Meeting Metal Matt

I was already a little on edge just walking into the show. A lingering knee sprain from a Gogol Bordello concert meant no mosh pit but even so, I was worried about how I would get along with the crowd who had come to see Behemoth.  Beside that I was on my own which created a certain amount of anxiety all by itself.  Yet there I was, finding a seat in the balcony.  Once I settled in and ordered a beer, my next job was finding a friend or at least a conversation partner.

I looked around for options.  To my right was a couple in their late 20’s with the usual leather, tats and piercings.  Several seats down on my left was big guy sporting a shaved head, lots of ink, a shirt that read “Blackcraft” and a laminated VIP badge.

I opted for door #1.

They were friendly enough.  We chatted about beer and the bands for a while but there was no real connection.  Once that conversation petered out I glanced back to my left.  I’m not a small man (6 ft and 225) but this guy made me feel puny.  He looked like he made his living as a bouncer at some very nasty bars.  Not the most inviting conversation partner to say the least.

So I had to decide… which fear was going to get the better of me?  Was it worse to go through the concert alone?  Or to broach a conversation with a guy who looked like he could kill you just by being a bad mood?

This time I went for door #2.  After the customary “How you doin?” I asked if he was with the band?  Turns out that he was just a fan who had come up extra early for a VIP meet and greet with Behemoth.  In fact he had left early that morning to drive all the way from south of Richmond, VA.  As he shared the experience of meeting Nergal and company and what nice guys they all were, I moved a seat closer.

I welcomed him to Philly and we introduced ourselves. I asked Matt what he was drinking.

“Jack and coke.”

I ordered our next round.  He insisted on getting the next one. While we waited I told him about the opening act, Myrkur, then we discussed other bands we liked.  Like me, Matt has wide-ranging tastes.  He rattled off a long list of genres that on his phone.  My ears perked up when I thought I heard him say “Praise Music” but I let it go.

After some time the conversation drifted from music to our families.  He’s got three kids, all younger than mine.  From there it was an easy segue into the trials and tribulations of parenting.  In addition to working hard as a telecom lineman, Matt also worked hard to instill decency, respect and morality into his kids.

At this point I couldn’t help but circle back.  “Hey Matt, earlier when we were talking about music, did you say you liked praise music?”

“That’s right.”

“So are you a churchgoer?”

“Indeed I am.”

“That’s cool.  I’m an Episcopal priest”

At that point Myrkur took the stage.

Between the sets we talked about Jesus.  We talked about the perceived contradictions of being a Christian and liking metal.  I asked him about the Blackcraft shirt. He said it was pretty much the same thing as liking Behemoth.  He liked the designs and didn’t worry about how others might interpret them.  He knew what he believed and the rest was of little importance.

I respected that.  I’m not sure that, even if I liked it,  I would ever feel comfortable wearing something covered in the symbols of Satanism or black magic, but I admired his sense of himself and his confidence.

So there we were, surrounded by pentagrams, goats heads, 666’s and every other imaginable symbol hostile to Christianity, and we were talking about Jesus and the challenge of trying to raise decent children in the 21^st century.

Once the show ended I told him that since he was facing a seven hour drive he was welcome to crash at my place.  He insisted he was fine. Even so, I couldn’t let him leave without partaking of one of Philly great late-night institutions.

We poured out of the TLA and across the street to Lorenzo’s.  I must admit that it was gratifying when he marveled at the size of slices.  Although the place was mobbed, we were given enough berth to finish our pizza comfortably (one of the perks of looking big and scary I suppose).

Back out on the street we hugged and then he gave me his VIP lanyard.  I protested but he insisted that he still had plenty of swag to remember the show.  And this way I would have something too.  We exchanged numbers.  Not knowing his last name I just put him under “Metal Matt.”

Some of my favorite Gospel stories show Jesus finding faith in the most unlikely people- soldiers, lepers, prostitutes and tax collectors.  Time and time again he marvels to find they have more than religious professionals and otherwise upstanding citizens.  When I first saw Matt sitting down the row, I was scared to talk to him.  By the end of the night I was happy to offer him the guest room in my home.  And from a concert that, at least on the surface, was all about celebrating Satan, what I found instead is that faith continues to show up when you least expect it.

Breaking the Black Metal Seal

The room was a sea of black t-shirts that read “unholy” and “666” and there were more pentagrams than I could count.  Although I was there to see Myrkur, most were there to see the headliner, Behemoth, an extremely popular black metal band from Poland.

When it comes to what makes black metal “black” it does not get much more overt that what I saw that night.  Behemoth performed their new album, “The Satanist” in its entirety.  At one point the bassist, Orion, held a crucifix upside down over the crowd.  Later Nergal (who sings, plays guitar and is the undisputed creative force behind the band) handed out “communion” wafers that were imprinted with the band’s “unholy trinity” symbol (see below) to crazed fans in the first few rows.

And there I was, in the front row of the balcony, trying to take it all in.

Such was my first trip to a black metal show.  Not surprisingly I was not entirely at ease with what I saw and heard.  Was my presence there inherently in conflict with my Christianity and/or my vocation as a priest?  As I have written before, this question has long vexed me.

Although I listen to a lot of dark, heavy music there have been bands that I wouldn’t listen to, not because I didn’t like their music, but because they were overtly Satanic.  But the more I thought about it, the more I began to question whether or not this divide was an artifice. After a lot of reflection, and in large part because I really wanted to see Myrkur perform her first gig in the USA, I thought it was finally time to push past those self-imposed restrictions and see how being at black metal concert made me feel.

It started with the crowd.  No one seemed particularly intent sacrificing a virgin after the show.  In fact, setting aside their appearance, most everyone I met was really nice.  It seemed that many, if not most, of the fans were there first and foremost for the music.

Of course you can find similar bands that don’t utilize satanic words and symbols so there must be some particular appeal to the pentagrams, et al.  If this wasn’t about religion per se then what was the attraction?

If what I’ve read on the subject is correct then despite appearances to the contrary, it not actually about worshiping a supernatural being but rather the ideals they see represented by the character of Satan.  Nergal summarized it pretty well in an interview with the Guardian “To me, Satan stands for everything that is dear to me. I’ve always been very fond of independence and autonomy and freethinking and freedom and intelligence. Satan has always been a very strong symbol of all those values, so for me it’s very natural to take his side.”

Assuming that the majority of fans echo his views this means that in essence it was really all about rebellion.  All the inverted crosses and blasphemy had much more to do with the adolescent rush one gets from pissing off the establishment and giving the finger to the family, school, boss, church or culture that has frustrated you and left you feeling alienated than it did with actually worshiping Satan.

That is a sentiment I certainly understand.  Getting into music in order to freak out your parents…check.   Creating a scary persona to intimidate your classmates… check. Indulging in everything dark and brooding in order to convince yourself that you are deep and profound… check. Been there, done that, still have the tattered t-shirts.

Of course recognizing this doesn’t leave me entirely at ease .  There are still some fundamental philosophical divides that merit further exploration. And doutbless there are some for whom all this is not merely a gesture but a reflection of deeply held beliefs that are in complete opposition to my own.  Yet understanding that for most the pentagrams were largely symbolic allowed me to sit through the entire show and find something to appreciate in the sounds, theatre and above all in the energy of the crowd below.  Click here to read a review of this show and see way better pictures than I took.

I’ll be writing more on this soon.  Until then I’d really like to hear your thoughts.

Christians Against Slipknot?

EDIT- 3/18/17-  As some of you have tried to bring to my attention in the past, it is clear that CAS is nothing but a satire/troll site.  I’m leaving the post up but the point is moot.

I am sure that last week you spent your St. Patrick’s Day doing what I was doing… no not drinking green beer, but frantically trolling the net to find out more about the announcement that Alysia White Gluz had taken up the reigns as the new lead singer of Arch Enemy.  Ok so maybe you found other pursuits like watching paint dry or figuring out what green clothing you were going to don that day.  So in case you missed it here’s the skinny: Angela Gossow had stepped away from the stage into the role of manager and White Gluz left The Agonist to front AE.  A link to their first single (War Eternal) in this new configuration can be found here.

Anyway the news left me truly bummed.  But rather than wallow in my sorrows or make up my mind that I simply would never like AE with White Gluz I went and did some digging to find about more about her.  I checked out some Agonist videos and then started reading her official FB page.   When I got to something she posted on  February 8th I stopped cold.

She had reposted something from a FB group called “Christians Against Slipknot” which claimed that metal will destroy families and pollute children’s mind.  White Glutz  posted it with the comment, “Please tell me this is a joke.”

Unable to resist the urge I did some digging.  The page is a series of pictures and post that rail against the dangers of heavy metal.  Based on what I read one can infer that listening to heavy metal will cause you to become an unemployed, murdering, Satan-worshipper.  In fact very few of the posts had anything to do with Slipknot per se.

Their posts were so absurd (for example on March 18th they picture a picture of Mick Hucknall of Simply Red and claimed that his devotion to demonic heavy metal caused his somewhat troll-like appearance) that at first I thought it might be a parody (Simply Red- metal?  If you say so.).  Yet the mission statement and explanations are so extensive that I had to conclude that  unfortunately the page is entirely serious.

My point is not bring more attention to a seriously deluded group of people but rather to ask the question, why in the world do so many Christians still have a problem with rock and roll, particularly when it gets heavy and loud?

It’s not like this is a new issue.  Any music that made people want to dance or have fun has suffered the condemnation of people claiming to act in the name of God.  So why can’t we Christians wrap our heads around the idea that just because something is new, or if we just don’t “get it”, doesn’t therefore mean that it is therefore automatically bad.

I get that most metal acts try to generate a dark and menacing image.  Some go to great lengths to create an association with evil.  Yet it is the widely accepted fact that in the vast majority of cases all the corpse paint and pentagrams are simply part of the act.  There are a few exceptions like Deicide and Deathspell Omega who leave no room for doubt that their image and lyrics also reflect deeply held personal beliefs.

But even in those rare cases when you are dealing with the proverbial true believers it only begs the question of what purpose does “protesting” such bands actually serve?

In reality it only brings more attention.  As a parent I know that the surest way to get your kid to think something is cool or interesting is to repeatedly condemn it.  I can recall from my own experience as a teenager who specialized in trying to shock my parents that nothing could  make a band cooler than knowing that their name, album art or lyrics was going to give my mother a heart attack.

So why do some Christians keep banging their heads against a wall instead of just accepting that some people just want to bang their heads?  I don’t really know for sure, but I am quite sure that Jesus is probably more concerned with issues like poverty, starvation, war and preventable disease than he is with Slipknot.