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Entrepreneurial passion has recently begun to fascinate a growing number of researchers. While only a few systematic studies exist, Cardon et al.'s review suggests passion as a prevalent phenomenon among entrepreneurs. They make a call for empirical and systematic studies of entrepreneurial passion to provide insights for practice and research. This paper aims to apply the recent theoretical advances in a particular empirical setting: the heavy metal genre in the popular music industry.

Using a qualitative in‐depth case study approach, four ventures that are considered new ventures in the metal music business are studied.

The findings strongly imply that the grounds for a globally successful creative venture require the passion of at least one inventor entrepreneur. Also, at least one founder is needed to take the venture to the next stage, where business is formalized for ramp up and at least one developer is needed to grow the business after the other two identities and earlier stages of the venture life cycle have created the platform on which to build and develop the business. The paper also finds that these role identity‐related behaviors are essential characteristics for artists in the popular music industry.

The popular music industry is an excellent research site for studying entrepreneurial passion because artists start their careers and join together to form bands mainly because of their passion and love to create and perform music. While the theory of entrepreneurial passion offers a promising approach for entrepreneurial studies, few systematic studies exist that apply it.

Masculinity and heavy metal share a clear and well-documented relationship, with many of the key texts on metal centering around its representation of gender (Walser, 1993; Weinstein, 1991). Less discussed is masculinity in Australian metal, as Australian metal itself remains underrepresented in scholarly research. In this chapter we discuss the music, media and image of Parkway Drive – a popular metalcore band from Byron Bay, Australia – via a reading of two of the band’s feature-length rockumentary films. We draw on concepts and theories of gender (Butler, 2006), and public image (Leonard, 2007), as well as studies of Australian masculinity, specifically those pertaining to mateship, surfing, and adventurousness. As the metalcore subgenre has not been widely studied, this approach provides a basis for understanding the subgenre as well as its relationship to gender, commercial success, and Australian heavy metal, focussing on the decidedly Anglo-Australian representation of masculinity performed by Parkway Drive. We argue that the band typifies a distinctly Australian type of hegemonic masculinity, one that draws on discussion of Australian identity, beach culture and surfing. We further examine the band’s use of ‘rockumentary’ tropes to build their public image and to tighten affective bonds with viewers.