Viki Eagle: The Rise of Rez Metal
Back in February, She Towers covered the Rez Metal pop-up show at ASU, where we spoke with many of the artists that night about the growing community behind the scene, and the power these events have in bringing people together. Since then, another show was held at UCLA, and there’s already an additional show planned to hit Denver in June. To learn more about the Rez Metal genre and its journey across Turtle Island, we spoke with 4th-year Anthropologist student Viki Eagle (Sicangu Lakota), a Rez Metal fan and one of the organizers behind these events.
Growing up in Denver, Viki was surrounded by various music scenes, frequently attending concerts and shows at local venues. She was particularly drawn into and influenced by the emo, metalcore, and hardcore eras. However, she reflected on the fact that she never saw much diversity within these genres, or even had much access to music coming from native artists.
“I felt like I never saw native musicians, native rock and roll, and let’s just add any brown person within the metal, rock, or emo scenes. That’s why I started to be curious about what’s happening on the reservation, and I thought what is Rez Metal?”
Viki began to research the genre and discovered its origins in the Navajo Nation, documenting a total of 78 bands existing in that area over a number of years. She noted that while the Rez Metal community is large in terms of the area covered, the individual communities who follow artists and who actually attend shows fluctuates over time. Viki ended up becoming even more involved with the scene when she helped organize the pop-up show at ASU.
Photo courtesy of Viki Eagle
The show was planned around the American Indian Studies Association Conference, which Viki’s friend was planning the afterparty for. Together, the two organized the event and reached out to four Rez Metal bands, including M.I.S. (Merciless Indian Savages), Sage Bond, Guardians, and Alliance. Viki was particularly excited about the demographics of who showed up, and how far the genre’s reach had grown.
“I’d seen some of the youth who were there at ASU and some of them weren’t students, but were just people who’d happened to see the flyer on some metal circulation online and said ‘I want to check out what Rez Metal is’ and they were under the age of 18. So I realized that the generation of people who want to see Rez Metal are under 18 or under 21, who can’t get into bars, and that’s actually a market we’re not hitting. Also, it’s hard to be a youth after the pandemic, being inside, and then there’s no spaces for people under 18.”
After the success of the ASU show, Viki was inspired to organize another at her own campus, UCLA. This university, on the other hand, resides in a more upper-class neighborhood, which only further drove Viki to introduce new sounds and culture into the space. She remarked on how her fellow students and advisors from her department came, and their excitement at seeing the campus host this type of music.
Photo courtesy of Viki Eagle
When she’s not organizing Rez Metal shows, Viki continues to honor the genre through her exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, where she’s the current Native Arts artist-in-residence. Guests there can view a vast display of Rez Metal iconography, CDs, and videos showcasing the music.
“There’s a t-shirt wall, this can be the Indigenous Hot Topic that I wish we had…It’s been really positive, the responses I’ve gotten back. Oftentimes, metal isn’t considered a music art, it’s not always taken seriously. Pop culture art isn’t always considered art in the way museums see Monet or Van Gogh. It’s really cool to see where Rez Metal (the exhibit) sits in front of all these amazing paintings by Native artists, on the other side is all the 1800s regalia, and then Rez Metal sits in between, this is what Native America actually looks like on a daily basis.”
The t-shirt wall is made up of Viki’s personal collection, having attended many Rez Metal shows during her education, and seeing the significance they hold for the community: “Material culture is what I’m interested in, visuals, images, and how these images are current native expressions. I think people expect us to stay in buckskin but not metal t-shirts, but these are very much native-designed, native-music, native bands, native imagery.”
Eagerly awaited for by many, Rez Metal is coming to Denver in full force at the Levitt Pavillion on June 9th. Each year, the venue hosts 50 free concerts and had reached out to Viki, wanting to create a space for the genre to be heard in a place where it’s typically not.
Photo courtesy of Viki Eagle
Vicki is excited for the future of Rez Metal, how the genre is spreading and reaching natives in the city whose culture isn’t as easily accessible to them, and how it’ll continue to be a support system for those on the rez, and a way to bring the community closer together.
“I think that’s what Rez Metal needs, folks like us in the city to bring them, uplift them, and bring new audiences. The shows on the rez are really important for community, for youth, for that audience, and I’m not saying it needs to leave the rez, absolutely not. At the same time, I think the world and other people need to see this, and other parts of native communities like us in the city need to see this.”
Tickets for the Denver concert can be purchased here, with general admission being free and a VIP pass for $35. You can learn more about Viki and her work here.