Latter-day Morbid Saint

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Ever seen Footloose? John Lithgow plays an oppressive reverend whose vast influence leads to a ban on Rock ‘n’ Roll in his small town. I grew up LDS (or Mormon) in a small town in Utah, and it wasn’t like that at all. My parents were as devout and pious as they come, but they were never physically oppressive. Although my parents held no interest in modern music (they were too busy listening to The Mormon Tabernacle Choir), they never restricted the music I listened to. In fact, the closest my mother ever came to manifesting an overabundance of concern came about the day I left both a Slayer and a Carcass CD on the front room CD player. She commented, “It seems to me that if you are a slayer, you end up with a carcass…” She didn’t like my long hair. I think she even stayed up nights worrying about it. But she was very careful not to push too hard.

I began listening to extreme metal when my best friend bought me Master of Puppets (on tape) for my birthday. The next step was Testament and whatever thrash I could get my hands on. Sepultura, Obituary, Pestilence, and Death rounded out the seduction. I was careful to avoid bands with overt anti-religious/Satanic themes and/or imagery. (It took me a long time to break down and buy Reign in Blood because of that pesky pentagram.) I respected my parents’ wishes and beliefs and struggled to adopt them myself. But I just couldn’t give up the metal.

I’ve never lived a “metal” lifestyle. The music itself has been more of a temptation and a vice than stimulants ever were. I never considered metal to be an act of rebellion. I didn’t feel like I listened to it to piss off my parents. I didn’t listen to it to offend all those asshole religious types. I just loved the way it sounded. I realize now that I was missing an important facet of metal. But that’s not where I was then.

So I remained active in the church. I prayed. I studied the scriptures sometimes. I went to church every Sunday. I avoided all the vices of youth. But I wasn’t completely committed. Just enough to get by.

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Every worthy 19 year-old male is expected to serve a mission for two years. My parents wanted me to go, all of my siblings had gone, all of my friends were going, I wanted to be a good person – so I went. I cut my hair and quit saying “fuck”. Voila! I was worthy. I spent two years of my life in Perth, Australia telling people that I knew that my church was the only true one on the earth and trying to convince them to get baptized. It was a lot of work, and I really had some great experiences. Our day was more regimented than most military ones, and there was no R&R for two years. Plus we were not allowed to listen to music or watch movies or read any books other than the scriptures the entire time. I remember walking down the street and approaching a parked truck that was blaring Pantera’s “Mouth for War”. I stopped in my tracks just soaking it in.

It’s pretty difficult to avoid dogmatic thought when one teaches and lives it for two years straight. Therefore I spent the next 8 years of my life quite devoted to the church. There were times that I believed every word I was taught. The LDS church has no paid clergy, so the members run it. I held many callings and honestly tried to be a good little Mormon. Metal was still a part of my life, but I stayed away from most of it until I eventually decided that I needed to remove it altogether. So I purged my CD collection of (almost) all of my metal. (I couldn’t quite bring myself to get rid of my Entombed collection.) I got married in 2005. We had an LDS wedding, which is kind of a big spiritual deal. It’s one of the stepping stones to glory, like baptism. This meant that I was even more dedicated to the church. Even though my marriage was quite successful, my faith began to decline. So like a dog returning to its vomit (Proverbs 26:11), a few years later I started collecting metal again.

However, even while attempting to believe in the church, I had some serious doubts. The church was established by a person who made some astonishing (or batshit insane) claims. Joseph Smith, Jr. claimed to have direct communication with both God and Jesus Christ. That’s right – you have to believe and profess that you believe that in order to be a faithful member. So, yeah, I had my doubts. But I was taught that by professing my belief in this stuff that I would believe it. It’s like testifying in court that you witnessed a murder without actually witnessing it, but your testimony of it is valid simply because you recited it enough to believe it.

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Around 2006 I picked up Napalm Death’s Smear Campaign. One song hit me really hard. It’s called “Fatalist”:

Huge effort expended in devotion
For nothing in return
Grimly clinging, predetermined
To prop up an image that is cloudy at best
Resigned rigid, predetermined
To covet a vision that is forced on the rest
Life becomes an exercise in cutting down your options
Existing becomes a joyless parade to the end

It helped me to realize that I didn’t need to live the rest of my life under the tenets of a religion that I did not believe in.

Faith is an interesting thing. I’ve been struggling to possess faith my entire life. At times I actually have possessed it. I don’t wish to possess it any longer, because in my view, faith is the measure of how good you are at lying to yourself.

Now that I have removed an enormous amount of guilt (I’ll probably never get rid of it all; Catholic guilt ain’t got nuthin’ on Mormon guilt), I’m able to embrace metal with great fervor. It fills a void in my life which has always existed there. Within its devastating riffs and soaring tones I find an honesty I have never been able to take part in. The artists who make this music tend to value honesty above all else. They embrace who they are and they indulge their dreams. The most extreme among them live a life pursuant to evil. This is not a path I seek. However, the sheer honesty embedded in such an endeavor is to be admired, and I think I can learn something from that.

I’m not surrounded by friends who are into metal. To me, it’s not a gateway to anything social. It’s a very private endeavor. People talk about going to shows all the time. I can’t imagine myself at one of those things. Mormonism drove me into hiding places to enjoy my only real vice. That’s the only place I can enjoy it. I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing.

I’m not sure what’s next for me. It could be an existential crisis, or it could be more relief from the constant pressure of cognitive dissonance. At any rate, I’m holding onto something tangible: life, my family, things that I enjoy, not the least of which is metal.

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APPENDIX 1. MORMON BELIEFS.

Scientology gets a bad rap for its strange views. In fact, I have known many people in the LDS church who are very dismissive of the weirdoes involved in Scientology. This is an incredibly hypocritical attitude given that Mormons believe:

1. Humans have the potential to become just like God. (Interestingly, Michayah from Ofermod has a similar belief). Which means that we will create worlds. Our children will have that same potential. That is indirectly why family is so important in Mormonism.

2. Mainstream Mormonism doesn’t currently condone polygamy. However, it is practiced among the deceased. Men may be sealed (married) to more than one woman as long as at least one of them is deceased.

3. We believe in a pre-existence. This means that we were born spiritually of God, and that we need to come to Earth to obtain a body and to be tested.

4. The prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. was given the location of a record of ancient American people written on leaves of gold by an angel named Moroni. He translated it from a language he called Reformed Egyptian using a seer stone. He would place this stone in a hat and then stick his face into the hat. Apparently the translated characters would then appear to him. This translated record is the Book of Mormon (Mormon being Moroni’s father).

5. Native Americans are the descendants of the people told about in the Book of Mormon. A rebellious faction called the Lamanites broke off from the main group and were cursed with a dark skin as a result. Many older LDS members occasionally refer to these people as Lamanites. Negroes are said to have been descendants of Ham, Noah’s rebellious son, who was cursed with a skin of black. Early LDS leaders have claimed that Negroes were “fence-sitters” in the war in heaven.

6. In another canonized book, a planet which is close to the throne of God has been identified as Kolob. (Battlestar Galactica fans will notice the similarities with Kobol. A Mormon created both versions of the show.)

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APPENDIX 2. METAL MORMON NAMES.

It is believed that the Book of Mormon is a companion piece to the Bible. In other words, the Bible tells the story of God’s interactions with the Hebrews, while the Book of Mormon tells the story of the Americans. All sorts of interesting stories are told in the Book of Mormon. In fact, there are many really cool names of villains, which could be pilfered by disillusioned Mormon Heavy Metal musicians. If I were a musician, I’d consider naming both myself or the band any of the following:

Kishkumen
Gadianton (The Gadianton Robbers)
Corihor
Seezoram
Coriantmur
Riplakish
Nehor
Seantum
Amalickiah

Call Joseph Smith, Jr. a mountebank and a charlatan, but he came up with some really cool names for evil people. It was interesting to see the word Kolob used in the leadoff track (“The Obelisk of Kolob”) from Ascend’s 2008 album Ample Fire Within. Gentry Densley, a Utah native (I presume, given his dominance on the tiny SLC music scene), has no doubt been influenced by the church. I’m not sure if the instrumental track is directly referring to the planet Kolob or Kolob Canyons which were named after the planet. In any case, I’d love to see more Mormon theology making its way into metal.

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