Recently I made a blog post answering the question ‘Is Slipknot Satanic’.
As a fan of the band, I think that it is clear what the band does and doesn’t stand for.
However, I totally understand that for someone outside of the scene, Slipknot may indeed seem like the Devil-worshipping type.
The creepy masks, the heavy metal, and the fascination with fire all amount to what some people may associate with Satanists.
Now, that is entirely based on stereotypes and preconceived notion’s about what metal music entails, and these stereotypes are not true.
Yes, some people who listen to metal have long hair or drink a lot, and yes some of them are Satanists. But that’s certainly not true of everyone who listens to heavy metal music.
So in this blog post I want to break some of those notions by pointing out some examples of bands who are all about being upright, moral citizens, but are actually terrible human beings.
Consider it a kind of ‘He who is without sin’ kind of blog post.
Christian Bands
All the bands in this list are Christian Bands, meaning that they exist specifically to spread the word of Christianity and extoll its virtues.
In every sense, these are bands that parents would normally have no problem with their children listening to.
But as we’ll see, even bands with the nicest, shiniest coating, can be hiding some very rotten things inside.
The Bands
70xForgiven
Starting with probably the least well-known band on this list, 70xForgiven, because we need to start somewhere.
You won’t find much about the band online, as they took their website down after the ‘incident’.
70xForgiven were an American Christian Rock group, and according to their Twitter page (which is still up), they seem to have been active from 2016-2019.
The bands’ YouTube channel is still up as well, with 10 videos and a whole 106 subscribers at the time of writing.
I listened to one song, ‘No one like you’, and it sounded pretty much exactly how you’re thinking.
It’s Americana, guitar-y, and is basically a love song but it’s actually about Jesus.
In 2019, 70xForgiven were set to perform at the Wood City Music Festival, a Christian music festival (Shockingly) in Minnesota. The band is still listed on the festivals line-up page.
However the band never got to perform at the festival because the bands singer, Pastor Emanual Rodriguez was arrested.
On what charge? What could they possibly arrest a Pastor for?
Well… child abuse.
Two counts of third-degree sexual assault of a child, to be specific.
Emanual Rodriguez was arrested and held on a $500,000 bond, which to me implies they didn’t want him going anywhere.
I couldn’t find any information after that, but the lack of updates from the band after August 2019 suggest he didn’t get off scot-free.
Or if he did, he didn’t want to keep singing confusingly sexual/religious songs like being ‘Down on my knees‘ for the son of God.
As I Lay Dying
This Metalcore band is not actually a Christian Metal band, though all the bands members do identify as Christian.
This doesn’t need to be a huge thing, I am sure a lot of musicians have faith in some religion, but they don’t make a point of talking about it all the time.
But as you’ll see, for As I Lay Dying, the fact that the band members were practicing Christians was very important.
It’s just that some of the band members were practicing harder than others.
In 2014, the bands vocalist and founder, Tim Lambesis, was arrested.
Not for anything trivial like Shoplifting, Tax Evasion or Jaywalking.
He was arrested, charged and jailed for attempting to hire an undercover police officer to murder his wife.
(I don’t think Tim knew he was an undercover police officer, because that would be an odd first-choice of hitman.)
After being caught in the act of paying someone and saying that he wanted his wife dead, Tim Lambesis pled Not Guilty.
Part of his defence was arguing he was affected by steroid use. Surprisingly, this defence did not work.
Eventually he changed his plea to Guilty and was sentenced to 6 years in prison for attempting to have his wife murdered.
He was released after only 2.
Around this time, Tim decried Christianity and identified as an Atheist.
Although his fellow band members later issues a statement on his behalf, stating that Tim still considered himself a “follower of Jesus”.
Personally, I feel like his own religious beliefs are not as important as the fact that he tried to hire someone to murder his wife, but maybe that’s just me.
After being released from prison, Tim Lambesis also put out an apology on the bands Facebook page, which to me just sounds very… wrong.
If you don’t get what I mean, just read the headline of this article about the apology post.
An apology just doesn’t really seem… enough.
Junkyard Prophet
Between 2007-2013, ’You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International’ was a Christian youth ministry with a stupid, really long name.
They would travel America and deliver assemblies to public schools about making good choices in life.
And they did it all through the power of song!
No, seriously.
The group had a Christian Rapcore Nu-Metal band called Junkyard Prophet, and they would perform at these assemblies.
Junkyard prophet was made up of four members, including Bradlee Dean on drums, the founder of the YCRBYCHI (Even the acronym is really long!).
After a performance, Bradlee Dean would then give a talk on making good decisions and inspiring the kids to be better people.
Up to now, this seems okay. The group is delivering a good message to kids in an engaging way.
Yes, it’s a little cheesy, but I never had a special assembly at school that didn’t smell like a Cheddar buffet.
However, the group didn’t always stick to generally agreed-upon ‘good messages’.
Instead the Christian groups’… Christianity came into the speeches a little too often.
Yes, the talks COULD be about drugs, alcohol and violence, but they could also be anti-abortion, anti-liberal, anti-gun control and very, very anti-LGBT.
Here are some comments Bradlee Dean made in 2012, praising the execution of homosexuals in other countries.
“Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America… and this just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God… but they seem to be more moral than the American Christians do because these people are livid about enforcing their laws.
They know homosexuality is an abomination… If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up an enemy to do just that.”
Bradlee Dean, speaking on The Rachel Maddow Show
In 2012, the nonprofit civil rights group, ‘Southern Poverty Law Center’ declared the organisation an anti-gay hate group.
That’s a pretty clear message, even without getting into all the OTHER right-wing religious messaging the group promoted.
Raze
Our final band on this list is not a Metal band in any way, shape or form, but in a way, I think that’s what makes them a perfect example for this list.
Raze was a Christian pop group from 1997 – 2001.
Being Christian and making accessible, popular music in no way precludes the band members from also being horrible people, or in this case, even worse.
The band had success with songs like ‘Always and Forever (BFF)’ and ‘More than a dream’.
If you could think of song titles more sickly sweet than those, I don’t want to hear them because I’m afraid they would give me diabetes.
So what was the issue with this Christian group of strong morals?
Well in 2002, Vocalist Ja’Marc Davis, a then-23-year-old, admitted to his fellow band members that he was having an ‘inappropriate sexual relationship’ with one of the groups 13-year-old backup dancers.
“Inappropriate sexual relationship” sounds to me like a very soft way of saying rape.
His convictions on lewd molestation, rape by instrument and forcible sodomy also seem to back that up.
For his horrific crimes, Ja’marc Davis served a 5-year sentence at a minimal security prison.
He also formally apologised to the three girls, so I guess that makes everything okay…
Wrap Up
The point I am trying to make with this blog post is not that Christian bands are all full of awful people and that Heavy metal bands have never done anything wrong.
Lord knows that Heavy Metal has more than its fair share of shitty, shitty people.
The point is that you can find abusers, hypocrites and people with shockingly awful opinions in every music genre.
Now these people all deserved what they got, and in some cases probably deserved to get more, but it doesn’t mean you should tar all religious bands with the same brush.
And the same is true for Heavy Metal bands. Some bands are full of terrible people, some bands are Satanists, but the vast majority are just people who like making that style of music.
There is no good way to finish the sentence “All heavy metal bands are…”, so if you find yourself starting that sentence, stop and reconsider.
And the next time your kid shows up wearing a Cannibal Corpse T-shirt, look into the band and find out for yourself that the band doesn’t believe the things they write, they’re just writing fictitious songs to entertain.
