The first identifiably Metal person I can think of to use them would probably be Ian Paice.

But obviously it happened in other genres before then.

Double bass drum techniques were first used by artists such as Ray McKinley as far back as the 1940s, and then further pioneered by artists such as Louie Bellson in the 1950s and popularised in the 1960s by Ginger Baker of Cream and Keith Moon of the Who, and popularised even further in the 70s, with Eric Carr of KISS and Terry Bozzio. In certain types of metal, the drummer plays a constant stream of rapid-fire notes on the bass drum, and the ability to play evenly at extremely high tempos is prized (as exemplified by Canadian band Eudoxis whose bass drums measured six feet in length). While metal drummers are stereotyped among some as focusing exessively on double bass speed, other metal drummers of various genres, such as ex-Blind Guardian drummer Thomen Stauch, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy (who could also be classified as a progressive rock drummer), and Cryptopsy's Flo Mounier are also known for varying their double bass patterns and using them to interact with the other drums in a complex and creative manner. Additionally, some drummers, such as Lamb Of God's Chris Adler, rising death metal star Tim Yeung and As I Lay Dying's drummer Jordan Mancino are notable for being able to execute complex bass drum patterns at very high speeds while playing independent patterns in the hands.

my avatar? its from the avatar gallery here at metalreviews's user profile. i cant seem to upload any of my pics as the max size is what...6KB? and im havin problems linking to url's as well. there something wrong with putfile.com lately. and the picture that i managed to upload on putfile.com, somehow, i cant copy it over here. 'the url given contains no data' someth like that. and another one..'the file must be .jpg, .png etc'. well its clearly my pic is .jpg, yet i cant seem to set it as my avatar.

any ideas?

Try http://www.photobucket.com maybe?