For those that have read my work over the past few years, you may know that one of my favorite subjects outside of my academic research is death metal. Not only am I a huge fan of heavy music in general (I won’t delve into this—just know, that my passion for br00tal tunes runs deep), but I also really enjoy thinking, analyzing and writing about it. I am especially interested in the space where death metal (and black metal and various other metal sub-genres), as a form or artistic expression, intersects with issues of environmentalism, activism and ecology.
To date, this has added up to a few articles on the topic. The first two entitled Anthems for the Anthropocene and Mapping the End of the World were published in Guernica magazine. The latest, entitled Can death metal help save the Amazon? has just been published by the UK-based magazine Ecohustler. For those that are unfamiliar, I would highly recommend you check out Ecohustler—they cover all sorts of topics on culture, technology and the environment.
I am really excited about this latest piece, as it represents the long-overdue culmination of some work I was able to do alongside the French death metal band Gojira (one of my favorites) and their recent efforts to support indigenous tribes in the Amazon.
A screenshot of my interview with Joe Duplantier, lead singer and guitarist for Gojira, for my latest article with Ecohustler. By far one of the coolest interviews I have done and one of the best conversations I’ve had so far on the death metal/ecology beat.
For those that are interested, the article uses the black earth soils of the Amazon (called terras pretas in Portuguese) as an ecological metaphor to understand the unlikely collaboration between indigenous environmental activists and one of the world’s biggest and heaviest death metal outfits. Not only am I really proud of the writing and the concepts drawn together in this piece, but I am incredibly passionate about every facet of this topic—the music, the indigenous activism and the ecology and natural history of the Amazon.
This space that I find myself—on the death metal/ecology beat, as I call it—is a truly unique and fascinating niche to have stumbled into as a writer. Still, there are a number of reasons why working in this space is a challenge. The first is that it has proven quite difficult to find outlets willing to run with such stories—after all, death metal (and other various metal sub-genres) are rather specific and inaccessible genres to begin with. People that love this music really love it, but most people really don’t (their loss, as far as I am concerned). In addition, the intersection with ecology and environmentalism is also not very clear and in fact, sometimes even appears as the opposite (think: hippies). So while these things make it a hard sell for outlets and publishers, this is also why it the death metal/ecology beat is such a fascinating space to work in.
Lastly, the other major challenge in doing this work is that of compensation. Even if I am fortunate enough to find outlets willing to run with these articles, most of these outlets either do not compensate writers or do so very minimally. The result is the same for me as for many other freelance writers—lots of work, energy and labor, but little to show for it financially.
In the future, I would love to expand my work in this space, but that would require a bit more consistency with the gigs and at least a little bit of getting paid. This is not meant to sound greedy and I hope it doesn’t, because lord knows I will keep doing this work regardless of whether or not it every makes me money. But to make this a more regular part of my work, I need to be able to justify the many, many hours of writing, interviewing and research that goes into each one. Until then, it will have to remain one of my side hustles, albeit one of my favorites.