Welcome back to Milwaukee Metal Monthly, the column where I offer a rundown of the city’s metal scene.
This month, I’ve got a metal band for y’all, granted, and I’ve also got something a little different. We’ll circle back to that second part later.
Let’s start with the band. A coupl’a weeks ago I spoke to a crossover thrash quartet called Force, composed of vocalist and guitarist Kevin, guitarist Mike, bassist Christ, and drummer Sam. At their request, I’m using their first names only. (Mike and Chris, by the way, are also in a death metal band called Pig’s Blood, which released the super-fun LP Destroying The Spirit back in late April. During our conversation, Chris described the project thusly: “Pig’s Blood is everything up to eleven with no room for compromise of any sort. Really over-the-top.” That’s about as accurate a description as you’re gonna find.)
I spoke to Kevin and Chris at Milwaukee Record favorite Wiggle Room primarily because of the band’s excellent debut LP, We Carry Heavy Blood, that was released last month. It’s a total throwback-to-the-’80s vibe, so check it out if you’re into that sorta thing. Anyhow, Kevin and Chris, both heavily tatted, are a fun hang who have a deep knowledge of metal and probably could talk about it for hours. Also, they’re willing to have a little fun during an interview if the opportunity presents itself. Example: at one point, I say that Kevin’s vocals remind me of Damian Abraham (a.k.a. Pink Eyes) from Fucked Up. “He’s got a great voice, but I just thought you were saying it ’cause we’re both bald and have beards,” deadpans Kevin. There’s a slight pause, then we all laugh. “Nah, I’m just givin’ you crap. He has a great voice, and I appreciate that.”
The band’s origin story is also a little amusing, and it’s because it’s a little bit of movie-moment kismet. “We started when Chris, our bass player, came to me,” remembers Kevin. “He was like, ‘Hey, I’m trying to form this band for my friend. For eight months, we tried to make it work. It just wasn’t the right fit.’ And then we needed a singer. I had sung in bands before, and I was like, ‘Can I try?’ I wrote the song ‘Death Wish.’ At the end of practice, [we] did it and they’re like, ‘Alright, let’s keep going.’”
A little later, Chris also touches on the band’s beginnings: “When we started we had a different singer, and [the band] was gonna sound way different—like, more heavy metal and not so thrash metal. And then Kevin started playing guitar, and I liked what he was writing. And Mike started adding stuff to it. And then once Kevin’s voice was in there, that automatically added this hardcore edge that none of us originally thought was gonna be there. I just remember the first time we had the full practice with Kevin singing. Just felt goosebumps immediately. I was like, ‘This is the sound.’”
As with other bands I’ve spoken to, Kevin is kind, soft-spoken, and thoughtful in person, and becomes a yelling, snarling entity on stage and on record. So of course I had to ask whether he has any perspective on that duality.
“I think that the reason why people are kind when they do this is because they do this,” argues Kevin. “It’s an outlet. If you don’t have these outlets in your life, you might wanna act on these violent things. Yeah, maybe these thoughts are violent, but they serve as an expression just like anything else. Any type of music, you express yourself, right? So, for me, I think that if you’ve been on the opposite side of—what’s the word?—all the abundance in the world of some of these other people for a long time, you get a chip on your shoulder and it turns into a fuckin’ boulder. So then you’re like, ‘Alright. How do I not break things?’ Or, ‘How do I not do stupid shit to survive?’”
Fittingly, the main theme of the album—and, perhaps, the band—is frustration with the way things are going, the way they are, and the way things could be but aren’t.
“When we started this band, we were already deep into a pandemic and thinking that we were getting over it,” says Kevin. “So there was a lot of frustration built up from that. Especially on the [2023] demo, which carried over. But then there was also a lot of personal things in there. For the songwriting, I think there’s multiple themes in one song, so that you don’t actually know what’s goin’ on. So that you can interpret it on your own.”
Chris expands on that: “The way that I see it for [Kevin] is, there’s all the things goin’ on in the world, and the personal shit [he’s] takin’ on. But rather than, ‘This song was about Israel and Palestine’ or ‘This song is about the police,’ it’s just all of the things we’re frustrated and mad about. And Kevin kinda takes it all in, and then instead of the facts of the events, it’s all of the emotions he feels from that. And then usually the songs are kinda like stories about those emotions that he’s feeling. He’ll take words from articles he’ll read or books he’ll read as kinda like inspiration. It’s all the things [Kevin’s] angry about.”
Kevin then brings it home: “To add to what [Chris is] saying, instead of talking about things specifically—naming things, all that shit—for me, that’s giving those things breath. We don’t wanna fuckin’ give those people breath.”
Per tradition, I close our conversation by asking if there’s anything they wanna discuss or plug. Chris declares that there’s some stuff in the works, but nothing that can be discussed as of yet. Kevin then jumps in: “We spent over three years getting to last week [the week We Carry Heavy Blood was released], and now it’s just like, ‘Alright, we did that. Now, let’s see what happens.’”
And then Chris offers a few final thoughts about our fair city: “All I can say is that Milwaukee fuckin’ rules. The music scene in Milwaukee is very special. There’s a lotta different bands from a lotta different walks of life. A lotta different styles. But the things that are good gel—it’s like, you’ll see bands like Force and then Pig’s Blood and then Poison Hand all hangin’ out at the same shows. Seeing goth rock bands, death metal bands, punk bands, boy bands, hip-hop—everything that’s good. It’s like we’re all on the same wave length.”
Let’s move on to the non-band, off-the-beaten-path section. My other interview for this month’s edition was with Sean Osborne, the CEO of Silver Circle Sports Events, which bills itself as “Wisconsin’s number one event management company.” Specifically, SCSE specializes in racing events. In case you’re wondering how or why a company that hosts events like the National Watermelon Day Run and the Burrito Biathlon has any relevance to a metal column, the answer lies in their annual Headbanger Half that’s happening July 12.
Yes, Silver Circle has a hard rock- and metal-themed race, complete with on-course music and a “Headbangers cassette tape” for every participant. (Oh, and in at least one iteration, KISS makeup.) “We ask people what their favorite rock or metal song is, and then we try to play that,” Osborne tells me over the phone. “Professional announcers do that—they put all that together before the event. And this year, we’re gonna try to have more music out on course, as well.” (Full disclosure: I was a Headbanger Half participant in 2022. As for the music played—as I recall, it was mostly hair metal and ’80s hard rock.)
Naturally, the first, and most obvious, question is how this race came about. “Super-simple,” answers Osborne with a chuckle. “A friend and I were out running on a course four or five years ago just thinking of races. I said, ‘Ya know, we should do this heavy metal, rock band-type thing,’ and we came up with Headbanger Half. And, geez, I think this is our fourth year or fifth year. So, not overly complicated. That’s how we come up with lots of our events—just a couple guys out running.”
The other obvious question is whether Osborne himself is a metalhead. “Well, not as much as I certainly was when I was in high school,” he replies. I then ask if he grew out of it or otherwise lost interest. “Ha, I became old. I’m 57 now. Ya know, crankin’ Metallica in the warehouse—not everybody gets it anymore.”
Notably, Silver Circle Sports Events proudly markets itself as a veteran-owned company, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Osborne himself is a veteran. “I spent six years as a U.S. Navy deep-sea diver, and the last three years I taught deep-sea diving out in California until they closed the school down and sent me back to the fleet for my last six months,” recalls Osborne. “It was an awesome job, just great.”
I have a brother who’s an army veteran and into metal, and who’s about Osborne’s age, so I ask if he thinks there’s any kind of confluence between veterans and heavy metal. “I don’t know if there’s any correlation,” he responds with a laugh. “But, again, I grew up in the ’80s, so Metallica was a huge deal. Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, all those bands in the ’80s. So, yeah, we listened to all that stuff on the ship. Or when we were in dry-dock, or back in the barracks.”
The other reason why I bring up the veteran aspect of the company is its charity arm, Silver Circle Foundation, a nonprofit that’s “committed to supporting the needs of our firefighters, police officers, veterans, and troops serving overseas.” Osborne serves as its president, and it’s clearly important and deeply personal to him.
“We’ve been raising money for a long time for our local firefighters and police officers who helped my dad,” he explains. “My dad had Alzheimer’s, and they would help my dad out quite a bit. And my wife and I said, ‘We have to do something for them.’ So we started this foundation. The foundation is the non-profit beneficiary of all of our events. Some of the events that we own we run through the foundation and raise money for the foundation. We’ve given close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to our local cops and firefighters over the past years.”
Returning to the race, the Headbanger Half is being held in Summit, Wisconsin this year instead of its usual Oconomowoc location. As such, the event has come, ahem, full circle.
“[The event] moved out to the village of Summit, back to the first race course we ever did 17 years ago,” says Osborne. “We call it the ‘OG Course.’ We love the course. It’s in my neighborhood. It’s where we live. It’s where [Silver Circle’s] offices are. So it’s just a great course. We had some permitting hiccups [with Waukesha County], and instead we just decided, ‘Let’s go back to the course that started the company.’”
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