Society wasn’t ready for us

October 25, 2021 6:47 AM

The Story of Native American Metal Band Winterhawk. “The way we would get in the door at these boarding schools—and it would take some time for the faculty to grasp the idea—was [that] we used the tool of music, mainly heavy metal, because at the time, that was the music of choice,” Kolb continues. “Through that key, we opened the door to access the children to get them to open up to us. And [Nik] would tell me, ‘You’ve gotta be good at your stuff. You’ve gotta practice, because when we go there, they’re going to be amazed at the way you drum and the way I play guitar. That’s what’s gonna take down the walls, and they’re gonna wanna talk to us, and that’s when we’ll get to hear their problems, because no one else is listening to them.’”
posted by Alex404 (9 comments total)

This is a good short doc from a couple years ago: Metal From the Dirt: Inside The Navajo Reservation's DIY Heavy-Metal Scene

And I haven't watched this one yet, but looks interesting: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
posted by gwint at 7:07 AM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]

\m/
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 7:23 AM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

Didn't quite know Rumble was on Prime so thanks for the note. I heard of Winterhawk, kind of one of those bands you hear about growing up at the time.
posted by kfholy at 7:37 AM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

Been listening to "Electric Warriors" and they're really tight and impressive just on a pure technical level. It's not particularly my favourite period of metal but off just 4 or 5 tracks I'm really enjoying this and am in agreement that they should be a much bigger name. Thanks for the post!
posted by slimepuppy at 7:55 AM on October 25, 2021

Are they named after the movie Winterhawk?
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:04 AM on October 25, 2021

Rumble is a solid doc
posted by stevil at 8:05 AM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

metalfilter
posted by nofundy at 2:21 PM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is amazing! Thank you very much Alex404!
posted by esoteric things at 8:48 AM on October 26, 2021

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks Alex404!
posted by djeo at 10:40 AM on October 28, 2021