Lords Of The Trident
by Chris Fox
April 2010
Madison's Lords of the Trident on cover of April 2010
Can you define heavy metal? Does metal mean screaming vocals and deadly distortion? Or is metal wailing guitar solos and an iron lunged singer?
To Fang VonKillenstein of Lords Of The Trident, heavy metal is “that distorted sound that makes you roll down your windows in the summer and makes you put your fist in the air, out the window. It just gives you that feeling in the pit of your stomach that just drives that ‘yeah.’” One can only assume that “yeah” would make King Diamond proud.
Mr. Killenstein, also known as Ty, defines their sound as “80’s metal mixed with modern influences.”
“Our structure is more towards classics 80’s, but we down tune and are fans of modern death and black metal. Those tonalities show up a lot as well.”
Using their local flavor, they have turned bits and pieces of the UW Campus and Madison into epic metal. Fang explains:
“The Madison music scene is really a lot of indie rock, around campus especially. When you say metal, the average Joe thinks of death and turns the other cheek to our music. Half the people come to our shows for cool music, but the other half just come to see what the hell we are up to. “
“When we are dressed in armor, and lighting shit on fire it turns the heads of the average Joe and metal heads alike.”
If you haven’t seen Lords Of The Trident, you are assured that Mr. Killenstein isn’t joking you. The Lords are showmen at heart. They strive to bring people into the genre of heavy metal who would typically dismiss it without a second thought.
“It’s hard to draw people out,” he says, “when you are jamming in a t-shirt and jeans.”
Lords Of The Trident are looking to define their version of heavy metal and they love the attention that they get from the metal community, both positive and negative. Flyers for concerts have been scrawled with the words DEATH TO FALSE METAL. Many people, however, hail them as “Gods Of Metal”. But Fang sees it as a blessing either way:
“If they take the time to give us these reactions, they are at least paying attention . . . People hate us or they love us, but that is what metal is all about. And what we want is an extreme reaction.”
Through the ups and downs of the local scene these guys have really stuck by their guns, and branded their own little piece of the Madison scene and the metal genre.
LORDS OF THE TRIDENT will be playing the Blacktooth Metal Family show at The Annex on April 10 and the Mifflin Street Block Party on May 1st, both in Madison. Come out and see the chaos as these guys show off their version of what it means to “be metal”. Epic fire and explosions await weary travelers.
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