California Metal Fest Provides Much Needed Outlet for Bands, But Not Without a Price
by Mary Waldron
On May 15 and 16, Southern California metal fans united at Pomona’s neighboring venues the Fox Theater and the Glass House for the fourth-annual California Metal Fest. The two-day festival featured over 60 bands of all subgenres of metal, with headliners such as Fear Factory, Bleeding Through, Job for a Cowboy and Whitechapel.
The festival was all fresh faces and eager smiles of 20-year-olds with dreams of music stardom. You see, about three-quarters of the bands that played were local and required to sell tickets to play—otherwise known as the “pay to play” policy.
The notorious pay-to-play policy has tainted the metal scene in Southern California for decades. Ironically, the festival’s headliner Fear Factory is known for boycotting pay-to-play shows back in the early 1990s by only playing backyard shows throughout Los Angeles.
On the band’s 2001 DVD “Digital Connectivity,” Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares said of the band’s early shows, “At the time, a lot of those clubs in Hollywood weren’t allowing bands like us to play because it was a big rock scene, not a metal scene. The promoters thought we were too heavy. Plus you had to pay to play back then, and we never wanted to do that so we said screw it.”
Two-time California Metal Fest performers–Moreno Valley death metal band Ossification–were among the bands required to sell tickets for the event. Though they had a good turnout at their 2:15 p.m. performance on Saturday, guitarist Jeremy Medina recalls there was a struggle to keep audiences engaged. The bands were split between two venues that were about a five-minute walk away from each other. “The setup was all over the place this year,” said Medina. “There were two shows going on at the same time, which wasn’t clearly communicated on the flier. There was constantly a 10-minute line to get in each venue with strict security checkpoints.”
Adam Estrada, vocalist and guitarist for Los Angeles black metal band Aurora Black, has been active in the So Cal metal scene for almost a decade. He’s also assisted with live sound at Santa Ana’s Galaxy Theatre and worked on tours with acts such as Suicide Silence. “Most of the bands that play Metal Fest can’t always sell out venues on their own,” said Estrada. “These festivals group bands together, make the unknown bands sell tickets, and use a portion of the proceeds to pay only the most high-profile bands on the bill.”
Because metal is still a predominantly underground scene, bands that have “made it” creatively and financially are pretty hard to come by. The genre is too obscured from the mainstream music community, so it simply doesn’t have the market it needs to generate cash flow. “Suicide Silence has come a long way. They made it—people know them in the metal community, they have respect, they play with high-profile bands. However, they still only make a fraction of the $40,000 guarantees that bands like Megadeth and Metallica are making per show. Plus, Suicide Silence has been touring almost non-stop for the last three years,” said Estrada.
Kind of seems unfair when pop acts like Justin Bieber, who are blowing up all over the televisions, radios and iPods across America, will never know the pains of touring in a van all summer with three smelly guys and a crappy air conditioner. Without mainstream radio stations picking up this music, metal bands either just barely survive or have to change their style to accommodate the masses. “I mean, the band The Dirty Heads has been at the number-one spot on KROQ for the last three weeks, with at least 36 spins a week. That kind of exposure is just not possible for metal bands,” said Estrada. “Most metal acts have to play non-metal festivals or ‘sell out’ and change their sound to get exposure.”
Whitechapel, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based deathcore band, played California Metal Fest back in 2007 as a supporting band. This year, they came back with a vengeance as the highlight of day one of the festival. In fact, most fans commented that they received an even better response than the closer bands Job for a Cowboy and Fear Factory. “The show really built up to Whitechapel,” said attendee Kenny Lockwood. “Our first time was amazing. We had a killer response, and we had a pretty early slot. This year, we were billed as one of the headliners, so it’s crazy to go from playing in the middle of the show to playing third to last in three years,” said Whitechapel guitarist Alex Wade. After Whitechapel wraps up its current tour with Job for a Cowboy, they will return to California to kick off the Vans Warped Tour on June 25 to promote their newest CD, “A New Era of Corruption,” which is out June 8.
Founded as a punk festival back in 1995, Warped Tour has gradually opened up to metal bands over the years. Whitechapel is a prime example of metal bands gaining exposure to mainstream crowds through non-metal festivals such as Warped Tour. “This year’s Warped [Tour] is really different. There are a lot of metal bands on it like us. Bands like Suicide Silence, Emmure, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, so it’s really awesome to see so many heavy bands being included in what is normally a pop/punk festival. I think we will do really well because we’ll sound so different and shocking compared to all of the pop acts,” said Wade.
Metal festivals will probably be around for awhile—as long as there are new bands to sell tickets and promote the show. The overarching lack of outlets for metal bands to gain real exposure, though, remains an issue. For now, a selection of mainstream festivals, like Warped Tour, continue to support metal music as its popularity grows slowly.
