This is partially going to go hand in hand with my NaNoWriMo and the fact I’m writing about superheroes as they might exist in our world. It’s a tale that starts in the 1970s and keeps going right up to present day.
A big part of that includes the changes in music, and I often get the feeling that the music is being played by a particular band in this universe (named Blanc Noir, but could be changed to Seven Years of Blood because that sounds way cooler). The band is unorthodox, because it doesn’t really fit into what might be considered the mainstream metal norm. Unfortunately, the mainstream metal norm often includes bands like Metallica, Megadeath, Iron Maiden, and even Van Halen (which could be considered pop metal). Even bands like Amon Amarth might fit that more mainstream feel.
Here in North America, we often think of a metal band being something akin to Bon Jovi, Poison, Warrant, Metallica, Megadeath, Van Halen, Helix, Kick Axe, or Guns ‘n Roses. But metal has a wide diversity.
In Europe, artists are marrying metal with symphonic and operatic sounds and coming up with things like Nightwish, Within Temptation, or even Amaranthe. In Japan, there’s Baby Metal, combining the bubble gum sounds of pop with gothic death metal. And then there’s the metal bands which could be considered mainstream but are often forgotten by the mainstream for one reason only.
Those are bands like Living Color, Wicked Wisdom, and even Sevendust, all of which are either fronted by or are completely comprised of African American musicians. It’s still the same kind of metal, but with a bit of a different twist.
It’s combinations of these that I’ve put together with this fictional metal band in the Heroic League Project. Three of the band members are costumed crime fighters themselves, two of which are the daughters of former heroes and have taken up their parents’ (or aunt’s) former code names. The band plays a huge part in this universe, a gothic metal band from Montreal that’s completely bilingual and records many of their tracks and even performs in Quebecois. Four of the members are women (which is a call back to the 80s glam metal group Vixen). Two members, brother and sister, are Haitian Canadian (rhythm guitar and lead vocalist). one is Jewish (drummer), one is Metis (lead guitar), and one is Dakota (bassist, who is also blind). The lead vocalist is male, everyone else is female but performs vocal duties as well as their regular addition to the band. Two of the members are lovers (lead guitarist and drummer), who also happen to be costumed crime fighters, as is one other (bassist). All but one (bassist) are from Quebec; the fifth member is from Saskatchewan. One former member was from Nova Scotia.
So, in my head, as the story unfolds, there’s almost like a backing soundtrack of a modern day metal band that’s performing in my head, almost as though accompanying the story with music to fit.
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