In praise of heavy metal
Two misfits try to start a heavy metal band at their high school in the new Netflix film Metal Lords, a coming-of-age comedy partly inspired by writer D.B. Weiss's own teenage musical experiences.
Knives Out actor Jaeden Martell plays student Kevin, who wants to please his best friend Hunter (Adrian Greensmith), a hardcore metal fan determined to win the Battle of the Bands contest with their group.
With Kevin on drums, Hunter on the guitar, their search for a bass player at school — where pop is more popular than metal — proves fruitless until Kevin overhears cellist Emily (Isis Hainsworth) practising.
“Doing this movie definitely gave me a new appreciation for metal,” Martell said. “When it's a foreign genre to you, it sounds like people smashing cymbals and screaming.
“But really, there's a lot of artistry ... it's almost like mathematical, it's really special and you have to be very talented to play it.”
Actor and jazz guitarist Greensmith said he watched the 2003 film School of Rock as part of his preparation while Hainsworth looked to cellist Tina Guo.
“I have mad respect for metal and people who play metal,” Hainsworth said.
As well as focusing on the genre, the movie, released on Friday, also looks at growing pains and mental health.
“In a very oblique way, there are experiences that I had in high school playing music ... that you accumulate over the years,” said Weiss, co-creator of HBO series Game of Thrones.
“Years ago I started to see how they might shape together into a fun small personal story about three kids who don't fit in learning how to not fit in together. And so that's where it came from and then in the interim, obviously, it changed a lot.”
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello served as executive music producer on the movie, and wrote Hunter's composition Machinery of Torment.
He said he could identify with the story. “Heavy metal was my first love and the connection and the opportunity it provided to enhance a kind of self-worth when you're a teenager growing up, especially sort of as an outcast in a conservative suburb,” Morello said. “It was my lifeline.”