The annual competition for worldwide supremacy of bands battling to represent their respective countries at metal’s most renowned festival this summer has kicked off around the globe. Closer to home, it all began Friday night at the Rock Box as the San Antonio Regional of the Wacken Metal Battle commenced to crown the top two bands that would advance to the state final Sunday, March 15, at Come And Take It Live in Austin (tickets here).
Some bands brought their “A” game. Some treated it as another opportunity to play in front of their friends and family and hawk their merch. Others stayed home for reasons only known to them.
When the night was over, a two-man panel of judges decided that the artists which most made like Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and seized the moment rather than letting it slip were San Antonio’s own Voltreus (regional winner) and local runner-up Aeternal Requiem.
Each of those bands came with an eyebrow-raising story on its quest for success.
The regional’s official flyer announcement began with 14 bands around the Christmas holidays. Soon thereafter, Thunder Horse, Surge, Glorious, Cheese Grater Masturbation and Wicked Angel withdrew.
By the time Friday rolled around, the event had whittled more from nine to seven bands.
Slated to kick off at 5:50 p.m. with San Antonio’s Blood Moon, with each group allotted 20 minutes to strut its stuff, Blood Moon did not appear. Nor did Forever Silent, a Spanish metalcore outfit from El Paso that would’ve had to make a 10-12-hour trek to San Antonio. The latter band did not make any mention of the Wacken Metal Battle on its social media pages, so perhaps something got lost in translation.
The more bands that succumbed, the better the chance the ones at the Rock Box were going to advance to Austin.
Voltreus (Voal-TRAY-us) arguably exhibited the most energy and, from a person who has covered and judged prior Wacken battles, that is always one of the top qualities that can help bands impress the panel. While it isn’t a guarantee it will lead to victory, artists can certainly play themselves out of the running if they take up part of their 20 minutes giving shout-outs to their friends in the front row or telling the audience to “come say hello to us at the merch booth.”
Note to bands: the Wacken Metal Battle is not your typical show. You are playing for 20 MINUTES TO ADVANCE TO MOVE ON TO HOPEFULLY AND EVENTUALLY PERFORM AT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST HEAVY METAL FESTIVAL IN GERMANY. You can play in front of your friends and family in your city anytime and point out your merch then. When you only have time for three or four songs to put a stranglehold on your opportunity and give the best you have, take advantage of it. Furthermore, when you’re playing in a bar and there’s fewer than 100 patrons there, they will see your merch stand simply when they’re walking around. If you’re going to emphasize that over your performance — a performance that, by the way, should concentrate on impressing the judges more than anyone else there — you’ve already lost. Consider it a lesson learned for future battles if you so desire.
Voltreus and Aeternal Requiem needed no such PSA.
Voltreus came out with black paint, eerie horned masks, loud music and an intriguing story as told by vocalist Tyler “Obidius” Groshon of how three of the band’s four members have been adopted (himself twice). The end result was the one song in which the band showed its faces in an uplifting message to what family and their fans mean to them on “Kith & Kin” (ATM footage below), which the band was scheduled to shoot a video for the day after winning the regional and releasing the song as a single April 10.
Voltreus was formed in 2019 by 27-year-old guitarist / singer Ferni “Infyct” Ramirez and bassist Devin “Obelith” Guy, 29.
Groshon, who turns 32 next month, drummer Fox “Primal” Alexander and Guy were adopted. Groshon, originally from Washington, D.C., spent six years in the Navy but said it was his dream to move to San Antonio not because it is Military City, but because of its music scene.
“The plan for me was to get into the military to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and then when I wanted to get out, that’s what I wanted to do,” Groshon told Alamo True Metal. “San Antonio just kept popping up in my head because that was a place that I could go. There’s a music scene there, it’s always been a dream. You know what, I’m going to try my best to get there. When I was applying for places to go, you never get anywhere that you pick. Ever. And I chose San Antonio as my No. 1. I’m the only person that anyone knows that got their No. 1 choice right off the rim. It’s super rare. I got my orders before my buddy who applied for orders six months before me, and he also came to San Antonio.”
Groshon joined Voltreus in 2021 after being asked by Ramirez to try his luck at vocals but not until he had declined several times. “Then I was in Calculus class, and I messaged him and said, “Alright, let’s do it. I blew out my voice the first practice, and I was like ‘That’s never gonna happen again.’ We just kept working at it,” Groshon said.
Aeternal Requiem has quite an interesting tale of its own.
Formerly a trio led by singer/guitarist Austin Zettner, the band competed as a quartet in the 2020 Regional at Fitzgerald’s. Basically defunct ever since, Zettner has resurrected the group with an all-new quintet that is now meshing folk metal using a mini flute Zettner keeps in his back pocket with songs from their initial album Rise (ATM footage below of “Forlorn Hope” and “Invictus”).
Friday night marked only Aeternal Requiem’s second gig in six years after playing the Texas Viking Festival in December in Paige, Texas. Now the band finds itself preparing for its third gig with its new lineup in Austin at the State Final.
While bands emanating from the Alamo City dropped out of the regional before the competition and the day of, Egregious made an incredible statement of its own by driving 10 hours from Albuquerque for its own 20-minute opportunity at exposure.
It wouldn’t have been the first time a band traveled that far to play 20 minutes. Texas Voodoo Stomp did that deed from El Paso to the Alamo City and ended up advancing out of the San Antonio Regional in 2020 to the state final in Austin that ended up taking place the day before the world was shut down due to Covid-19, eventually wiping out the national final and Wacken Open Air entirely.
This time, Egregious visited the Rock Box after raising $650 for a rental van through a GoFundMe effort “because nothing was really close to us” in terms of the Battle.
The mere fact that a band demonstrated that level of dedication to put all their eggs into such a brief set spoke volumes about certain bands’ outlook and goals for themselves as artists.
Egregious was one of the bands to shine on stage (see ATM footage below of “St. Vengeance”), though the judges had them finish just outside of the top two.
Immortal Execution, Corpse Hole, Overlay and Ariah Falls — all local bands — joined Voltreus and Aeternal Requiem in bringing their various genres to the stage. Corpse Hole, impressively, was fresh off an appearance at the annual 70000 Tons of Metal Heavy Metal Beach Party the week before at The Clevelander on South Beach in Miami. See each of those bands in action below.
In the end, only two could move on to Austin. Voltreus and Aeternal Requiem will need to step up their game with each round of the competition. They will join A Good Rogering, BountyTX, Nemesis and We Are Man at the State Final, with only the winner advancing to the national final June 13 in San Diego. The winner of that will be on the road to Wacken in Germany from July 29-Aug. 1 also earning VIP camping and $1,000 for the flight to the fest that will include 80,000 headbangers and headliners Judas Priest, Def Leppard, In Flames and Powerwolf.
The Wacken Metal Battle is a great way for fans and industry folks to discover bands — and to find out just how serious each outfit is in an attempt to “make it.”
Losing the competition also tests whether a band is going to ask itself, “Are we good enough going forward, and what do we need to work on? Or, are we going to give up because a couple of judges didn’t feel we were talented enough?”
While Voltreus and Aeternal Requiem move on in a competition featuring bands from 62 countries this year that is slated to grow to a whopping 102 nations in 2027, they know the stakes get higher and the contest gets tougher with each round.
“We don’t have to overthink it because we’re accounting for every little detail always,” Voltreus bassist Guy said. “All we gotta do is execute the plan.”
The quality of songs and a band’s look go a long way toward success in such a competition. But it also more than helps to have the right attitude.
“Honestly,” Groshon said, “don’t get me wrong, and I don’t want this to sound mean or anything, but when someone says, ‘You guys did great,’ we love that and we appreciate that a lot that everyone had a good time. But what I’m here for is I wanna hear what you have to tell us that we can do better.”
May the best band win.
