I’ve wanted to do a story on Indigenous metal for a while. I was curious why so many Native people, including me, gravitate towards the genre. I had my own theories, but I wanted to know what other fans have to say. In 2023 I asked Native black metal band Blackbraid if I could follow them on the Western leg of their tour, hoping to interview Indigenous metalheads at shows in Salt Lake City, Seattle and Portland. I was hoping to find enough Indigenous metal fans there to get a decent reflection of the culture. But Blackbraid didn’t want any press on tour with them — which made sense to me, even if I was disappointed. Where else could I find a bunch of Indigenous metalheads to interview?
The opportunity came along last summer, when my fellow journalist/metalhead friend Leah Sottile told me her buddy Steve was involved in a festival called Fire in the Mountains. She suggested I check it out. Steve (Von Till, a musician mentioned in the story) put me in touch with the teachers at Buffalo Hide Academy in Browning, Montana, who were in the first year of their heavy music symposium, teaching Piikunii teenagers about hardcore and heavy metal music on the Blackfeet Nation. Once I heard what they were up to in that classroom, I realized I was getting into a much richer story than I’d imagined. Teachers had organized the class and the festival — even internships for the kids to help run the festival — all to help support Indigenous teens under pressure from suicidal distress.
Suicide is a personal issue for me, and I wanted to help encourage these kids to stay with us. Plus, I was stoked to visit the classroom and learn more about what the students were learning, and, of course, go to the festival — where I hoped to find the concentration of Indigenous metalheads I’d been looking for.
The festival itself was by far the most fun reporting trip I’ve been on. But it was also among the most challenging. Days were hot and long, sometimes 14 hours. And there were a ton of people I needed to interview. But all the while I got to see a bunch of sick bands! (And there are a few I’m still kicking myself for missing; I was too busy and exhausted to catch every set.) I spent most of the first day wandering around asking random fans, “Hey, are you an Indigenous metalhead? Can I interview you for a magazine?” I couldn’t believe how open people were with me, even as I asked serious questions about how suicide had impacted their friends, families, and themselves. People shared such tender stories of grief and grit, about how music has saved them. Between band sets, I’d scurry around trying to get quotes from Indigenous musicians, some of whom I already admired and others I’ve since become a fan of. Over breakfast at the Two Medicine Grill in East Glacier Park, HCN photographer Russel Daniels and I would chat up locals and other festival-goers, getting a more rounded perspective on all the headbangers deluging the tiny Montana town for the weekend. I came home with so much good material, I had no idea how I was going to get my arms around the story. I wish you could’ve just been there!
Editing this one was a beast. I’d prewritten a bunch of stuff about suicide statistics, but I didn’t even bother to revisit it; numerical analysis and the clinical gaze just felt gross in this space. These kids are not numbers. By contrast, there’s a scene at a lakeside panel where musicians earnestly elaborate on how heavy music has helped them, and a transcript of that panel on its own would have made a great story. It was so packed with moving, illuminating insights and playful humor, it was excruciating to pick just a few quotes and leave the rest on the cutting-room floor.
For instance: Ivar Bjørnson, from the band Enslaved, had a great observation about the suspicion and fear we live with today. He cited the recent online discussion about how people would rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man. “That’s fucking horrible,” he said. “It should be like the metal community. It should be like ‘Oh, a human, awesome. Let’s explore (our) backgrounds and learn something.’” Chelsea Wolfe also had some cool things to say about the harms of Western culture, and the importance of allowing ourselves to cry when we need to.
An earlier draft had an extra scene describing a listening party on a hillside with a sweeping vista. A couple hundred metalheads gathered in the tall grass to be among the first to hear Blackbraid III before the album’s official release, and to ask frontman Jon Krieger questions about it afterward. There’s a brief mention in the story of the catering company Region Sauvage, which had barbecued up some ducks and buffalo for ticketed lunches. When I interviewed Region Sauvage chef Thomas Fitzgerald, he said about his choice of meats: “we’re not a cattle country.” BOOM. Home run. I wanted everyone to read and ponder that quote!
But, alas, the editor and I couldn’t stray off-topic. We had to leave room for a thunderstorm scene, when fans all got chased out of the stage bowl by — off the record? — definitely the ghost of Ozzy Osbourne. And, of course, the most important part of the whole story was hearing from students and Native metal fans about their thoughts on the genre and the culture, and about suicide prevention.
I was not prepared for how hopeful and connected this festival would leave me feeling.
Quoting the students was tricky. I read up on ethical standards for reporting with traumatized minors. With a topic as sensitive as this, my gut said the best way to safely and ethically present the material was through anonymized quotes. And I finally got some answers to my original question: Why do Natives like metal so much? Honestly, I was secretly hoping someone would just say, “You’d be pissed off too, if you had to live under colonization!” But nobody did. Instead, I found a variety of thought-provoking theories that were surprisingly eloquent despite their off-the-cuff rocker parlance (lots of swears, dude). I love when the reporting challenges my assumptions. It means I get an education, just like you do.
I was not prepared for how hopeful and connected this festival would leave me feeling. When I got home, the first draft poured out of me over the next few days. I barely slept, typing paragraphs through bleary tears, taking breaks to walk around my neighborhood and process what an unexpectedly transcendent experience I’d just been through, and to puzzle out how to bring readers through it in a way that would transfer the emotion. I’ve never published anything so close to my heart. I hope you’ll take some time to enjoy this one. If you want to support the cause, check out the Firekeeper Alliance. You can make a donation, follow them on socials or buy a cool-ass T-shirt. And if you’re into metal or hardcore, or even just curious, get your tickets soon for next summer’s festival. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Peace,
Toastie
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
