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VIKING GODS PLAY NASHVILLE

A FICTITIOUS CONCERT REVIEW

Bring Down the Hammer Magazine contacted me about writing a piece. I was stoked, their editor Casey Orr, founding member of Rigor Mortis and famously Beefcake the Mighty from GWAR, saw potential in me. When he called I was shaking. This was it. This was my break. He said to me, “Sam who do you want to cover, if you could write anything, what would you write, my man?” I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt. I wanted to interview the Viking Gods of Metal. Casey laughed, “Old School huh, those geezers have been rockin’ out for forever man, but no denying that they are epic.”

Casey green lit the project. He had a connection at the Basement Lounge in Nashville, TN. The band was doing a small private event the night before they played their massive sold out mega auditorium show. Casey got me a press pass. He told me, “That’s all I can do brother, the rest is up to you.”

I arrived an hour before VGoM (Viking Gods of Metal) went on stage. If you’ve never been the Basement Lounge is a cool little spot. Metal heads were lined up outside. Word had gotten out that the Gods were playing and their followers worshipped them. It was black leather jackets, ripped jeans, beards, and spikes as far as the eye could see. The place looked like the Visigoths teamed up with the Hell’s Angels in order to sack Rome.

I squeezed my way to the door and got right in. The interior was dark and moody, perfect music venue. Wood floors, bar right up front, single large open room with a small stage packed with musical instruments. This being Nashville I knew that a lot of great acts had gotten their start right here. I was standing in music history and I was going to get to watch the myth unfold.

As I approached the stage I heard them announce that Bragi was going to be the opening act. I was pumped! Bragi is the son of VGoM’s lead singer and he even plays with them sometimes, but he spilt off to do his own thing decades ago. He strides across the stage holding a Kravik Lyre, traditional Norwegian stringed instrument made with real goat hide strings. He stands in front of the mic and starts to sing the most haunting melody I ever heard. Most of the song was in Danish but it resonated so strongly. As Bragi’s set went on he played alone with his lyre and it was poetic. I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but it’s the only way to describe Bragi. He is a god of poetry. And when he was done I looked around the room to see a bunch of Metal Heads wiping their eyes. He had touched them all, the room was silent, and it stayed silent for a long time. The lights went down and we were left in silent darkness.

Slowly and methodically a horn started to blow. It was a deep sonorous tone that filled the darkness with a call to battle. You could feel it resonate in your chest and you wanted to answer its call. Your ancestors had answered it and you knew it was only a matter of time before you answered it too. Then the bass drum kicked in perfectly adding rhythm to the bellows. My skin tingled, the crowd’s anticipation was real, and then it happened… that first perfect guitar chord split the darkness. The stage lights answered, and there they were. The Viking Gods of Metal had taken the stage. The perfect rhythm of a bass answered the guitar chord, and vocals kicked off with a metal scream that could bring down eagles from Valhalla! This was it! The gods were in Nashville!

Heimdall was playing his augmented sousaphone, a crazy instrument unique to him—something he calls the Gallarhorn. Of course I knew from the start that the growling rhythmic tone heralding the start of the show came from Heimdall, but seeing the Gallarhorn in person is a sight to behold. The thing twists and turns wrapping around the god of horns and rising over 8 feet tall. It would take a god to fill it with enough air! It looks impossible to play, like he wrestled a fire demon and bound its soul into a horn stolen from some giant’s mammoth beast. 

Then of course on drums was the hammer god himself, Thor. Now some drummers sit behind their drum sets, but Thor is so massive that it looks like the drum set sits near him just to be safe. Its as if the drums know that if they get too far away they will learn the true wrath of thunder. Better to stay near and prove their worth. As drum sets go it is massive, the bass drum has some sort of skin stretched over it, and the other pieces are made from skulls and bones larger than anything I ever seen. As the story goes Thor stripped the bones off giants during the ancient hours of the world, and honestly if anyone looks like they could take down a giant it is that guy. He hammers on the drums like a raging storm, his sweat flinging about like the rain, with a rhythm like thunder. When one song ends Thor just starts to play another, sometimes other members of the band give him angry looks, but then they just go along with it. No one can tame this guy, no one. I think he could drink a gallon of snake venom and still play nine more songs before he needed to take a break!

The perfect guitar chord I mentioned; that came from Loki. I don’t know what that guy’s deal is, it seems like he keeps trying to mess with the rest of the band, either coming in too early or changing the chord structure of the song. Yet, somehow it works. There are these small moments of dissonance and then the rest of the band kicks into high gear and the music resolves to perfection. There’s no denying that Loki can play. It’s like the guy invented guitar strings to pull himself out of Helheim! If the old saying is true and metal “Comes from Hel,” then it was probably Loki who took it there in the first damn place, and then brought it right back out again. No one plays music like Loki, no one. I’ve heard of musicians “marching to the beat of a different drummer,” but Loki stole the drummer’s drumsticks, tried to marry off the bass player to buy back the drumsticks, and when that didn’t work he put on women’s clothes and got the drumsticks back his damn self! Loki is true metal royalty and the metalist of the Viking Gods of Metal. It’s no wonder the band puts up with his shit.

In contrast to Loki’s crazy was the perfect poise of Freya on bass. She never missed any thing. She laid down rhythm matching pace with Thor beat for beat. She struck chords and knocked out riffs answering every call that the rest of the band tried to answer. If you listen long enough you realize that Freya is the foundation. Everything else is flash, and while no part can truly exist without the other, without Freya the band would be lost. As I watched them all move on stage it hit me… they’re all in love with her and through their love she is the one in control. The band would fall apart without her, and she knows it. She is sorcerous supreme, as if she taught magic to the rest of the band and in doing so holds them all in her spell. As I watched Freya I realized I was falling in love with her too. The whole room was, and she knew, she knew that we were all in her hands. She is the goddess of bass, the foundation of the magic of metal, and the most dangerous member of the band.

Which brings us to the King of Singers, the lead vocals of the band, Odin. I’m not sure what there is left to say about Odin that hasn’t already been said. He drinks deep from the mead of poetry, he is the god of singers, of stories, and of kings. Though he learned Freya’s magic weaving rhythm into fortune he was not content. He famously sought out the ancient well of musical wisdom and gave his eye to drink the secrets of understanding. People say that he writes all of the band’s music and that when he’s working he goes alone into the woods seeking out the largest and most ancient tree. Where he then hangs himself and meditates letting the great void of the universe send inspiration directly to him. Some say he is insane, others he is genius, but it doesn’t matter. Seeing Odin live is like watching the god of death slay an audience for four straight hours, no one is left when he is done. No one. You could hurl a spear through the crowd and none would move unless Odin wanted them to move. While at the same time he whips the crowd into a frenzy like I have never seen. A lot of people say they are dying to see Odin—well they are not wrong. Once you’ve seen Odin and heard his song it changes you, forever. The boy you were is gone and dead, all that remains is a man. Odin is THE God of Metal and he is going to melt your face. Without preparation you must surrender yourself to the experience if you have any chance at survival. Fight, and keep fighting. When the show is over and the floor is cleared of the blood and bodies, you will know who you are.

That was it, the show was over, the house lights came up, and what was left of the audience rode out into the night on metal steeds, carrying the gods forever in their hearts and minds.

Viking Gods of Metal is a fictitious metal band created to honor the greatest gods and the greatest music of this world!