You will be my devoted disciple.
–from “Through Haunted Caverns,” by the band Ezurate
Named after a Dungeons & Dragons demon, Ezurate, a black-metal group from the northern suburbs, has been around for seven years. Its current lineup ranges in age from 17 to 32. They fancy diabolic black-and-white face paint, sport metal-spiked wristbands, and brandish terrifyingly surreal swords and knives. They’ve perfected their showmanship–the only thing they’re missing is a place to put on a show.
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Mostly Ezurate takes whatever it can get. A week after the show with Emperor, they drove to New Jersey to play for 20 minutes in the clean-up spot after Mortician. In September ’97, they jumped at the chance to perform a “destruction ritual” on the “My Teen Worships Satan” episode of the Jerry Springer Show. The ritual, popularized by the late Church of Satan head Anton LaVey, featured the band dressed in black robes as they destroyed a “dollhouse-size” model of a church. A ’98 booking at Big Horse, a Mexican restaurant and music venue in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, led to another meltdown. “We’re playing at a taco stand?” incredulous members asked before storming out. Last-minute replacements filled in that night, and a booze-fueled evening of improvised black-metal jams ensued. Last year at the now-defunct Roby’s, Ezurate played for so long at such an excruciating volume that many people left before the band finished its set. A few months ago Ezurate drove to Nashville to perform for a typical crowd of black-leather-clad metalheads as well as a middle-aged man in gauntlets. Bassist Culg-Gath gripes that one member of the audience was a little too appreciative, describing a “midget paraplegic biker fag” who begged to stroke his spiked cuff.
Most people find it ludicrous to watch men dressed in leather, greasy with sweat and face paint, growling about witchcraft, demonology, human innards, war, and topics covered in the Necronomicon. That’s the main reason you’ll almost never see a death-metal review in a high-profile music magazine, though you will find rock, pop, rap, punk, indie, and electronic music criticism all in the same issue. Perhaps it’s socially unacceptable to condone primitive behavior, but rude conduct obviously draws fans. According to SoundScan, death-metal band Morbid Angel’s Covenant sold 110,000 copies, 30,000 more than Dig Me Out, the best-selling record by critics’ darlings Sleater-Kinney. And magazines like Pit and S.O.D. and specialty music stores (such as Chicago’s Nightfall Records) that focus solely on metal culture do exist, though their sparsity suggests metalheads are lone satellites, suspicious of any “scene” as the nihilistic bands they support. The musicians brag that they thrive on evil–at least onstage–but their “survival of the fittest” mentality doesn’t enhance their chances of success. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
