In early October, a group of far-right extremists were arrested for allegedly planning to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as part of a scheme to overthrow the U.S. government. In the months leading up to their arrest, one of the men, 33-year-old Brandon Caserta, posted a series of videos on social media that outlined his vehemently racist, and violent anti-government militia training. But these videos also appeared to reveal something else about Caserta—he’s a metalhead. In one of his videos, a flag for Periphery, a techy progressive metal band, is hanging in the background and he is wearing a shirt from legendary death metallers Hate Eternal.
Neither band is known for any overtly political messaging, and are certainly not aligned with the far right. When I reached out to Periphery about the flag in Caserta’s video, they told me that, "We did see our logo behind one of the alleged Michigan militia members, and of course we were mortified by that association. While we obviously cannot control who elects to listen to our music, we, in no uncertain terms, condemn their actions and we condemn extremism of any stripe." Hate Eternal’s publicist did not return an email asking for comment.
While it may seem surprising that Caserta is into a band like Periphery—who are no fans of Trump and whose most famous member is the son of Mauritian immigrants—it’s actually pretty par for the course for some metal fans. Metal has always been political (and has always boasted a healthy leftist streak), but its issues with racism and white supremacy are impossible to ignore, and have become an even bigger problem in recent years. While many “apolitical” fans have decided they’d rather ignore any potentially inconvenient truths about their heroes—or have outright embraced right-wing ideologies—there’s a parallel community of leftist metalheads fighting back against the fascist creep. It’s a battle that will continue long after Donald Trump is dragged out of the White House, as four years of his divisive right-wing rhetoric poured gasoline on metal’s long burning culture war.
Explicitly white supremacist metal bands have been a presence since the 1990s, when the Scandinavian scene gave rise to one of metal’s most notorious neo-Nazis, Burzum’s Varg Vikernes. Even now, black metal itself remains a haven for far-right rhetoric. In 2019, the leader of neo-Nazi terror cell Atomwaffen Division John Cameron Denton was spotted sieg heiling at a Texas tour date for Horna, a Finnish black metal band with white supremacist ties. The same year, Behemoth vocalist Adam “Nergal” Darski posted images of a shirt reading “Kill them. Show no mercy. Fuck Antifa!” on his Instagram. On November 2, 2020, Holden Matthews, the son of a Louisiana sheriff’s deputy and a self-professed black metal fan, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for burning down three historically Black churches.
And metal’s problem with reactionary politics isn’t limited to one genre or time period. When former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo went out onstage in 2016 and shouted “white power!” with his arm raised in a Nazi salute, much of the metal world recoiled—but others defended him, and he continues to tour and release music with other projects. The list goes on and on, and in the age of Trump, the tensions between metal’s right wing and its more progressive and radical contingents have flared even further.
That’s not to say that the entire metal community is filled with bigots, far from it, but it’s not united in its hatred of Trumpism, either. Power Trip’s late vocalist Riley Gale [who passed away this summer at 34 but was interviewed for this piece back in January], said he’d seen a shift in the way even more conservative metal fans view Trump, and in the way they engage with the modern metal scene’s progressive bent. In his opinion, being a metal fan is an act of rebellion, and as such, a political stance (no matter how much the genre’s “apolitical” fans would rather it wasn’t). He said that what little support some corners of the metal community had for the president has eroded, and may evaporate entirely as more people realize that they’re being scammed.
“I think more conservative metalheads are realizing that [Trump] isn’t about the country, us, anybody—he’s only for himself, and he’ll do or say anything that benefits him. People can be stupid, but that’s one con that’s hard to pull on the whole,” he said. “You fuck with enough of the ‘little people,’ we’re going to get pissed, and we’re going to do something about it. It looks like people in the metal community might finally be collectively on board with that idea. We can argue conservative versus liberal or anarchist or whatever, but I think we all agree at this point: Trump is only looking out for Number 1, and for that, he can get fucked.”
As Trump’s presidency dragged on, many metal bands have turned from attacking him outright to directing their energy elsewhere. It’s an unfortunate fact that reactionary conservative forces remain embedded within the heavy metal community, and white supremacist rhetoric continues to fester on the margins. Violent racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism from bands onstage and from players within the industry are left unchallenged by those fans who’d still prefer to ignore politics (or the safety of those who don’t have the privilege of looking away) or who cling to the dated notion that metal should stay “dangerous” and shocking. The social stereotype that metal is dominated by angry, disaffected straight cis white men still holds true in some regards, and the attendant toxicity that can arise in such homogeneously privileged spaces is crying out to be challenged.
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And thankfully, there is a new generation of righteous metalheads that are more than up to the task. The fact that more diverse bands and fans are still a minority in this community makes their commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppressive politics even more noteworthy; in many ways, it’s an uphill battle, but one that they believe is worth fighting. More and more frequently, those regressive voices are being countered—and often drowned out—by a resurgent left who are unwilling to compromise with bigots. The new metal resistance is focused on fighting the evils of fascism and white supremacy that have flourished under Trump’s regime, as well as dismantling the oppressive social, political, and economic structures that cleared the path for his ascent.
While there have been many bands and musicians involved in this work since the genre’s inception, the urgency of our current situation has inspired even privileged, formerly publicly apolitical bands to take a stand. In August, Decibel magazine ran an essay by a metal musician named Draugr who released several albums with Darker Than Black, a notorious NSBM label. Following a political awakening, he publicly broke with Darker Than Black, disavowed his past work, and dedicated himself to antifascist activism. During his time steeped in black metal’s reactionary right wing, Draugr thought his acceptance of the presence of noxious rhetoric simply made him an “apolitical” advocate for free speech; it took time, but as he explains, he finally recognized the indoctrination for what it was, and was repulsed. He is now working with groups like Atlanta’s Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, which works to end police violence towards the Black trans community.
“There are many factors that make black metal and its community particularly vulnerable to far-right indoctrination, but also ripe for political struggle,” he tells me. “Black metal particularly spoke to me as an isolated and melancholic sort of kid, and it was too easy to direct my enthusiasm into reaction as I viewed this art as the ultimate artistic subversion to ‘whatever-in-mainstream-society’ that I was struggling with at the time. There were right answers to the problems I saw in the world, but the worldview I gained from existing and networking in that world gave me the wrong answers.”
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By now, even after his failed attempt at re-election, it’s not enough to simply oppose Trump and vile far right politics. In 2020, conscious heavy metal fandom is all about supporting explicitly antifascist, anti-capitalist bands who stand with survivors of sexual violence, stand up for Black lives, and protect marginalized members of the community. Margaret Killjoy, a trans anarchist author who founded the feminist black metal project Feminazgul, sees the shift as a reflection of the rapid polarization happening within the broader metal scene.
“Metal has long embraced ‘extreme’ ideologies or at least aesthetics, but I think people are coming to terms with the fact that there is a genuinely terrifying rise of fascism happening right now, and most people are realizing they don’t want to be aligned with that,” she explains. “A large part of the ostensibly apolitical metal scene accepts right-wing ideological bands (because these listeners say they’re ‘just into it for the music’) but not left-wing ideological bands. The idea of killing people for the color of their skin, of crushing foreigners under a boot heel, can be accepted, but the idea of killing people for being Nazis is unacceptable? It looks like a lot of people are realizing the hypocrisy.”
This new wave of antifascist metal spans genres, from black metal to death metal to grindcore and all points in between. Whether the lyrics are delivered over furious blastbeats or a funereal crawl, the music is the message, and nowadays, that message is coming across loud and clear: there is no room for bigotry in heavy metal. Stan Liszewski, vocalist for Arkansas powerviolence/grindcore hybrid Terminal Nation, says that in his view, metal has always been about building a community and an outlet for the disenfranchised—and that in the Trump era, it’s now people like him and other marginalized folks who are made to feel left out.
“Just a few years ago, there was at least a level of subtlety to some of the xenophobia that I’ve experienced first hand. That subtlety is now gone,” Liszewski, who is Salvadorian, says. “You can turn on the news at any time and see the fuel that’s used to push people to hate me simply for the color of my skin or the blood in my veins. If there’s no passiveness to the message of hate against people like myself and my family, you shouldn’t expect any subtlety from us either.”
Some bands have embraced comedy as their weapon of choice. For example, Neckbeard Deathcamp went viral in 2018 as the most absurdist anti-Trump, antifascist metal band around. The Chicago-based war metal project exploded onto the scene in 2018 with its debut, White Nationalism is for Basement Dwelling Losers, and became a mini-sensation for its meme-heavy aesthetic, irreverent Twitter persona, and lyrics about destroying 4chan incels, tormenting black metal fascists, and drowning neo-Nazi Richard Spencer in piss. 2019’s So Much For The Tolerant Left was a more focused continuation of their Nazi-bashing, militantly antifascist mission.
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Band founders Kriegmaster Hatesturm and Hailz Komradez are both extremely open about their anarchist politics and take-no-prisoners approach to the fascist creep, and take pleasure in lampooning black metal’s penchant for self-seriousness as well as its unfortunate habit of providing cover for bigotry. “We engage often with people whose politics are primarily reactionary,” Kriegmaster explains. “And I just don't see any point in engaging with that seriously. To me, you seem like a total clown. Here's a meme about why that opinion is dumb as fuck. I'm not your dad. I don't give a shit if you grow up to be a miserable loser.”
Other bands in this milieu are deadly serious, either zeroing in on specific Trumpian policies as the source of their rage, or dismissing him as a particularly ugly symptom of a far more lethal disease. The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement has also provided more inspiration for bands to fight for racial justice. Even a small sampling of Trump-era U.S. underground metal (or metal-adjacent) bands shows the wide breadth of political issues screaming out of their full stacks. Zeal and Ardor’s new Wake of a Nation EP name-checks the monstrous Tuskegee Syphilis Study and is dedicated to "Michael Brown, Eric Garner, George Floyd and the countless untold and nameless killed.” Bay Area anarcha-feminist metal duo Ragana donated the proceeds from a searing 2016 single—released the day after the election—to the water protectors at Standing Rock. Primitive Man’s crushing new album, Immersion, is a indictment of a racist, consumption-obsessed society, and Denver trio Glacial Tomb’s cover of Aus-Rotten’s classic “Fuck Nazi Sympathy” offers a perfect snapshot of the current state of the heavy metal resistance.
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Benefit compilations have also been huge; a 2017 Grind Against Trump compilation donated its proceeds to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2019’s Riffs for Reproductive Justice release raised over $20,000 for abortion access, and 2020’s anti-racist Shut It Down compilation featured 46 bands and has already raised over $23,000 for the Movement for Black Lives. (Full disclosure: I organized the RFRJ compilation under the banner of Black Flags Over Brooklyn, an anti-fascist metal festival I threw in 2019).
This summer, Black Sabbath debuted a Black Lives Matter T-shirt design in the iconic purple lettering of their 1971 Master of Reality album, and pledged to donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Black Lives Matter. An identical design was released by Pittsburgh hardcore crew Killer of Sheep back in April, but as guitarist Oyo Ellis said via email, “As huge fans of Black Sabbath we thought that it was an incredible show of support for the social justice movement by releasing an official version of the shirt. And we also knew that it would drive all of Sabbath’s racist fans absolutely nuts, something that they were undoubtedly aware of [as well].”
In Draugr’s view, the key to stopping the fascist creep within the heavy metal universe is to give it no quarter, and to provide viable alternatives. “We need to cultivate a strong leftist presence in the scene, build our own networks of resources and support, and create more left-oriented black metal to crush their influence,” he explains. “It’s hard to justify to an “apolitical” black metal fan why you shut down the show of their favorite Finnish band that “Finally got a show in my hometown!” etc. But in the future, nobody’s favorite bands will be NSBM, and those old bands will become ever-less relevant as leftist black metal burgeons and moves the genre forward... I think if we make a concerted effort to take up space in this scene, we will win the fight.”
As for Terminal Nation, their new album Holocene Extinction is a deafening battle cry against white supremacy—and they have no intention of letting up, no matter who’s occupying the White House. “It’s important for bands like us to be as confrontational with our message as possible, because we’re being met with that exact same level of aggression by people who oppose our mere existence,” Liszewski explains. “The gloves are off. Metal is our outlet, and the time to speak up is now.”
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