trinity, a barefoot demon woman with bat-like wings.
• Slayer has 3: The Baphomet Goat Warrior, who was on the debut album Show No Mercy; The Slatanic Wehrmacht, a skeleton wearing Nazi clothing; and an unnamed eagle.
• Thrash band Sodom has Knarrenheinz.
• Sergeant D for the Stormtroopers of Death (top row, second-to-left on the image above).
• Trivium have declared Ibaraki, the horned skull on the cover of the album Silence In the Snow as being their new mascot, and he serves as the antagonist within that album's lyrics, but he hasn't figured into other songs since then.
• Voivod's Korgull the Exterminator, doubling as a logo as well.
• Whitechapel (Band) has a saw blade with stars representing the Tennessee flag.

---