By Adrian Martinez and Rachel Murphree
Warmonger, Lynch, Pissing Razors, Sabrewulf. If you don’t recognize these names, it might be because you are unaware of the long running heavy metal music scene in El Paso! Our city is home to more than 100 bands and has a history dating back to the mid-1980s. The metal community is small in comparison to the west coast but has ardent fans and is continually evolving.
Image caption: Sabrewulf (Photo courtesy of Priscilla Perez)
Heavy metal music has a rich history dating back to the 1970’s with the birth of the band Black Sabbath. The band’s title song was inspired by a horrific vision a band member experienced, a fascination with horror movies, and a focus on the “Devil’s Chord” to create a unique menacing sound. This chord goes by many names and is essentially a triad with the fifth tone flatted. It was used in some classical music and then in rock, but when used with distortion, it is a signature sound in heavy metal.
From this one spark, the influence of this high-energy, intense, and in-your-face type of music spread throughout the world, breaking into other sub-genres such as thrash metal, a loud and chaotic style that would make someone bang their head against a stage; death metal, thematically gore and death influenced; and power metal, a manic exciting sound which can get anyone pumped up. There are also sub-genres within each of these.
The music focuses on the occult, war and violence, political and social themes, the weather, high-fantasy, and mythology, among others. Bands range from the classic heavy metal leather-clad Judas Priest and British invaders, Motorhead and Iron Maiden, to the big four of American thrash metal: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer.
El Paso has always been a spot for touring regional and major bands to perform such as Megadeath, Queensrÿche, and Metallica who have played in the El Paso/Las Cruces area seven times, starting in 1985 at the Big Apple Night Club on the eastside of El Paso. The city has a persistent local metal scene as well.
The earliest newspaper mention we could find of local heavy metal bands in El Paso dates to the mid-1980s, during the period of early American heavy metal. According to the El Paso Times, the bands Lynch, Banshee, and FT13 performed at the Sound of the Seas Performance Warehouse on Friday, June 21st, 1985. The heavy metal scene continued to grow and change.
Pissing Razors is an El Paso band that formed in the early 1990’s and contributed to a new style of metal along with the Arlington, TX group Pantera. Pissing Razors delivered their variation on thrash metal with their debut album Psycho, Punko, Metal Groove. Their defining tone and style contributed to the sound of groove metal, a Texas-born stylization of thrash that became a defined sub-genre. They released multiple albums before they disbanded in 2004 although they got back together for some live concerts as late as 2019.
There have been other local concerts including El Paso Morgue Fest 2005 which was held at Lucky Devils. In an El Paso Times article on the Morgue Fest, front man for the band Bowels Out, Juan Castillo, said: "There are diverse styles of metal in El
The metal community got a shot of new energy in the early 2000s when San Antonio metal enthusiast Robb Chavez came to town to set up a big event. He hosted a weekly television show since 1997 highlighting bands in his home town and promoting the local metal scene. In 2001 he teamed up with El Paso promoter Chris Hate and put on the first and second Robb’s MetalWorks Showcases in El Paso. In a 2004 interview with the Texas Metal Underground website, Robb said: The 2nd Annual Robb's MetalWorks Showcase in El Paso in 2002 was huge! It was really extraordinary how the El Paso metal scene embraced us, especially the bands...because someone was actually giving them some attention and highlighting their talents. We feel really connected to that city because of all our metal friends out there...bands like Pissing Razors, FueledIIFire, Demise, Reign Of Terror, and Soma to name a handful. That was the reason we did our first showcases in El Paso, because the fans and bands there were hungry for it. Because of that it became the largest local metal show of that year.”
There have been other local concerts including El Paso Morgue Fest 2005 which was held at Lucky Devils. In an El Paso Times article on the Morgue Fest, front man for the band Bowels Out, Juan Castillo, said: "There are diverse styles of metal in El Paso…. There's technical death metal, old-school black metal, goregrind metal and hard-core metal.” The article stated that the local metal scene was getting better and outside bands were noticing.
Robb came back in 2018 to choose local bands who would perform at Hel-Paso Showcase #3 held at the Rockhouse Bar & Grill. In an announcement on KLAQ Robb said, “I felt it was about time to get back to El Paso, back to a metal scene that has maintained its humility, integrity and love for the underground… I've always been impressed by the musicianship and dedication of west Texas metal bands.” The bands chosen were Defleshed and Gutted, Abaddon, Triarchy, The Grave Aesthetic, SlutHammer, Texas Voodoo Stomp, and Satanic BBQ.
Sabrewulf, a local Death Metal band that formed in 2011 released their last full-length album, Mala Suerte, in 2020. An album review on the Metal Devastation Radio website says, “From start to finish ‘Mala Suerte’ is a trip through the barren Texas desert that leaves you gasping for air while your skin gets burnt to a crisp by the punishing rays of the sun. The Latin roots of some of the band members surely come sipping through in their sound.” They are helping define the El Paso metal sound.
Several places to find where your favorite local band is playing are @elpasohardcore on Instagram or KLAQ’s website among others. As the country slowly comes out of the pandemic, local bands including Sabrewolf, Barbarian and Rotten Disgust will perform for free in October at the Rockhouse, and Megadeth and Lamb of God will perform at the Don Haskins Center in August. Long live heavy metal!
