Hell Bent For Metal

#73 – A Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell In The Metal Community

Episode Summary

The LGBTQ+ heavy metal podcast speaks to extreme metal musician Joseph Hawker of Ethereal Shroud about his experience of being gay in black metal circles, plus albums from Helpless and Abbath go in the HCGB jukebox.

Episode Notes

Hell Bent For Metal talks to Ethereal Shroud mainman Joseph Hawker about being out as a gay man in black metal circles. In an in-depth chat, Joseph tells Tom about how his experiences of growing up as queer in a homophobic, racist environment inform what he wants to express in his music, and how dramatically things have changed for gay men in metal in the last decade. 

They also chat about how it's really impossible to separate the art from the artist, and how complacent metal has been about the dark corners of its subgenres.

There's two picks for the Hate Crew Gaybar jukebox this week, with Matt picking Caged In Gold by Helpless, and Tom being utterly predictable in picking Dread Reaver by Abbath.

Plus there's news of something very, very special Tom's doing at Roadburn Festival.