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Review - Michigan Metal Fest 2024

Written by Will Kriss

Additional Photos by Emily Sabourin

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Intro:

Bottom line: The sixth annual Michigan Metal Fest (MMF) really was the best installment yet, and a lot of it is due to some simple tweaks in the formula. It just goes to show that sometimes, less really IS more.

While I do say every year that each installment “may have” been the best yet, that should be a testament to the consistency in quality and improvement.

Even so, I’m reminded of something I learned a few years ago in my festival adventures - sometimes, just when you think things can’t get any better, they can!

Background:

I, Will Kriss (DJWILLKILL), have attended every single Michigan Metal Fest to date, starting all the way back in 2017 when I was writing for WMU’s student newspaper. It’s been an honor to be welcomed back every year to write a review, and to see how it’s grown and shifted since then.

My partner Emily Sabourin (DJ Shadowplay) has attended each year since 2022, when the festival started up again post-pandemic. She started taking press photos for the event last year.

As always, it is my intention to provide a written boots-on-the-ground recap of my experience as an attendee, while also providing further insight from those who run it and the artists that play.

What’s New?

As previously reported, the biggest change this year was the decision to only have two stages instead of the traditional three. This means that there were no overlapping sets - attendees could watch every single band if they chose to.

There was a five minute gap between each set, so there would be plenty of time to go back and forth between the two stages.

That’s 12 straight hours of metal if you didn’t take a break away from the stages.

Additionally, the second stage, known as the Leila Arboretum Stage (where the main stage originally sat), has been upgraded to be bigger.

While I did miss the ambience of the third stage, which is in the area of Leila Arboretum that holds intricate wood carvings, it ultimately made little difference in my experience. Just the fact that I didn’t have to worry about choosing between clashing set times made the day a lot easier and smoother, and I’m sure most would agree.

Again, sometimes less is more.

The Start of the Day - Kill Tomorrow

We arrived at 11:30 on the dot, getting to the main stage in time to see the Muskegon-based metal band Kill Tomorrow. The main stage was already decorated with Mushroomhead banners, a reminder of what was to come later.

Where Kill Tomorrow is concerned, the antics and humorous song titles (“Pornographic Memory,” “Girth Quake”) did a great job at setting the stage for the day - crushingly brutal, yet lighthearted and entertaining. The crowd could be heard cracking up in between songs, myself included.

“I love to see a pit before lunchtime,” frontman Jason Miller exclaimed. “That’s how I know my family is here!”

During Kill Tomorrow’s set, I noticed pretty quickly that a lot of people in the crowd seemed to be a lot of families, or at least parents who brought their young kids. This would be something I would see a lot of through the day. It was cool seeing little kids getting excited and jumping in the pit, with the crowd being respectfully careful.

Many years from now, I do hope those kids will really appreciate how cool their parents were for bringing them to stuff like this - getting them started the right way!

There were also costumed actors from Darksyde Acres Haunted House roaming around, sometimes joining in the pit as well, which has been a staple over the last few years. They were also the sponsors of one of the stages.

After Kill Tomorrow wrapped up, we took a quick look around to see what else was going on.

Towards the back of the main stage area, the vendor My Merch Guy had put out giant beach balls for people to sign, saying they would be dropped into the crowd later. That wouldn’t actually happen until towards the end of the night, but in the meantime, MMG representatives would also appear during other sets shooting off t-shirt cannons.

Not long after this, I bumped into Steve Maple, the festival mastermind, where we joked about how if any of the bands are even one minute late for their set, “I’m never coming back to this festival!”

Luckily, the next band of the day (and the first on the Leila Arboretum Stage) started right on time, which happened to be Battle Creek’s very own Stranded Beneath. This group seemed to meld multiple styles into one hard sound, which caught my interest pretty quickly.

I thought that as locals, they would be a good band to talk to. Sometime later in the day, I actually met vocalist Thor Smith in the VIP area, and we agreed to do a follow-up interview after the festival.

We communicated via Email for the interview.

Interview with Thor Smith of Stranded Beneath

While Smith is the vocalist for the Battle Creek-based group, he actually wears many hats in his role.

“I am the vocalist, songwriter, manager and promoter for Stranded Beneath,” Smith said in the interview. “I run nearly all the social media, finances, booking, merch, website, scheduling and coordinating for the band. The other guys focus more on the equipment, recording, composing, artwork, and help me whenever I need with all of it.”

Since I hadn’t heard of them before, I assumed the band was new on the scene, but it has actually existed in some form or another since 2019.

“Stranded Beneath was a band that was never meant to be,” Smith said. “A couple friends from high school reunited to jam some music. It had been so long since we hung out that we really didn’t even have the same songs memorized to be able to play, so we ended up just jamming half-assed covers. After a little while we wanted to work on a side project of our ex-guitarist. That song ended up becoming our demo song ‘Sinking,’ which caught the attention of our current rhythm guitarist, Carson Witt. Shortly after, Carson wrote our first official single, ‘End Bloodlines.’”

With the release of End Bloodlines, Stranded Beneath officially became a band, but plans were put on hold due to a lack of members and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That was about five years ago now and we have been fortunate enough to make some amazing friends who made it possible to play shows and festivals,” Smith said.

When asked about how the band would describe itself, Smith confirmed that there are many influences at play here.

“We definitely don’t feel like we have a specific style or a need to have strict structure when we approach songwriting,” Smith said. “If it works and it sounds cool to us, we try to take it and run with it. We have many different styles of songs that showcase the different backgrounds and influences of our band members, so it is hard to pick just a few. We are looking forward to releasing some more music as soon as we hit our goal for funding the EP.”

Some of the influences he named included Lamb of God and Gojira, which the band has published cover videos of in years past.

When it comes to Michigan Metal Fest, the event turned out to be a lot of “firsts” for Stranded Beneath - not only was it their first time playing at MMF, it was also their first time BEING at MMF, as well as their first time playing a festival at all.

“We all had a blast and hope to return on the stage at future Michigan Metal Fests,” Smith said. “It was really well put together and we can’t say enough how much we appreciate all the support we got from the entire Michigan Metal Fest team of volunteers and vendors. The food was amazing, the setup made sense, and best of all we got a great location near the beer tent, overlooking the second stage.”

Smith had mentioned previously that the band has made good friends that have made it possible to play live shows. In this case, he shouted out Zac Wisner and Kyle Thompson of the Grand Rapids deathcore band Goddokira. Wisner played drums during the set and Thompson joined the band onstage for part of their song “Lowrider.”

Smith also noted that it was a good learning experience for the group. There were some technical difficulties that occurred, and because of this, they had to cut a song from the set.

“We were a little disappointed because it was a brand new song we had never played live, but we understood that we had to give the following band the respect and time to set up and sound check,” Smith said. “Overall, we had a good set and learned a lot. We know what we want to do better and what we need to improve at, as well as some of the things that we did that really went well and helped us perform. On the bright side we will have a new song to showcase for the first time at our next show.”

At this time, the group is searching for a full-time drummer and will be releasing new music as soon as possible.

To keep up with Stranded Beneath, readers can find them on most social media channels, and Smith said the band has an active Discord server.

If you or someone you know is interested in drumming, the band is encouraging applications.

Lunch Break / My Own Will

Following the Stranded Beneath set, we bounced back and forth between the stages, enjoying performances in part from ReCorruptor and Second Salem, all the while thinking, “This is TOO easy.”

Again, I really appreciated the more streamlined approach with just having two stages, rather than running back and forth across the entire property all day.

It was sometime around Second Salem that the hunger kicked in.

At this point, getting a pulled pork sandwich is a Michigan Metal Fest tradition for me. I don’t typically highlight the vendors, but I really feel like I have to shout out the truck On The Roll for keeping me fed at the event all these years. The sandwich is so huge that you have to eat it with a fork, and it kept me going until MUCH later.

(Unfortunately, the truck has since announced that it is going up for sale. Hopefully someone will keep it going).

Meanwhile, Emily had lunch from Fat Axe Grill, which was serving a “HED to HEAD” burger. This was a clear nod to the tours Mushroomhead and HED PE used to run together, as well as the fact that they were both headlining the event (which was also a nod to those old tours). The massive burger was a mushroom and swiss with a special onion bacon jam.

We retreated to the shade and had just enough time to scarf it all down before My Own Will took the main stage, returning for the first time since 2019. Having not seen them that year, and all the other times seeing them being less than sober (thanks Nagazi and Rubbles Bar), I figured this would be a good time for a memory refresh.

I had previously made a note of wanting to watch them anyway, since lead singer David Keoppen would be celebrating his 33rd birthday on the day of the event.

Honestly, how cool is that?

“We play that shit that makes the American Gladiators want to fistfight,” frontman David Keoppen bellowed from the stage. “If you came here to do that shit, get the fuck up here and party with us!”

A cacophony of doom-laden deathcore followed, featuring songs about killing people with icepicks and murdering pedophiles, delivering another enjoyable set that day.

Not to mention the crowd was literally going bananas - the mosh pit included actors from Darksyde Acres, plus a guy in a banana suit and t-shirt cannons being shot off all the while.

About halfway through, I decided that it was high time I interviewed this band.

Interview with David Keoppen of My Own Will

I spoke with frontman David Keoppen over the phone following the festival to learn more about My Own Will, which ended up being a fun conversation.

“I’ve been singing in bands for ten years, but this band has been a thing since 2015,” Keoppen said. “We’ll be celebrating our ten year anniversary in November of next year. It feels kind of crazy, it’s nuts to think this has been part of my life for almost a third of it. But it’s still going, it’s gotten to the point where it pretty much keeps itself afloat. It’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”

The band has its roots in Oxford, MI. The four-piece consists of Keoppen on vocals, twin brothers Danny and Kyle Cummings on guitar and drums respectively, and bassist Max Kushner.

The Cummings brothers and Keoppen went to high school together, with Keoppen a year behind. While he was in college at Central Michigan University, the brothers had been in a band called Laid in Stone, which needed a replacement singer after a certain point.

“I said, well I’ve always wanted to be in bands, let me try,” Keoppen said. “They tried me out, didn’t try anyone else out, that band ended up falling apart, but then like a phoenix rising from the ashes, My Own Will was born. I was very fortunate to fall into a gig with two professional dudes who have been doing it professionally for years. They taught me the ropes real quick, and we’ve been trying to operate at the professional level ever since.”

Kushner later joined on bass in 2019, which Keoppen described as the piece the group was missing, adding that the band has been firing on all cylinders since then.

“Fight riffs, breakdowns, and pretty much anything we deem super-duper heavy is what we’re into,” Keoppen said. “Bands that influenced our sound, we try to take a little bit of the hardcore influence from Kublai Khan, the downtempo style of Traitors, the aggression of Spite, and throw it into a blender and see what comes out.”

While Keoppen described the sound and style of My Own Will as “dummy breakdown-oriented deathcore,” we both agreed “meat and potatoes deathcore” was another good way to describe their style. After all, sometimes all you really need is meat and potatoes.

“The less brain cells you have, I think the more in-tune with our music you are,” he joked.

“We’re pretty simple guys, we don’t do a whole lot of crazy shit. I’ve always said my guitar player and drummer are two of the best players of the instrument I’ve ever met, but both of them would much rather stay in a pocket than show off, which I think really does help our music because they’re writing more for what’s good for the song, not necessarily what’s good for me.”

When it comes to their third time playing Michigan Metal Fest, I asked the same question I did earlier in this piece - how cool is it that you were able to play on your birthday?“VERY cool,” he told me. “When Steve Maple approached me with the date, we were at the Music Factory, he came out and we were talking about MMF. I asked how it had gone in 2023, and he said we were surprised we didn’t submit. We used to submit every single year, but after we got the opportunity to play twice in a row, we felt like other local bands should get the same shot that we got, so we bowed out for a couple years. He said he thought it was about time we came back, so I asked him when the date was, and he said August 24, I said, my birthday! Lock us up!”

As for the set itself, despite being his own worst critic, Keoppen thought it was one of the best that My Own Will has ever played.

“I always believe I could have done a better job, but in terms of how it went with playing the songs and how the crowd was engaging and how much fun we’ve had, I think it was one of the top five shows we’ve ever played for all of us,” Keoppen said. “We had a great time, we love the festival atmosphere, and anytime I can get an impromptu wall of death within four seconds is a pretty decent show for me. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever been able to witness from the stage! I had people stopping me the entire rest of the day to take pictures and tell us we did a great job, so personally, I would put it in the top five.”

Like others, Keoppen also appreciated the new scaled-back format of MMF.

“In terms of comparison to other MMF’s we’ve played, I would say it’s probably the best,” Keoppen said. “I think the condensing to two stages really helped, and keeping the two stages in a similar area really helped, particularly with foot traffic. Nothing against when the other stage was running, but that’s a pretty far distance for people to get in two minutes, especially with high traffic. So from a logistics standpoint, it was the best it’s ever been. It was a perfect amount of time between each band, the people had time to walk in between, and the vendors were right there. It was very well organized.”

In the near future, My Own Will expects to have new music available early next year at the latest.

“Whether it’s gonna be a ten to twelve song record or 6 song EP, we’re not sure yet,” Keoppen said. “However, our label, Bleeding Art Collective from Australia, is super cool and patient with us, just as long as it’s good music. We have the same mindset when it comes to that, so it’s nice not having a label breathing down our necks with deadlines and just letting us create our own.”

To keep up with My Own Will, readers can visit them on social media, check out videos on YouTube, and listen to the music on all major streaming services.

Killcrown

At last year’s MMF, Steve Maple’s previous band NuSkin was scheduled to play, but surprised everyone with the announcement that it would be their last performance as NuSkin.

The band then rebranded as KillCrown and have been performing and releasing music under that name ever since.

As I’ve written multiple times before, it cannot be understated that Maple’s stage presence stands in stark contrast to his chill demeanor. On stage, he’ll be screaming until red in the face with veins bulging out of his neck, and he would actually be scary if I didn’t know anything else about him.

And you know it’s getting serious when the shirt comes off!

Even so, the performance was peppered with funny banter.

“My guitarist has brought something to my attention - we don’t feel like we’re seeing enough moshing at our set right now,” Maple said. “Somebody push my son in that pit! Don’t spare the kids!”

And -

“You guys want us to play something better? No one answered! Thank you guys, we’ll play something worse!”

Maple told me last year that it needed to happen, and he reiterated the same this year.

“Personally, and this goes for our guitarist too, we both really felt we had moved in a completely different direction than when we started with NuSkin,” Maple said. “We also had our Facebook page eliminated, so it was a sign to just go ahead and start fresh. We’ve been a heavier band than what we used to be, so I feel like mostly, we’ve been able to grab people’s attention a little bit more with what we have. To me, that’s probably because it’s really authentic and scratches our itch the way it should so we can deliver it correctly. So I think as a band, we’ve come a long way from what we were as NuSkin, it’s like an evolution, but it’s a whole new band.”

In one year since rebranding, Maple says he’s been able to accomplish more with Killcrown than he did with NuSkin.

“We’ve been invited to some pretty big shows and festivals,” Maple said. “We’re really happy about that, because as NuSkin, we didn’t do much of that. We’ve been invited to a lot of out of state festivals and functions. We’re working with a recording label right now to put out a single and potentially an album with them. So I just think that we’ve stepped up as a group of guys and musicians, and as far as our band goes, I think we take it more seriously than we did in NuSkin. Not that we didn’t take it seriously before, but we didn’t try to accomplish much more than getting the recordings done and putting them out. We took it further with this one and started saying yes to the opportunities coming to us, and we’re taking a bigger swing.”

So how cool is it to have your own metal band, your own metal festival, and the ability to play at your own festival?

I’d say that’s pretty fucking cool.

Voraath

Voraath was one of my most highly-anticipated sets of the day, and for good reason.

The quick version is that last year, I saw them perform towards the end of the night on the now-decommissioned third stage, which was also during the headlining slots. I thought it was the best show of the day, but the crowd was very small because of the timing.

I wrote as much in my review, and Steve told me the Voraath incident was partially why the third stage was dropped.

In order to make up for it, the band was brought back not once, but actually twice this year: Michigan Metal Fest at the main stage, and earlier in 2024, a headlining show at The Music Factory.

Now, a year later, whether they knew about them or not, the crowd would have the opportunity to see them with absolutely no other bands going on. Further proof that going down to two stages turned out to be a smart move for everyone involved.

Although I preferred seeing them in the dark, they were no less sinister in broad daylight.

Clad in post-apocalyptic costumes with glowing red LED helmets, the North Carolina-based band delivered their \brand of atmospheric sci-fi metal to a much larger audience.

Lead singer Chelsea Marrow effortlessly switches from otherworldly growls to ethereal clean vocals, sometimes multiple times in the same song. For the unfamiliar, I would say “Sirenhead” and “The Leviathan’s Keep” are good places to start.

Having now seen both their MMF debut and their redemption slot, it went down in my mind as another one of the best sets of the day, and I can only hope that other people who saw it felt the same.

I knew this was a story that needed to be told, so I decided to interview the band, which I really should have done last year.

Interview with Joshua Ward of Voraath

Following the event, I had the opportunity to interview drummer and composer Joshua Ward over the phone.

To begin with, Voraath formed around three years ago in the mountains of North Carolina, although one member lives in Florida.

“We definitely envelope ourselves as a sci-fi extreme metal band,” Ward said. “It’s not easy just to say metal because we specifically incorporate a lot of peaks and valleys - we have a lot of emotional parts we like to include in our music, we have these complex ‘ooga booga’ riffs. It’s almost like we’re trying to make a metal symphony or opera to some degree. You want hard-hitting, or a really sad dramatic part, we try to encapsulate those emotions.”

While the group has black metal roots, Ward noted that the band has many different influences. He named groups like Fleshgod Apocalypse and Septicflesh, along with the soundtracks of various 80’s movies.

The band is also a concept band - each member plays a character in an ongoing story, which is illustrated in their music and videos.

“Everything from our armor to our music, we wrote the story first,” Ward said. “So we actually sat down, pulled out whiteboards and paper, and we created this complex multiverse.”

There is a LOT of thought behind the lore. Essentially, in the year 2193, 80% of Earth’s population has vanished after the appearance of some unspeakable interdimensional evil, and those who remain are fighting for scraps.

In this world, Voraath themselves are “hillbilly mercenaries” just trying to survive, but end up with more than they bargained for after discovering the body of an ancient entity.

“It's pretty much a survival story on a dystopian earth,” Ward explained. “We uncovered the wrong thing, we’re stuck with it and now we have to do something about it. Then we find out that there’s a much bigger unfortunate plan happening with these spacefaring entities, who go planet to planet eating people and stars for resources. We just got caught in the middle. It’s from the point of view of some dumbass mountain hillbilly guys, and we just get caught up in this weird cosmic story that we didn’t want to be a part of. We get armor, we get more high-end weapons, we end up on a mission to go get the bad guys.”

There’s more to the story than that, but it can be further explained in another article, or by checking out the music and videos.

When it comes to MMF, we had to address the elephant in the room - how did this set compare to the last one?

“I’m excited that Steve brought us, we’re always grateful for that. It’s complicated - we’re in a weird tier, not to mention our type of music, because a lot of bands on the roster could be more accessible. Like ‘hey, I’m about to to show you this sci-fi horror metal band, they dress up like weird alien things, and they’re gonna be blastbeating around 280-300 BPM’s.’ But him picking us, we’re grateful for it.

I'm glad he got rid of that third stage, because [last year] I noticed no one was hanging around it, everyone was sticking around the first two stages. So about midday we were like, ‘oh man, no one’s gonna even know we’re playing!’ So we were talking with people about when we were playing, but some people we talked to couldn’t even find the third stage. We did express that to Steve, he was super cool and said he’d bring us back the next year.

This year, we were on around 2:45, and it was so damn hot with all our gear on. We had been nervous all day, it took us 17 hours to get there this time, so by the time we got there, we’re super tired, it’s hot, so we got up on stage and did the best we could.”

He wasn’t kidding. Lead singer Marrow even ditched her helmet at one point in the set.

Despite the heat, Ward said it was a much better experience for the band, as well as a great one overall.

“I like the approach Steve’s doing in general, where it makes it a bit more accessible to bands,” Ward said. “Some of these festivals, they’ll make you feel like crap - you’ll message, and if you don’t meet exactly the criteria…the music industry is kind of brutal. Steve makes it a little more musician to musician, like, ‘hey, I want to help you out and get you out here.’ From what I’m hearing, every year it gets more people, so they’re doing a great job!”

There was only one thing missing - the band’s signature BBQ sauce, which they had for sale last year.

“What’s funny is that stuff went out faster than anything we had,” Ward said. “It’s our guitar player Tyler Kohl’s family recipe. I’m a BBQ sauce connoisseur, so when he told me about it, I was like, ‘yeah, okay, it’s probably gonna be basic.’ Oh my goodness, I ate that stuff and said we have to sell this crap! A local company even tried to buy his recipe, apparently. So we bottled it ourselves and started selling it, and it sold out way quicker than anything we had! So apparently we’re traveling barbeque salesmen with music.”

At the time of our interview, Ward said the band was working on a new album and gearing up for a string of shows with various bands including Green Jello (yes, that Green Jello) and The Convalescence.

However, Hurricane Helene hit, and some of the members were unable to leave their own town, so they turned to helping out the community instead. To learn more about those efforts, click here.

Still, the band remains at work on their next album, and will also be focused on getting more of their material into the world. To keep up with the band, readers can follow them on social media and view their YouTube channel.

“We’re wanting to bring more than just another metal band - it’s a whole multiverse!”

Nail Bite

After taking a break, we returned to the main stage for what would end up being the most bizarre band of the day.

Historically, MMF usually has at least one “wild card” on the lineup. Those have included groups like Raven Black, Green Jello and Psychostick, but this year, it was the Pennsylvania-based Nail Bite, which I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around.

This band was…something.

I wouldn’t know what category to put them in other than “avant-garde metal,” as I could easily see them on a playlist with bands like Polkadot Cadaver or Iwrestledabearonce.

The first thing I noticed was that none of the members looked like they were in a metal band. Some were wearing Hawaiian shirts, and I thought they looked like a band that you would see at some kind of indie show, or maybe WIDR FM’s live Basement Show.

But looks can be deceiving.

The second thing I noticed was how young everyone looked - they all looked like they could be in high school. The exception was the bass player, who I thought looked like he could be someone’s dad.

Turns out though, I was completely right. Based on my research after the show, the quick version is that most of the members are in their late teens or early 20’s (I couldn’t find the exact ages), and bassist John Bitting is the father of guitar player/vocalist Johnnie Bitting.

In addition, vocalist Lonna Nelson and keyboardist Caiden Nelson are siblings. Meanwhile, drummer Austin Landis took music lessons at the Martial Arts school owned by the Bitting family, which also offered music lessons.

Quite literally a family metal band.

So it’s definitely a cool story, but in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn’t ultimately a huge fan of these guys. However, the performance was so interesting that I couldn’t help but stay for the whole thing.

And months later, I’m STILL thinking about it, so in that respect, they were certainly memorable.

Bizarre piano interludes and cartoon sound samples are paired with slamming riffs, and the absolutely guttural vocals from Nelson threw me for a loop and a half - another one of those “where the fuck is THAT coming from?” moments.

I also couldn’t help but notice how receptive the crowd was to them - as far as I could tell, the people watching were eating it up, right down to a wall of death, a headbanging line, and running a circle pit around the sound booth.

In fact, a few weeks after MMF, I was talking to someone at a different concert (incidentally, a Polkadot Cadaver show), and they told me they thought Nail Bite was the best band that day!

“Nail Bite, I’ll tell you the truth, I got probably most of my compliments about those guys,” Maple told me later. “It’s because they’re so different, they’re young, they’re fresh, they have this stage presence going on - I got a crazy amount of people saying, ‘Who is Nail Bite? I loved those guys!’ But again, that’s something I’m looking at before I booked them.

They’re playing a decent amount of festivals and it looks like people are really responding well to them. I get what they’re doing - I don't dislike their music, but it’s something that I know so many people would listen to because it IS different. It’s something where nobody else is doing quite that mix, and that’s where stars are born.”

So even though they didn’t do much for me, it is a very interesting story regardless, and here I am still talking about them, so that’s a job well done in my book. And apparently they were a big hit at MMF, to which I say, keep up the good work!

Cultus Black

Cultus Black was another returning act from the previous year, where they turned out to be a surprise hit for those who saw them. Maple believes that the band will blow up fast, and was adamant about booking them again - while MMF still can.

While the aesthetic initially led me to believe the band would have a black metal sound (faceless members with a lead singer done up in full corpse paint), they actually have an atmospheric Nu Metal style - something in the line of Motograter or similar acts.

When I was writing my review of their performance last year, I could not, for the life of me, find any information on who the members were. However, in writing this article, I found pretty quickly that the lead singer is actually James Legion, who has spent many years as the vocalist for Motograter. With that knowledge, it suddenly all made sense. I just can’t believe I didn’t catch onto that sooner!

Rather than the black-and-white body paint, Legion was instead done up in day-glo orange and black body paint - a much bolder style, and one a little more in line with Motograter.

But this isn’t Motograter - this is CULTUS BLACK, which the band will remind you of.

“I know you’re probably wondering, who are these weird motherfuckers on our stage? I’ll tell you who we are! WE ARE CULTUS BLACK!” Legion bellowed to the crowd. “NOW BANG YOUR FUCKING HEADS! LET’S GO!”

And like last year, they had one of the most memorable sets of the day. Legion has an impressive vocal range, switching from deep growls, quick raps and absolutely soaring high notes.

A surprise for me came when they played “I Am Not,” featuring Jamie Madrox of Twiztid, which I was previously unaware of. I haven’t actively paid attention to Twiztid in a while, but it sounded really cool and was a standout moment for me.

The band rounded out their performance with a good selection of other established tracks, such as “Nevermine,” “Burn” (during which the percussionist went crowd surfing) and of course, “You Make Me Sick.”

While Cultus Black may indeed become too big to play at MMF one day, for now, it’s been awesome to see them two years in a row here, and it will be interesting to see where they’re at another year from now.

“Those guys blow me away nonstop,” Maple said. “They put together nothing but banger after banger, and it hit me when I listened to them. Genuinely I listen to that music and I’m like, ‘wow.’ You can feel James’ conviction in his delivery, and the music itself is produced masterfully. I probably should have some conversations with these guys, because they knock it out of the park, and they do live as well.”

Blue Felix

I had previously remarked that Cultus Black also reminded me of the Minnesota-based Blue Felix, who have been one of my favorite bands since I first saw them 12 years ago. So imagine my excitement when they were booked for their second MMF stint!

Incidentally, they were set to play right after Cultus Black, so we were going from one group of costumed weirdos to another.

According to Maple, they were one of the most-requested bands to bring back to the festival, so they did.

A while back, I thought I had heard that the group would be rebranding with a different sound after the departure of guitarist X-Hail, but a search on this turned up nothing. Either way, with the exception of lead singer Toxsick Tripp, the band now has a completely new lineup, including a turntablist.

And they’re still kicking ass!

Since I’ve been following them for over a decade, it was one of the most nostalgic sets of the day for me - at this point, I’ve completely lost track of how many times I’ve seen them.

They opened with their classic album intro “Perfect Servant” before launching into “Dirtnap,” their new single “Beast,” and “Uncle Scam” to name a few.In the middle of this, I couldn’t help but reflect on all those nights seeing Blue Felix at the old Carnival of Chaos Festival, all those birthday celebrations at The Machine Shop, and everywhere in between.

12 years really IS a long time.

Snapping back to reality, their trashy, thrashy blend of Nu Metal was as enjoyable as always, with Tripp jumping off the speakers, waving a flag and just generally being crazy. But somewhere along the line, his personal custom microphone (which he’s used at every single show I’ve ever seen them at) started cutting out.

He slammed it on the stage and joked that he’s been trying to kill that mic for a while so he could justify getting a new one, which caused a major flashback to the first time I ever saw them. I know I mention this almost every time I talk about Blue Felix, but it’s always worth sharing:

At that particular event, the organizers apparently thought the crowd was getting too rowdy, and tried to stop their set early by cutting off all of the microphones. That didn’t stop the band or Tripp - he just screamed the lyrics from the stage and those who knew the words screamed them back.

So I just laughed, because I knew that even if the microphone died, it wouldn’t be an issue for this band. Luckily in this case, it came back to life, survived another set, and they rounded out with their classic “Middle Finger Up.”

Another great Blue Felix show in the books, and another reminder why I ever loved this band in the first place.

Autumn Lies Buried

Speaking of reminders, this next band is a good reminder of why you should always take the time to look into festival lineups before you get there, as well as another lesson in making assumptions.

With a name like “Autumn Lies Buried,” I immediately thought it would be some sort of metalcore band. That’s not the case here - the Tennessee-based group is actually a fusion band that mixes deathcore and rap. In my research ahead of time, the first song I heard by them was “Inhuman Skin,” which was the furthest thing from what I imagined they would sound like.

Again - a lesson in making assumptions.

Plus, they’re labelmates with Voraath, so I was intrigued to see what more of what Exitus Stratagem Records had to offer.

This ended up being one of the wildest sets of the day - of course, the band was playing their crushing metal and rap mix, and doing it quite well, but it was also very funny to see what the crowd was doing.

For starters, there were big beach balls bouncing everywhere (not the same ones we signed earlier), but it kept getting crazier. When I looked over, there was a guy crowd surfing on an air mattress, which was being carried in a circle by at least six people!

Plus, after a while, a whole lot of red and white pool noodles appeared, so everyone started sword fighting and hitting each other with them while moshing, and the set ended with an explosion of confetti!

Autumn Lies Buried themselves were solid, but along with the crowd-watching, that whole experience was one of the most memorable parts of the day.

They also turned out to be a great segue into the next performance, which shared a lot of stylistic similarities.

Filth

Filth was another band from North Carolina on the lineup that day, and they’ve played MMF multiple times at this point. While I missed them in 2019, I got to settle the score a couple years ago, where they were luckily still able to play after the infamous storm of MMF22.

They remain a powerful force with their discordant, hard-hitting deathcore sound. On songs like “Stay Gutter” and “Southern Hostility,” it felt like the vocals of Dustin Mitchell were punching me right in the chest.

The set also featured two surprise appearances - one from David Keoppen of My Own Will during the song “Hell,” along with Autumn Lies Buried vocalist Kaelin Wilkins on the closeout song “Chin Check.”

Keoppen would later tell me that he usually does guest vocals during shows the two groups play together, which became an ongoing thing during a previous tour.

“I’ve been a big fan of Filth for a while, so when we got the opportunity to tour with them, I talked to David Gantt, the guitar player, and asked about doing some guest vocals,” Keoppen said. “Filth, My Own Will and Autumn Lies Buried were all on the same tour together in 2022. All three of our bands toured for 30 days, so the three of us are extremely tight and close. What’s even more impressive is that Kaelin from Autumn Lies Buried doesn’t do guest vocals, so the fact that he got up there and did a song with those guys was an accomplishment all on its own.”

Add in all the leftover swords and beach balls from the previous set, fire spinners, a two-stepping mosh pit and a wall of death, and you have yet another standout period from the day!

TRAITORS

We took a dinner break after Filth and returned to the main stage in time to see the Florida-based deathcore group Traitors, who played last year and ended up being Steve Maple’s favorite set that day.

One year later, I found myself enjoying them even more than the first time! Something about their performance seemed “tighter” in a way that I can’t really explain, but the performance was no less slamming either way.

Vocalist Tyler Shelton is a great frontman as well as a great hype man, and his presence seemed to have more humor in it this time - right down to the “Austin 3:16” shirt.

Somewhere in the middle of the set, something happened that I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen at a metal show, and if I did, this is the first time in recent memory: A mosh pit viking ship.

“Let’s get a big old motherfucking rowboat or something, be creative!” Shelton yelled. “Let’s see what you got in that pit!”

The crowd started with one line of rowers, but it quickly expanded outward to having four or five lines of people, all “rowing the boat.” (Not to be confused with the WMU Broncos in the mid–2010’s. If you know, you know). “ROW! ROW! ROW! ROW! ROW!”

And Shelton was apparently keeping track of how many people joined in because afterwards he said there were “38 heavyweight champions” in the boat.

“HEY! The Captain did not tell you to stop rowing, you sons of bitches!”

Ending the set with the song “Menace to Society,” I found myself with a renewed appreciation for the group - while deathcore has never been my preferred type of metal, I’ll be the first to say that Traitors does it in such a way that makes it very cool to watch!

Gideon

Following Traitors, we ran into Steve Maple and had a quick talk about how the day was going. He said that so far, he thought it was the best MMF installment yet. I made a mental note to ask him about that later and see if he still felt the same way, but for now, we were hurrying over to see Gideon.

I then ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in years, who told me Gideon was one of his most anticipated sets of the day. I realized a little late that this was one of the few bands I hadn’t gotten around to checking out ahead of time, so I figured it would be fine to be surprised this time.

On arrival, I must say I was stunned - the Leila Arboretum stage was now the most packed I’d seen all day, and possibly since the main stage originally sat there years ago. The crowd also seemed to be even more active than before, which I chalked up to the sun finally going down.

Gideon themselves are a Metalcore band based out of Alabama, but the vocals of Daniel McWhorter often sounded like they were crossing over into Hardcore territory as well.

No disrespect meant to the band, but overall, they didn’t do much for me personally - the performance was solid and the crowd energy was some of the most intense of the day, but ultimately, it just wasn’t really my style.

Clearly, however, they have a huge fanbase, and it was cool to see people going nuts for them, so what they’re doing appears to be working out very well.

Funnily enough, Maple seems to know my preferences better than I thought, as he correctly guessed that they weren’t really my style.

“Of course, Traitors is my favorite band there, but Gideon is pretty close. Very fucking good. I don’t know if you really listen to them outside of this too much, but jeez,” Maple said. “I think Gideon absolutely shook MMF. I think that when they were playing, there was a whole energy that came with that. It could be a crowd of people that’s never met them before, and they just jump on that energy. But I thought Gideon did an amazing job, I think they’re a different kind of band, they have their own swing and everyone loves jumping on it. So that was really cool.”

Two Kings Glass Show

As a sort of interlude to all the madness of the day, a live glassblowing show took place between Gideon and HED PE by Two Kings Glass, who were also sponsors of the festival. I’ve never actually seen one in person, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Two Kings Glass only had a 25 minute slot, but they used every last second of it - at first, I had no idea what they were making, but eventually, the project took the shape of a giant glass sword, white-hot from the flames.

I appreciated having a little break in between bands, but it was cool to see some live performance art as well. I can’t even imagine what kind of practice and discipline you need to have in that line of work.

“They had some technical difficulties with their stage show, but they still performed their slot and it was awesome,” Maple said. “Usually they have a lot more lights and a camera, a whole TV backdrop they were supposed to have, but they traveled up from Pennsylvania and it didn’t all get put together in time. But the show must go on, so they had to do it the way it was. But I thought it was awesome, and I thought they had a strong presence there.”

HED PE

Returning to the lineup for the first time since 2019, HED PE were previously a wild card to the festival, and a noticeable amount of people didn’t seem to know who they were. Someone even asked if I knew who the band was, “because they ROCK!”

Five years later, that was not the case. They were now the second-to-last band of the night, and the chants of “HED PE! WHAT? HED PE! WHAT?” could be heard all throughout the day.

It was also another nostalgic set for me because, like Blue Felix, I’ve been a fan for the last 12 years and have lost track of how many times I’ve seen them.

I’ve said before that it can be hard showing them to someone new, but basically, HED PE is a fusion metal band that’s been around since the 90’s. They incorporate metal, rap, punk, reggae and world music into a unique sound, and frontman Jahred Gomes even plays a melodica during the show.

Gomes made jokes about whether or not they should actually be there, asking the crowd if HED PE can be considered metal - something to the effect of “well we’re at Michigan Metal Fest, so I guess so!”

Judging by the very large circle pit and wild cheers, it sure LOOKED like I was watching a metal band.

Remember the giant beach balls everyone signed at the beginning of the day? They finally got launched into the crowd once the band started. They lasted a lot longer than I was expecting them to, but eventually they deflated. Afterwards, the people in the pit picked up the edges and ran it around in circles like a playground parachute.

Overall, like every HED PE show I’ve seen, it was a very celebratory and fun atmosphere to be a part of, and a nice change of pace from those last few crushing hours. Wild card or not, HED PE still kicks ass!

Once they closed out with “Renegade,” we made a dash for the final performance of the night - the legendary Nu-Metal group Mushroomhead.

Mushroomhead

This is one of the sets I was most looking forward to that day. I grew up listening to industrial and Nu-Metal, and Mushroomhead is a band I’ve been listening to longer than I can remember. I’ll never forget that first time seeing the “Sun Doesn’t Rise” music video and instantly getting hooked by the music and bizarre aesthetic.

It had been quite a while since I’d seen them live - my last time was in 2014, at which time all three original vocalists were performing in the band.

None of those singers are in the group now, so I had to wonder how the live performance would be now. It would be taking place just weeks after the release of their newest album “Call the Devil,” which I enjoyed, so it was the perfect opportunity to see how they’re doing these days.

The short answer - pretty damn well. I’ll admit, I had some reservations with the new singers, especially after seeing what I considered to be the “ideal” lineup, but they had me sold within the first song.

Current vocalists Steve Rauckhorst and Scott “Strike” Beck sounded fantastic on both the old and new material, and the addition of vocalist Jackie La Ponza to the band added a new dimension to both the record and the live show.

“I thought they pinned it down, they were very talented vocalists,” Maple would later tell me. “Jackie LaPonza really adds to the show, I was really glad that she was there, I wasn’t sure if she would be leading up to that. I know that she’s been with them on some tours but not on others, so I was hoping she would be because she really adds a lot.”

The setlist had a really excellent range of the Mushroomhead catalog. At the very start, they faked the crowd out with the Spongebob Squarepants theme song before launching into “12 Hundred,” which was new at the time I discovered them in 2006.

There were plenty of classics in the mix, like “Sun Doesn’t Rise” and “43,” along with a great selection of middle and new-school material, like “Qwerty” and “Fall in Line.”

It occurred to me that I had never seen Mushroomhead live in a dark setting. I had never seen them indoors or at night, they had all been in outdoor daytime festival settings. Seeing them at night made a world of difference, adding to the already spectacular show.

The way it all comes together live is really difficult to explain in words, but there is a LOT going on, and really just needs to be seen to be fully understood. Readers can view a video of the performance by clicking here to get an idea.

What a sight, indeed. The costumes, masks, dual synchronized water drumming, plus the awesome industrial metal, all made this the best show of the day, and in my opinion, one of the best headlining slots MMF has EVER booked.

Not to mention, I forgot some members actually WALK on the crowd, as opposed to just regular crowd surfing.

Since I hadn’t been paying as much attention to the group since 2014, I had sort of forgotten how much I loved them until I was actually seeing them live, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to be reminded about it.

I would find out afterwards that Emily had no idea they were a costumed band. I had played their music, of course, but she had somehow never seen a picture or video of them. That’s actually the best possible way to go into this - imagine seeing a band like Mushroomhead for the first time not knowing anything about what they look like or what they do! A completely fresh and organic experience, and one I’m glad she was able to have.

After playing for an hour, the band performed a cover of “Empty Spaces” by Pink Floyd, which transitioned into their classic song “Born of Desire,” putting a wrap on one of the best headlining sets Michigan Metal Fest has ever seen.

And despite being tired, sweaty and sore, we left that night feeling elated from the events of the day.

The best installment yet? I think so.

Following Up with Steve Maple

After the festival, the only thing left to do was the post-festival interview with Steve Maple. The first question, as always, is how he and the staff felt about the day overall.

“Amazing,” he said. “We were absolutely thrilled at the performances, the turnout and the vibe. Our feedback that we’ve gotten from everybody has been absolutely amazing. When we take this year and we put it next to any other year we’ve had, we can see a clear difference. Personally, and I think I can speak for everyone on our committee, we are truly happy about how this year went. It makes it so easy to move into the next year and understand that your list of things to improve has gotten smaller, and we did a great job at executing our plans to make it better over the last couple years.”

During the event, he said he thought it was the best installment yet, and I wanted to know if he still felt the same way.

He did.

“Absolutely yeah, hands down it was the best one yet,” Maple said. “The turnout was great, and just the way it was set up…the compliments we’ve gotten from everybody, from the crowd to the bands to the sponsors, most everybody speaks the most highly about the flow. We moved to just two stages, and where they’re placed opposite from each other, people really loved the flow of the area.

This year, we really went for it and tried to make it the best year yet. That’s what we believe we got out of it. We had so many people so happy. Our sponsors want to stay with us, our vendors all want to come back, we have people telling us they’re gonna come back next year no matter what the bands are. They just trust us at this point, and that’s one of the biggest compliments I feel we got.”

It has been stated many times already, but we had to touch on the conversion to two stages a little further, and he provided some insight into what that process was like.

“How I brought it up was, ‘I’m kinda thinking about cutting one of these stages out,’ and some people would say, ‘less bands?’ I kind of want to do that so everyone can see every minute of every performance, then have a little time to move in between, and we can focus on just getting quality bands for a good quality crowd,” Maple said. “Once I fully explained that to everybody it was like, ‘oh yeah, that’s a no-brainer.’ I’ve gotten maybe 5 out of 500 responses that liked the spread out stages better, so that’s literally like one percent. I respect that opinion as well, but for us and most people that came out, it really worked better for them.” It was less worrying about rushing around to catch the bands you wanted to.

YOU know what I mean,” he laughed.

I did, and I mentioned how I was able to talk to Joshua Ward from Voraath, which again, was a big part of why that third stage was dropped. Maple had said as much in our followup interview after MMF 2023, and was true to his word.

“It wasn’t because it was them, but it was because of what happened to them the year before,” Maple explained. “They were one of the bands I was most excited about showing everybody, and then they got put on that third stage and it was so far away from where everything was, everybody missed them! They’re good friends, they traveled a long way to be there, so once that happened, it was kind of the last straw for me.

My main reason for doing this event is to give bands a really cool place to show off what they’ve really got - those guys have something really special, and I was bummed that we hyped this up all year, and they weren’t really able to showcase it like they were supposed to. So that’s one of the main reasons why Voraath was back on this year’s event. I really felt the need to give that back to them so they could show off what they got.”

And as everyone experienced, if you’re going back and forth to every band all day long, you’re gonna see everything, whether you know who they are or not.

Next, I wanted to know more about what the process was like in choosing the lineup. Not only was there a lot of Deathcore and Nu Metal, there also seemed to be a lot of “fusion” type bands, or bands that implemented more than one style.

“As you know, I always want to showcase hardworking bands,” Maple said. “Bands that are really beating the streets are bands that really turn my head usually. And in doing so, they’re doing a good job and building a reputation, and I’m able to watch that. So most of the time that’s usually what points me in a band's direction. At the same time, there are some bands I really wanted for certain reasons.

I do watch my lineups - once I have a certain amount of a certain type of band, I try to scale back and get something different, I try to not make it all seem like it's leaning in one subgenre direction or another. We never really want to be pigeonholed, we don’t want you to really understand what you’ll see as a headliner here. That goes for the other bands too, but there’s a few of them that pop out - we had Cultus Black, TRAITORS and Filth all come back.

These bands, just for obvious reasons, they’re amazing bands that are climbing fast, and they’re all really good people. It just made sense to bring them back while they're really just getting things heated up in my opinion. I think these bands are gonna go even farther - they’re just gonna keep going, and the sky's the limit for that kind of talent. So those are just people in bands that I felt really SHOULD be back on that stage in 2024, I felt strongly about it.”

With the notion of not wanting to be pigeonholed in mind, having a Nu Metal headliner was actually something MMF has never done before.

“I used to be really big into Nu Metal. In fact, Mushroomhead was my favorite band for quite a while when I was younger,” Maple said. “They went through their different transitions and I followed a lot of that. I’ve moved on to heavier pastures as far as what I regularly listen to, but I still have a lot of love and respect for Mushroomhead.

When that came up as an option, Nu Metal was really big this year and last year, [like with] Fred Durst, it’s just blown up right now. It was the type of decision that was kind of both, wow, I get to have one of the bands I’ve looked up to a lot in my life, as well as hit this niche that’s going on. Everyone’s loving Nu Metal, this is gonna be a good band to put on, I think they’re going to scratch that itch for everybody, and I think they did!”

I figured it was on purpose to begin with, but I was also able to confirm that having Mushroomhead and HED PE as the two main headliners was indeed a nod to the old “HED to Head” tour, which Maple’s band (as NuSkin) opened for at one stop at Harpos in Detroit.

I explained how I felt going into it. Initially, my thought was, “Oh yeah, Mushroomhead will be cool, I haven’t seen them in a while,” to being reminded how much Mushroomhead actually kicks ass while it was happening.

Turns out, Maple felt largely the same way.

“Yeah, it’s like you remember that they did the stuff they do,” Maple said. “It had been a long time, and I said ‘hell yeah, we’re gonna see Mushroomhead, they’re gonna have the water drums, it’s gonna be cool.’ Back in the day, I had seen them so much that I started to, whenever they would play near me, I had seen them so much that I would kind of just be chilling at the bar. It wasn’t like a new band coming on for me, that was my own fault just for eating them up by watching them so much. But it was the same thing - once they went on, it was like, ‘oh my god man, I forgot about all this, and all these songs that mean so much to me,’ it was really cool.”

But when taken as a whole, the lineup reads like a massive Friday night at The Machine Shop or the Music Factory.

“Everyone did so good throughout that whole day, it’s crazy - that whole lineup was just BEEF,” Maple said. “I kept looking at the lineup, and you sometimes have your doubts, like, ‘all right, I think everyone will like this,’ and I thought they would. After I saw it sitting there at first, I thought, ‘oh man, I hope so.’ But as time went on and it just kept selling, I started to look at that flier and really just get a lot of reverence for it. It was a really, really good lineup - good bands and good people. What a great year for music.”

What’s Next?

As is typical for MMF, in order to keep things fresh, the next installment will see few repeats from previous years.

“Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of these bands we’re talking about right now won’t be back next year,” Maple said. “That’s something they all understand, we do bring back bands when we can, but we’ve reduced the number of bands we have, so we have to consider that we don’t want to bring back too many of the same bands when we’re trying to bring on new bands too. We get the same requests from a lot of people, so we don’t want to repeat too many.”

In the coming months, there will also be a handful of MMF-associated concerts in Battle Creek for those who need more. Those events are linked at the bottom of this article.

Closing Thoughts

At the end of our discussion, I opened up the floor to Maple for him to add anything he wanted to.

“I just really want to thank everybody who has the slightest amount of involvement in the festival. Whoever makes a conscious choice to help be involved with something that’s larger than our own life, whoever makes the decision to be a working part in that is just an absolute gem of a person. In this circumstance we have a whole lot of people who pull together to make this happen, and that of course, I’m referring to the committee and all of our volunteers, but I’m also referring to people like you and anybody who pays for the ticket just to go, or somebody who can’t go but they share the flier or the event page, or tell their friends about it.

People tell me that all the time, like, ‘I don’t like any of this, but my sister is into metal, so I’ll tell her about it.’ Just the fact that people want to do that to help make this thing bigger, better and more valuable to each person who goes is just incredible to me.

From the bottom of my heart, I can’t thank everyone enough for making this dream for all of us be able to become a sustainable year-after-year dream come true for us. This is our festival, this is our once-a-year big banger, and without everyone’s involvement, it’s not as big of an amazing thing for us. One thing that we have no intention of is NOT having this be our incredible thing each year, so just being able to get the response we get each year, it’s just amazing to watch it grow. It’s outstanding.”

Conclusion

Outstanding, indeed. I’ve been attending this festival every year since its first installment, and as such, I’ve had the unique opportunity to see how it’s evolved in the years following.

With that in mind, I can safely say that MMF 2024 really WAS the best installment yet.

And again, it really all comes down to just a few simple tweaks in the formula - by dropping one stage, there was less ground to cover, a much better flow, and the option to see every single band that day, should one choose to.

Sometimes, less really IS more, and sometimes, just when you think things can’t get any better, they can.

So with a solid lineup of metal bands in varying subgenres, a tight schedule, great food and even better vibes, what more could you possibly ask for?

I’d like to congratulate the entire collective MMF staff on having their best installment yet, and continuing to find and implement what REALLY WORKS for the event, as well as for allowing me to come back and do my thing each year.

After all, when you go to a music festival, what are you ultimately there for other than to have fun?

Well, we both had a blast, and as always, will be looking forward to many more MMF installments to come.

Happy MMF, everyone!

Will Kriss // [DJWILLKILL]

Further Reading

Social:

Upcoming Events:

Can’t get enough? Here’s some MMF events that will be coming up in the next few months.

Dark Christmas is MMF and the Music Factory’s holiday show, and is touted as being their heaviest show of the year. This year, the event will be headlined by Autumn Lies Buried. The event will take place on Saturday, December 14th.
Metal Family Gathering - This event highlights a lot of groups from previous MMF installments. The headliner will be Cultus Black, and Two Kings Glass will be performing another live glassblowing show. Prizes will also be handed out during the event. Metal Family Gathering will take place on Saturday, February 8th, 2025.’

Special Thanks