Eugene's Metal Mayhem

The dynamic local music scene you've probably never heard of (but will).

“Make some noise for yourselves, not for us. We wouldn’t be shit without all you motherfuckers,” growls Paco, vocalist of local metal band Only Nightmares, during their set at Goodfellas in Springfield.

Metalheads gather to the left of the stage, smoking cigarettes and drinking PBR tall boys. To the right, bar regulars play pool and drink whiskey. Directly in front, fans - both male and female - rock out, moshing and throwing horns. Up on stage, Only Nightmares take out their aggression through their music – loud, fast, deep heavy metal that reverberates off the walls of the dive bar.

Goodfellas is one of many local venues that regularly features bands from Eugene’s metal scene - a scene that, while still somewhat underground, is growing rapidly. Fans and musicians comprise a tight but open community that has spawned talent from a variety of metal genres, from death to doom to thrash and everything in between.

“It’s metal, but it’s also a brotherhood that we’re forming,” Paco says of the local metal scene. “This is our family. These guys [in Only Nightmares] are my brothers… It’s giving people a way to vent, you know. People will automatically think, 'oh, metal, stigma,' but we’re actually trying to get people together and have a good time.”

Local metalheads have shown over and over that their goals are not anger or alienation. “They’re really respectful of each other and really polite, which really creeped me out at first,” says Andy Larson of Monday With A Bullet. “At punk rock shows, which is mainly my background, they’re spitting on each other, saying ‘fuck off’ and whatever. There’s not as much of that here. They’re here for the music, not the party, which is so much better.”

While there are definitely cliques within the scene, for the most part the bands and fans make up a pretty close community. The terms “brotherhood,” “solidarity” and “family” are thrown around constantly. And because of the small number of bands and venues, groups of varying metal genres often play together on the same bill with harmonious results.

“We love the music," says Tobby Lugo of Grynch and We Have Guns. "We just want to go up there and headbang, go in the mosh pit a couple times.”

The downside of the close-knit community is that rumors and gossip spread like wildfire. For example, when Boots of New World Sinner’s former band Severein broke up, it didn’t take but half an hour for the first MySpace message to roll in: “Dude, I heard.”

“You’ve gotta be careful what you say because you represent your band wherever you go,” says Angie Anderson of New World Sinner.

The majority of the bands in the Eugene scene feel a sense of camaraderie and help each other out in any way they can. Bands help each other book gigs and loan each other equipment at shows in times of need, says Nick Harris, who is currently in three local bands - Digital Violence, Side of Right and Desteria. Larson says that most of the time, Monday With a Bullet doesn’t even book its own shows; instead, other bands ask them if they would like to play.

“You’ll see a lot of the same bands on the same bill a lot,” says Blake Owens of Northwest Royale. “It’s a real grassroots thing as far as I can tell. It’s the same thing as it was when we were first coming up. Bands just call each other - ‘Hey, what are you guys doing this weekend? Want to
get a show together?’”

Approximately 20 bands rent storage units at West 11th Archery as practice spaces. “In my opinion, the heart of the Eugene metal scene stems from the West 11th Archery jam rooms,” Harris says. “Almost every single garage there is home to a band...I started jamming out there around 2001 and I met a bunch of cool people. I’d just be hanging out there [and ask,] ‘Oh, nice guitar, can I play that?’ or ‘Can I beat on your drums a little bit?’ So I know a lot of people that way.”


News of upcoming shows spreads mostly by word of mouth. Venues usually place show listings in the Eugene Weekly, but bands are now employing more aggressive promotional tactics to draw in new metalheads. Local metal band The Athiarchists have started what they call “rogue flyering” for their upcoming CD release party: grabbing handfuls of flyers and posting them everywhere, even in the bathrooms at WalMart and Fred Meyer. But overall, band MySpace pages are considered the best way to promote as they list all upcoming show dates and can be updated regularly.


The radio provides another outlet for getting out the word on metal happenings, especially KFLY FM’s Local Lixxx, which announces upcoming shows in addition to keeping an online concert calendar and message board.

“I like to think of Local Lixxx as the bat signal of local metal,” DJ Carl Sundberg says. “I want to provide a forum for local bands to get their words, ideas, shows and music out there.”

One of the best ways for local metalheads to find shows is just to show up at venues and see what’s going on. The Downtown Lounge, John Henry’s, Samurai Duck, the Black Forest and now the Oak Street Speakeasy all host local metal shows on a semi-regular basis.

“I think there was only one time that I went out on the weekend looking for a show and didn’t find one in the whole three years I’ve been really involved in the scene,” Boots says.

Of all the venues that host live metal shows, Samurai Duck is far and away noted as everyone’s favorite.

“Everyone keeps referring to Samurai Duck as the heavy metal Cheers,” says Abe Nobody of Rye Wolves. “Our town is small enough where we can all give each other a smile and a nod.”

Samurai Duck has live shows every weekend and often during the week, and when there is not a band playing, metal blares through the stereo. A television flickers behind the bar, a picture of Dimebag Darrell taped to the screen. It has not been turned off since the day he was fatally shot in 2004.

“Samurai Duck is the only bar that caters to nothing but metal,” says Brandon Dunnavin of Only Nightmares. “Fuck hip hop, fuck making a bunch of money, we want to have a place just for metal. That’s the only place here that’s done that. I’d like it if they’d upgrade their toilet facility, at least get the door to close, but that’s metal.”

The biggest problem with the Eugene metal scene is the lack of all-ages venues. Other than the WOW Hall and the McDonald Theater, the only other regular venues are bars.


“It sucks all around for everyone,” says Albert Evans of Ladon. “You have the WOW Hall that charges out the ass to rent for shows and is very selective on who they let in. The McDonald Theater is going under and still won't cater to local metal bands. You have a couple of community halls in town like the Irvine Grange Hall, but the locations really suck for kids to get to and you always risk the cops shutting you down.”

Samurai Duck plans to become an all-ages venue, says Stephanie Osburn, who is in charge of booking at the Duck, but it will be a long and expensive process, mainly because as it stands, alcohol is visible from everywhere in the bar. The entire bar will need to be remodeled before it can be opened up to minors.

The main reason metal bands have a hard time finding venues that will host all-ages shows is the stereotype that metalheads are violent or unpredictable. “They think all the kids are going to go crazy and start breaking shit and starting fights,” says Wes Beanblossom of Tormentium. “Metal is an insurance liability.”

But Osburn says that she rarely sees problems at the Duck. “The metalheads are the nicest group of people,” she says. “You see your brother or sister get knocked down in the pit and people pick them up, dust them off, make sure they’re comfortable and everything’s okay...They just want to keep it a calm scene. They want to make sure they continue to have a place to play and enjoy.”

Even though Eugene is a college town, Aaron Tunnell of the Athiarchists says that he rarely sees people from the university at shows. The lack of college students could be partially due to the shortage of outside promotion. Last fall, Lugo attended an open seminar at the WOW Hall with members of the local media and asked the Eugene Weekly why they continued to downplay the local metal scene. Their response? According to Lugo: “Who’d want to listen to that anyway?”

But apparently a lot of people do, as the Eugene metal scene continues to flourish and keeps growing with more bands, more shows and more venues.

“I have always felt like metal is in my heart, (and) the bands here in Eugene have put it into my soul,” says Aimee Manley, a local metalhead. “I just hope that someone reads this and decides to take a chance and come out and see a local show and pass the word. It's our scene to make bigger and we are the ones that can launch the bands here to greater things beyond.”


Photos, top to Bottom: Mitch and Paco of Only Nightmares; Shane Hepner of Monday With a Bullet; Boots, Nick Marquez and Angie Anderson of New World Sinner; Ray of Tormentium headbangs to New World Sinner's set at Samurai Duck.


Published in the Oregon Voice

Lordi: "Bringing Back the Balls to Rock"

Not many bands that have performed at Ozzfest alongside Lamb of God and Ozzy can say that they have something in common with ABBA and Celine Dion. Not many bands that were once shunned by their entire country can sell their own brand of cola and candies a year later.

But Lordi can.

Since its first live show in 2002, Lordi has mesmerized audiences with its energetic hard rock, horror-inspired costumes and extravagant pyrotechnics. In 2006, Lordi shocked viewers all over Europe as it represented Finland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

There used to be a saying that hell would freeze over before Finland would win Eurovision, Europe's oldest and most-watched televised music competition with 37 participating countries and an audience of up to 600 million each year. Not only did self-proclaimed “monsters of rock” Lordi win both the semi-final and the final, the band's anthem, "Hard Rock Hallelujah," also received the highest score in the 50-year history of Eurovision.

Although Finns were initially skeptical about the image of their country that a metal band in monster costumes would present to the rest of the world, opinions changed dramatically once Lordi's song became a success at Eurovision.

“When we actually went to the finals at Eurovision, the whole thing changed,” says Lordi's vocalist Tomi Putaansuu, who goes by Mr. Lordi when in costume. “Over one night we became national heroes and just the other day we were national shame.”

After Lordi's Eurovision victory, the band received an award for exemplary work from the Finnish president and a square in Putaansuu's hometown, Rovaniemi, was renamed “Lordi Square.” By breaking Finland's 40-year losing streak at Eurovision, Lordi had helped its home country gain international recognition.

For a hard rock band like Lordi to win the Eurovision Song Contest was a surprise to many viewers, as the contest normally showcases what Putaansuu refers to as “brainless pop.” Occasionally, however, Eurovision can help more progressive artists gain publicity. “The first band that was really different here was ABBA in the 70's and then I think the next one was Celine Dion in the 80's, and then there was us,” Putaansuu says. “It seems that every 10 or 15 years there is something that really makes a difference.”

Despite the popularity Lordi gained from Eurovision, Putaansuu notes that the band is glad that it is over. “Even though it opened really good windows and opportunities for us, in some ways it's already like a really big burden,” he says. “There has been enough Eurovision for one rock band's career already. We were a rock band before Eurovision and we continue to be a rock band after.”

Lordi formed in 1992, but it took Putaansuu ten years to find a record label willing to sign the band. “No record label really understood the whole concept,” he says. “They thought that the music was crappy but the image was good or the music was good but the image was crappy.”

While at first glance Lordi appears to be just another hard metal band, its music is actually far more melodic than the monster image may imply. It can best be described as heavy metal meets 80's hard rock with killer guitar riffs and catchy choruses. Among the band’s influences are Kiss, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. According to Putaansuu, a paper in Europe “intentionally misheard or misunderstood” Amen, Lordi's guitar player, and quoted him as saying that Lordi is better than Kiss or Alice Cooper. “Now some parts of the media are taking up on that and are really trying to provoke Alice Cooper and Kiss fans,” Putaansuu says. “There are thousands of other interviews where we say they are our big idols and then there's this one where it says that we are better than them, which is something that we never would have said. But, of course, that creates a scandal and sells papers.”

Lordi played its very first show five years ago at a major venue in Helsinki, just after its first album was released.

“For a band like this to go out and play before the album was out in little clubs would have definitely watered down the whole thing. It has to be kind of 'big' from the get-go,” Putaansuu notes. “Of course, that was a huge gamble in a way, but it paid off.”

It was at this very first show that Putaansuu’s worst pyrotechnic mishap occurred.

“Of course when you have pyrotechnic shit something happens every once in a while,” Putaansuu says. “I have this dynamite stick on stage that I point to the audience and it shoots fire and explodes over the audience, but I was holding it upside down, so it actually blew to my balls! But then again, I have lots of leather and latex covering me, so I just felt the warmth for a little bit. All the costumes are so thick and heavy and they are made of rubber so they are not flammable at all.”

Lordi's costumes, made from a layer of latex over foam rubber and leather, are influenced by a variety of its favorite bands, horror films and comic books, including Kiss, Alice Cooper, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and the Incredible Hulk. “I like to think that I have taken a little bit of each of my favorite monsters and put them all up together,” says Putaansuu.

Although the Lordi characters always remain the same (a mummy, a bulltaur, a vampire countess, an alien manbeast and Mr. Lordi as “The Most Fearsome Khan of All”), their outfits are redesigned for each new album and need constant repairing. “It's prosthetic makeup really, not costumes, so it's not meant to be used day after day after day,” Putaansuu says. “So, of course we need to do constant repairing all the time...like every two days or so.”

While wearing costumes onstage sets Lordi apart from most metal bands, it takes a significant time commitment to get into character. Putaansuu spends five hours putting on his makeup and costume to before each show and ninety minutes afterwards to take it all off.

The band members repeat this process before all photo shoots, interviews and performances because they refuse to show their real faces. In 2005, a Finnish tabloid posted photographs of the band members without their makeup, causing a huge backlash from fans.

“[How we look is] not relevant at all. That's not the band, that's not what the whole concept is about,” Putaansuu says. “If you go to Disney World, how cool would it be if Goofy took off the head?…Our fans are really, really strict on this. They don't want to know about our personal life and they don't want to know about the way we look because they are fans of our characters and our music and this band, but not of our civil personas.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, never having been seen without their costumes, the Lordi characters have become sex symbols in some countries. “I don't know what it is about them but the thing is, the uglier you are, the more girls you get,” Putaansuu says. “Think of Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead or even Gene Simmons. He’s not the prettiest boy on the block.”

Because Lordi is so heavily influenced by the horror genre and Putaansuu is a former film student, it seems only natural that the band would create horror films of its own. In 2004, Lordi released a short film Called “The Kin” on the album Monsterican Dream. In February 2008, its first full-length horror film, will be released. The film, titled “Dark Floors,” stars a young autistic girl who must save the world from a monster attack. Putaansuu wrote the script and designed the monsters for "Dark Floors," which will be directed by Pete Riski, Putaansuu's best friend since childhood, and filmed by Jean Noel Mustonen, who has shot all of Lordi's music videos. “Dark Floors” will not be released in US theaters but Putaansuu hopes that it will eventually be distributed in the US, at least on DVD.

To add to its music and film repertoire, Lordi has taken after its heroes Kiss and created a variety of different Lordi merchandise. “I've always thought that it doesn't take anything away from the band and it's the other way around if you have something else on the side, even though the band and the music is the main thing,” Putaansuu says. “It just makes the thing bigger.”

Finnish fans can buy Lordi-brand cola and a variety of Lordi candies. Copies of the single “It Snows in Hell” (a tongue-in-cheek reference to those who believed Finland would never win Eurovision) can be purchased at Finnish post offices. Lordi even has its own restaurant in Finland, Lordi's Rocktaurant, serving what Putaansuu refers to as “all the good stuff,” including reindeer, steaks, burgers and a la carte food.

Lordi has definitely come a long way since 1992. With a new album out in 2008 and the plans for more tours on more continents, Putaansuu is optimistic about the future of the band.

“Lordi has been going on for 15 years already so I don’t see us stopping,” he says. “It’s the only thing I know how to do and the only thing I want to do. As long as there’s a record label who wants to put out our music and as long as there are venues and people who want to see us live, I think the future is bright.”

Published in the Oregon Voice