STILL SCREAMIN' AFTER ALL THESE YEARS\Long legacy of heavy metal expands with new bands, new fans.

Byline: Fred Shuster Daily News Music Writer

Heavy metal is the sound that won't die.

The metal rituals regularly featured at the Forum and other enormo-domes pack the houses with not one but three generations of fans in uniform: worn T-shirts, leather jackets and jeans - and that familiar out-of-time expression.

For many fans, metal, with its pile-driving sound and locker-room lyrics, is more than a rite of passage. It's a habit that simply won't fade away, despite the decline in number of new metal bands.

So-called "alternative" music has taken over rock with the world-weary sound of disaffected youth that first went to the top of the charts five years ago with Nirvana's "Nevermind" album. Metal fans, however, say they can't stand the stuff.

"There's no fun in alternative rock," said West Hills metal fanatic Jon Sutherland, 45. "It's all, 'I've got problems, I hate the world, I hate Ticketmaster.' These alternative bands think they're changing the world and giving us a message we really need. You think AC/DC cares? All they want to do is rock. That's why I love them."

Sutherland, who wrote a now-defunct metal column for BAM magazine, has a point. While popular modern-rock outfits like Smashing Pumpkins, Bush and Pearl Jam are worried about maintaining artistic purity in the corporate music world, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard and Motorhead are just concerned with partying, rocking out and otherwise having a good time. And if a buxom model accidentally gets covered in oil on the CD cover, well ... these things happen.

Newer metallic bands, such as Sepultura, Korn, Anthrax and Pantera, draw younger fans while paying tribute to metal's forerunners.

"If it wasn't for the early bands, we wouldn't have the new stuff," said Diego Olmstead, 17, of North Hollywood, who plays bass in a band he is forming with a friend. "I liked the old stuff that started it all. I mean, if it wasn't for AC/DC, I probably wouldn't be playing music myself."

Metal is still big business. AC/DC, for example, remains a top concert draw, and its albums sell in the millions, even though the band has never landed a top 20 single.

On the live circuit, metal's market share is holding firm, said Gary Bongiovanni of Pollstar, a weekly trade magazine covering the concert business.

"I don't think the genre has faded at all," he said.

The Jimmy Page-Robert Plant "Unledded" tour was the fifth-highest grossing

trek last year, earning $33.4 million in North America alone. Van Halen's '95 tour was next at $32.7 million.

The music also holds its own in the charts. AC/DC's latest album, "Ballbreaker," soared to No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart the week it was released. And the latest CDs by Def Leppard, Osbourne (at the Forum on Feb. 29), Korn, White Zombie and Metallica are also ensconced in the Billboard 200.

"When we first came to the States in the '70s, radio was playing disco music," said Angus Young, guitarist with venerable Aussie metal merchants AC/DC, whose new album includes such titles as "Hard as a Rock," "Cover You in Oil" and "Caught With Your Pants Down."

"And there were just a handful of rock stations in the country. But there was always a healthy audience for metal. You could always fill an arena with it," he said. "Like blues, it'll always be around."

Although it was teen-agers who flocked to sports arenas during the mid-'70s metal "golden age" of Kiss, Aerosmith and Ted Nugent, the sound now draws a broader crowd.

"A lot of people tend to follow fashion or jump on whatever bandwagon is rolling that week," Young said. "We stay away from what's fashionable because when you tie yourself to a trend, you last for a few months and then people move on to the next thing. We just do what we do best - rock 'n' roll."

When punk rock burst onto the scene in 1977, metal was expected to be among the first fatalities. Instead, punk gave metal merchants a new avenue to enter the music world. Bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Metallica may have looked like punks and played sharper, shorter songs, but they were aligned with a movement dubbed the New Wave of Heavy Metal.

With the more recent addition of such commercially successful metal-influenced acts as Anthrax, Helmet, Pantera, Soundgarden, Sepultura, Queensryche and White Zombie, the movement and its death-metal, speed-metal, thrash, industrial and grindcore offshoots has only gotten stronger and more popular. Meanwhile, the old standbys still pull in the crowds.

"When you go to a metal show, whether you're 45, 25 or 16, everyone has something in common," said unemployed bar manager Steve Hurta, 30. "There's a camaraderie there."

Fans know that heavy metal music has never enjoyed mainstream popularity and probably never will. It is also sometimes deeply misunderstood.

When the Grammy Awards unveiled the metal/hard rock performance category in 1988, the notorious nod went not to Metallica, AC/DC or their fellow hard-rocking nominees, but to the Celtic folk-influenced Jethro Tull.

"Metal fans don't care about awards or what others think of them or their music," Sutherland said. "This is a type of music that's never been in fashion."

A few weeks ago, Sutherland flew to Dublin to attend a tribute concert for Phil Lynott, the late leader of Thin Lizzy, an Irish rock quartet of the '70s and early '80s. While there, he met Lynott's mom.

"Thin Lizzy is a religion," said Sutherland, who has a shrine to the band at his home.

Metal has even inspired its own film parody, "This Is Spinal Tap," the 1984 rock documentary reportedly based in part on Led Zeppelin.

"We've survived it all," said AC/DC's Young, 36.

The five-member band - led by Young brothers Angus on lead guitar and wearing his trademark British schoolboy uniform and Malcolm on rhythm guitar, plus leather-lunged singer Brian Johnson, drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Cliff Williams - had just begun its Ballbreaker World Tour when lead screamer Johnson's father died, postponing this week's Forum show. The date will now take place some time in April.

Even while fans have the reputation of accepting all that is heavy and metallic, some of the younger generation don't want the fine lines of good taste blurred.

"I got sick of death-metal after six months," said guitarist Alex Chacon, 18, of Glendale. "And White Zombie is a little bit trendy. I used to be into Slayer a long time ago, and Danzig needs new material."

Meanwhile, the Even Newer Wave of Heavy Metal marches on. Chacon and his North Hollywood bass-playing friend, Olmstead, are currently auditioning for a singer and drummer for their new metal-influenced band called Screwball.

72-year-old rides 'Highway to Hell'

Real Radio KLSX-FM (97.1) is giving away a host of prizes in its latest on-air contest. Some of the gifts include maid service for six months, a professional cook to make dinner at home for three months, and limo rides to and from work.

But guess who won backstage passes to the AC/DC heavy metal show at the Forum? That's right: 72-year-old Edith Bailey, a retired medical claims adjuster who lives in Playa del Rey with her 76-year-old husband.

"Oh, I've heard of AC/DC," said Bailey, who listens to both Howard Stern and "The Regular Guys" on KLSX. "I know they're really pretty heavy."

Although the concert was postponed until April, Bailey knows what she'll do on show night. She'll take the Real Radio limo to the arena, have dinner at the Forum Club, then hand the concert tickets and backstage passes to her 20-something grandson and his date.

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Drawing (Cover--Color) Oh to live on metal mountain Rock's noisy stepchild hits middle age, inspiring a third generation of fans Jim Thompson/Special to the Daily News Photo (1) Guitarist Alex Chacon, 18, of Glendale, left, and 17-year-old bassist Diego Olmstead of North Hollywood are two heavy metal fans looking to hook up with a singer and drummer and form their own band. Tina Gerson/Daily News (2) Ministry's Al Jourgensen, left, and Paul Barker bring an industrial tone to heavy metal. Their new Warner Bros. album is called "Filth Pig." (3) Formed in Sydney, Australia, in 1974, hard-rocking AC/DC just keeps on ticking. Its latest album, "Ballbreaker," soared to No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart the week it was released. (4--5) Irish rockers Thin Lizzy, left (with the late Phil Lynott third from left), and England's Def Leppard, above, are two of heavy metal's seminal influences. (6) Ozzy Osbourne, who helped forge the heavy metal genre with Black Sabbath, is still popular as a solo artist. (7) Former BAM magazine heavy metal columnist Jon Sutherland has a Thin Lizzy shrine in his West Hills home. Evan Yee/Daily News (8) Motley Crue kept metal's flame burning in the 1980s. Box (1) 72-year-old rides 'Highway to Hell' (See Text) (2) From AC/DC to Van Halen (See Text)