I listen to a lot of metal music, specifically a lot of progressive metal, do you know any progmetal bands?
I actually don't know anything about metal music, I only know the band AFI
That's interesting, I was friends of a friend of Davey Havok in high scool
what is specifically is a progmetal band?
It started in the 1970s with bands like King Crimson from the UK, they were like a heavier answer to Pink Floyd, but it's basically what you call a heavy oriented soup of a million other styles (jazz, samba, bebop, etc)
so is it what is considered screamo? 
Nope, screamo is a much "skram"ier posthard core rock influenced sound, much more pop driven, whereas Progmetal implements complex music theory and odd time signatures such as 11/8 or 9/8 with more frequent modal changes
wow i honestly don't know anything about music production and the 11/8 or 9/8 sounds very tehnical
It's a bit for a new listener for the first time, a lot of people will think "this all sounds the same" if they don't know how to identify the beat, best way to identify any time signature is to bob your head to the beat and count your head bobs
thats such a smart thing to do! i'm tone deaf so it will be a challenge