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Great questions equal great documentaries: Why are coal miners in Harlan County on strike? Watch Harlan County, USA. What happens when GM closes its Flint, Mich., plants? Roger & Me has the answers.

Little Rock filmmakers David Lipke and Chris Terry’s excellent Slow Southern Steel likewise begins with a simple question: What is the DNA of this Southern heavy music movement of the last 20 years or so? How is it that these bands — stretched out across the South from North Carolina to New Orleans — all developed this similar sound?

The basic answer is likewise pretty simple: Many of these musicians had similar Southern upbringings. They dressed up like KISS members for Halloween (and sometimes for air guitar sessions in the mirror), rode BMX bikes, listened to rap and country music, went to church, and somewhere along the line — usually through a tape-trading culture that predates the Internet — many of them discovered the slow, sludgy sound of the Melvins.

Narrated by Buzzov•en, Weedeater and Hail!Hornet member “Dixie” Dave Collins, Slow Southern Steel follows the history of the underground, heavy music scene in the South, the kind of music that stems from the Southern experience. Created by fiercely independent musicians, these artists are a product of their environment, and they vent all theirs joys and disappointments through the slow grooves and gigantic riffs of their music.

The magic of Slow Southern Steel is watching these bearded and tattooed musicians — from the heavyweights such as Eyehategod’s Mike Williams to members of smaller Southern heavy music band members — all talk about what drew them to this heavy music that is slow and doom-y. They reminisce about playing in creeks and middle-class upbringings in a cul-de-sac. Hank III chats about working cows on a family farm in Missouri.

But for all their similarities, the musicians (Lipke and Terry interviewed more than 40 bands over the course of more than two years) also offer stunning differences that give the film its complexity. Down’s Phil Anselmo talks about his aunt picking him up from nursery school and taking him to her job at a mental health clinic where she was once an “inmate.” The music is similar, and the root causes of the Southern heavy rock sound are comparable, but nuances of the tales create an enthralling documentary.

Neither Lipke nor Terry (a member of North Little Rock heavy rock band Rwake) had any experience making a full-length film before Slow Southern Steel. But that’s not what makes the documentary — which premiered at the 2011 Little Rock Film Festival — remarkable, and neither is it the fact that it’s well shot and narrated. And it’s not that Slow Southern Steel appears so professionally done even though interviews were shot in dingy clubs, basements or back alleys — often late in the night.

No, what’s truly astounding about Slow Southern Steel is the story it tells. Lipke and Terry created a magnificent, historical record of this Southern musical genre. It’s not a film just for fans of bands with names like Dixie Witch, Eyehategod, Torche or Dark Castle (in fact, there is little heavy music played in the film), and Slow Southern Steel is not just a film for music fans in general.

What Slow Southern Steel is is a great story, well told, by engrossing musicians who answered simple questions.