\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tNate Newton of Converge performs at ArcTanGent Festival 2023 in Bristol, England.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRedferns<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe Blackfeet Nation will welcome Fire in the Mountains for the first time to its Red Eagle Campground July 25 to 27, with performances by Wardruna, Chelsea Wolfe, Old Man\u2019s Child, and Converge, among many others. The festival will feature workshops with several artists<\/a>, with titles like Music as Medicine: The Healing Power of Heavy Music, a concept close to Speicher\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n \n\tLast fall, Speicher co-founded the Firekeeper Alliance<\/a>, an organization that focuses on improving the mental health of teens on the reservation via heavy metal<\/a>. Speicher, Hall, and Fire in the Mountains performer Steve Von Till, a solo artist and elementary school teacher known for his work with the metal band Neurosis, are all on its board of directors. The organization seeks \u201cto promote viable coping mechanisms\u201d for teens in adverse situations, and it believes \u201cheavy music (metal, punk, hardcore, etc.) in particular holds special healing power, while also providing critical coping potential for musicians, fans, collectors, listeners, and everyone in our creative orbit,\u201d according to its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tVon Till feels especially honored to be a part of the endeavor since it builds off of the idea that heavy music can be therapeutic, a tenet long held by Neurosis, who play pummeling riffs with tribal-inspired drumming. (Rolling Stone <\/em>rated their Through Silver in Blood <\/em>album as one of the 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time<\/a>.) \u201cBeing a Firekeeper brings together all of my loves, passions, and personal beliefs into one central location \u2014 the idea of music as catharsis,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone<\/em>, \u201cand that being a part of an underground heavy-music community has given myself and a lot of my friends a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging in a society that we didn\u2019t necessarily feel represented us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA vital component of the organization is a unique class at the Buffalo Hide Academy called the Heavy Music Symposium. Speicher says it \u201ccelebrates metal, hardcore, punk, and all forms of heavy music.\u201d It\u2019s also a place where students learn about the creative process and how music like metal and punk can serve as a healthy outlet for negative feelings. \u201cSo many hardcore and metal bands would say that their music is a vehicle to help transmute their pain,\u201d Speicher says. \u201cThe music provides an outlet, a mechanism to be able to confront that difficult and painful life experience and turn it into something that doesn\u2019t crush us and destroy us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut the students don\u2019t have to take Speicher\u2019s word for it. Artists who\u2019ve spoken to the teens would be familiar to subscribers of metal magazines like Decibel<\/em> and Revolver<\/em>: Converge\u2019s Newton; Von Till; Isis and Sumac frontman Aaron Turner; Enslaved guitarist Ivar Bj\u00f8rnson; and Wayfarer frontman Shane McCarthy, among others, have all addressed the class either via Zoom or in person.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tFire in the Mountain Festival Founder Jeremy Walker<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJay Nel-McIntosh<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe musicians are known for playing doom metal, black metal, and hardcore, and those who have spoken to the class live between Idaho and Norway. It\u2019s possible none have ever stepped foot on a Native American reservation. (Instrument manufacturer Gibson donated several guitars so the teens can have hands-on lessons.)<\/p>\n \n\tBuffalo Hide students tell Rolling Stone <\/em>that the class has had a positive effect on their lives. \u201cIt helps me in my own way,\u201d student Reb Pollock says via email. \u201cBeing myself again is the main reason I love this class so much.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe experience has been moving for the musicians who\u2019ve participated, too. \u201cSome of the students were wearing metal shirts,\u201d McCarthy says of his visit to the school. His band Wayfarer, based in Denver, combines black metal, a dramatic, orchestrally inspired subgenre of extreme metal, with touches of Americana; their American Gothic <\/em>album featured on Rolling Stone\u2019s <\/em>list of the best metal records of 2023<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cPunk, hardcore, and heavy music has a way of allowing people to know it\u2019s normal to feel these intense emotions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Neurosis\u2019 Steve Von Till<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tWhen he spoke at the Heavy Music Symposium, the students asked him about how he wrote songs and his approach to guitar playing. He picked up a guitar and began jamming some grungy punk riffs with students who\u2019d recently formed a band called Crimson Harmonies. \u201cIt made me happy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere was the resident metal kid who wants to name-check bands and talk about black metal,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s the kid in the Slipknot shirt, and that\u2019s their intro into this whole world. I loved seeing the whole thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFor Newton, whose band Converge creates expressionistic and poetic metal-tinged hardcore (listen to Jane Doe,<\/em> one of the best albums of the century so far<\/a>), speaking at the symposium was rejuvenating. \u201cIt was fun and oddly emotional for me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was refreshing to talk to these kids who weren\u2019t jaded. They were unencumbered by trying to be cool. They were just interested in music and interested in what drew me to it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tVon Till felt similarly invigorated after speaking with the students. \u201cOne of them had taken upon himself to do a bunch of research about some specific [Neurosis] tours to ask more specific and deeper questions,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was cool to see them do their research.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tA Heavy Music Symposium class meeting in March.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Charlie Speicher<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAlthough the musicians enjoyed chopping it up about metal with the teens, they\u2019re also aware of the symposium\u2019s purpose. Four decades ago, the press demonized extreme music. Parents of teens who\u2019d died by suicide sued Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> and Judas Priest<\/a>, alleging the music inspired their children\u2019s deaths. The lawsuits were not successful, but the controversy over \u201csatanic panic\u201d<\/a> was lasting.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe musicians who\u2019ve spoken at the symposium, however, say that heavy music has always been a positive force in their lives. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty well documented that people will blame heavy metal or punk rock music for dysregulated behaviors or suicidal thinking,\u201d Von Till says. \u201cIt has always been my belief that by looking the darkness right in the eye, heavy music has given a lot of people a chance to overcome and process intense emotions in ways that may not be understandable in traditional Western clinical analysis \u2014 but it makes people feel better. It makes people feel like somebody understands what they\u2019re feeling, whether it\u2019s rage, darkness, or sadness. We are allowed to process those feelings through this intense music.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMcCarthy, who also books the Fire in the Mountains festival, credits metal with changing his life. \u201cI have no idea where I would be without it \u2014 and I don\u2019t want to know,\u201d he says. Everyone he associates with as an adult, he says, is because of heavy metal. \u201cThe metal community is always accepting the people who are interested in it,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMcCarthy believes that talking about metal with the students could lead them to writing music, starting bands, and going to concerts. Once you have an interest in the genre, he says, there\u2019s a community. \u201cAnd if you were struggling with the weight of existence and the weight of your situation, maybe all of a sudden you wake up thinking, \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t wait to do this. I\u2019m going<\/em> to do this.\u2019 And it can really have a massive effect.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cPunk, hardcore, and heavy music has a way of allowing people to know it\u2019s normal to feel these intense emotions,\u201d Von Till says. \u201cFeeling fucked up is normal. What\u2019s not normal is carrying through with a suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHall sees a therapeutic parallel between heavy music and Blackfeet culture. \u201cOur word for doctor is \u0101iss\u014dkin\u01cekii,<\/em> and when you translate it for what it really means, you say \u2018singer of heavy songs,’\u201d he says. \u201cSo in our old perspective, those songs of healing were considered heavy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tWolves in the Throne Room at the 2022 festival in Moran, Wyoming.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJAY NEL-MCINTOSH<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThere are many reasons why the suicide <\/strong>rate is high among Indigenous teens. Dr. Victoria O\u2019Keefe, who is affiliated with the Cherokee and Seminole Nations and has studied suicidality as it relates to Indigenous people, is a clinical psychologist and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as an associate director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health. Speaking by phone, she says the suicide rate can vary greatly among the country\u2019s more than 500 federally recognized tribes. But there are common factors that contribute to suicidal ideation among all Indigenous people.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cColonization through systematic policies of genocide, land and cultural dispossession, and forced assimilation have been and continue to be extremely destructive to Indigenous families\u2019 and communities\u2019 ways of living,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOne example she offers is how the federal government forced Indigenous children into boarding schools located far from their families<\/a>. \u201cThe boarding schools used tactics to strip away Indigenous identity and cultural practices, for example, changing children\u2019s names from a tribal name to an English name, cutting their hair, and preventing them to speak their traditional languages, or practice their cultures.\u201d That initiative, which proliferated from the 1800s until the 1960s, has had resounding effects on Native populations.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe ongoing impacts and transmission of collective traumas across generations continue to impact the mental health and overall well-being of many of our Native youth and adults,\u201d she says. \u201cIn addition, we have a severely underfunded health care system [the Indian Health Service] for tribal and urban Native communities.\u2026 Together, these historical factors and ongoing structural racism contribute to high suicide rates that we see in many of our communities today.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNative Americans also experience a higher rate of adverse childhood experiences, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, among other factors \u2014\u00a0 according to the National Library of Medicine<\/a> \u2014 compared with other ethnicities. Native children also grow up in areas with higher rates of poverty, racial discrimination, and familial conflicts, according to a joint university study<\/a> by researchers at the University of Toledo and New Mexico State University. There are also very few Native American psychiatrists to address the mental-health crisis; a 2021 survey<\/a> cited in the study reports that less than 0.5 percent of active psychiatrists at the time had Indigenous ancestry.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe study found that the suicide rate among American Indian and Alaska Native adolescents was the highest of any racial or ethnic group. It also reported that Native teens \u201clost almost 16,000 years of potential life,\u201d over a four-year period, due to suicide.<\/p>\n \n\tDr. Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University who co-authored that study, tells Rolling Stone <\/em>they included that figure in the report to inspire more funding into research surrounding the suicide rate among Indigenous teens. \u201cWe have to build a business case for preventing youth suicide and improving youth health,\u201d he says. \u201cEach life has some amount of dollar value in the U.S. climate or worldwide. How much money have we lost? If that\u2019s what policymakers would find appealing [to fund research], it\u2019s important to note that [teen suicide] is an economic loss, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe worries the suicide rate could worsen in the future. \u201c[This is] perhaps the loneliest generation ever born in America,\u201d he says. \u201cLast year, the surgeon general of the United States issued an advisory that loneliness is the next epidemic<\/a>. [Suicide prevention efforts] need to be sustained for a lifespan, from childhood to adulthood, so people feel connected. I like the music element of [the Firekeeper Alliance]. When kids become teachers, they get engaged [with life] and know there are adults out there looking out for them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve been fucked up by suicide, get up here, come celebrate, and grieve with us. Let\u2019s headbang and let\u2019s be outside in a beautiful setting and just be together.\u201d<\/p>\n Charlie Speicher<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tSpeicher sees the Heavy Music Symposium <\/strong>as a unique way to show that he and other adults in town care about the Buffalo Hide Academy\u2019s students. \u201cTraditional suicide prevention methods are basically bullshit,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ve gotten us to where we are. They don\u2019t work, especially in Indian country.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cConventional suicide-prevention approaches are typically focused on the individual, on individual risk factors, and also on reducing a crisis,\u201d O\u2019Keefe says. \u201cThis approach is rooted in Western- or Euro-centric approaches to mental health and well-being, and the solutions are focused on the individual.\u201d Indigenous people think differently. \u201cMany of our communities hold important knowledge and traditions that promote health, mental health, wellness, and life that are passed down from generation to generation,\u201d she says. \u201cAmong many tribes, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are all viewed as connected and can\u2019t be separated from one another.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tFire in the Mountain Festival visits the Buffalo Hide Academy<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Charlier Speicher<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tO\u2019Keefe led a project, Culture Forward<\/a>, a few years ago with the Center for Indigenous Health to compile resources for combatting suicide among Native youth. She says some tribes have been successful with unique initiatives. The White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona adopted a program called Celebrating Life<\/a>. If people witness others having suicidal ideation, they report it to a suicide surveillance system and a group of community mental-health specialists respond. The tribe reported a 38 percent decrease in suicide deaths and a 53 percent reduction in attempts over 12 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Keefe believes the Firekeeper Alliance\u2019s efforts show promise in its community. She views it as \u201ca strength-based suicide-prevention approach\u201d and finds the use of heavy metal as a coping and healing mechanism creative. She adds that when she was growing up, she was a fan of Nirvana, which led her to heavier bands like Underoath and Chiodos.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Heavy Music Symposium is built on cultural connectivity and through an Indigenous lens,\u201d Speicher says. \u201cMost people pass through Browning and see boarded-up houses [and] winos downtown, and they think, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s ugly. That looks rough. This isn\u2019t safe,\u2019 and that\u2019s not the way it is here. That\u2019s not how Blackfeet experience this; that\u2019s not how I experience it. There\u2019s laughter, there\u2019s beauty, there\u2019s strength through terrible distress. There\u2019s such power and resilience here.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSo what the Heavy Music Symposium focuses on is that we have everything that we need here to decide to live, and we have the support,\u201d he continues. \u201cWe can do this together. We can cope with adversity; we can develop a strong sense of belonging with other people who have been through darkness like us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSpeicher\u2019s definition of \u201csuccess\u201d for the Heavy Music Symposium is as unique as the class. \u201cI want to see kids smiling,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOne recent highlight was the standing ovation the students gave Morbid Angel\u2019s phantasmagoric \u201cGod of Emptiness\u201d music video<\/a> when he played it for the class. \u201cI want to see fists and devil horns in the air, and I want kids to talk to me about bands,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we listen to a Carcass song, and they\u2019re giving their perspective on the sound and style and using the terms that we\u2019ve been talking about, if some kid says, \u2018I really like this atmospheric post\u2013black metal band,\u2019 that\u2019s a massive success.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSuccess in a little town is measured pretty easily,\u201d Hall says. \u201cWhat\u2019s been really satisfying is that if students see me outside of school, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, hey. What up, Robert?\u2019 and wave and will want to talk shit about anything, whatever. They find it safe to tease me now, and I enjoy that. So success has already easily been captured.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSpeicher knows his efforts are working when kids show up to class. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to pass this class,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got the leeway and flexibility at our alternative school to issue credits and meet those expectations with our benchmarks and our standards. It\u2019s going to help support their path to graduating.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe students who spoke with Rolling Stone <\/em>said that engaging with heavy music via the Heavy Music Symposium was inspiring. \u201c[I\u2019ve] learned more stuff [from the class] and [I\u2019ve been] getting more creative with my drawings,\u201d Pollock says, adding that she\u2019s enjoyed meeting the band members. \u201cI feel calm in some way [when I listen to metal] and I try and listen for the drum beats since I\u2019m-a learn the drums.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStudents will also get the opportunity to intern at the Fire in the Mountains festival this summer, reinforcing the Heavy Music Symposium\u2019s work. Speicher and Hall also hope that the festival will help comfort a grieving community at large. \u201cIf you\u2019ve been fucked up by suicide, get up here, come celebrate, and grieve with us,\u201d he says. \u201cLet\u2019s headbang and let\u2019s be outside in a beautiful setting and just be together.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re really happy that the Firekeeper Alliance was created,\u201d Walker, the fest\u2019s founder, says. \u201cThe last time we were up there, a high school senior who was in the symposium said that he had never looked forward to anything in his entire life, but he couldn\u2019t wait for Fire in the Mountains. Just that<\/em> means that we\u2019re successful.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe festival\u2019s organizers selected Converge as the inaugural Firekeeper Alliance band, representing the organization\u2019s values, at the festival, and Newton sees that recognition as a special honor. \u201cWhen I spoke at the symposium, one of the things I talked about with the kids was how [Converge] is our band, and we\u2019re playing these songs, but it\u2019s not just us \u2014 it\u2019s all of us,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s you guys in the crowd with us, creating one energy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMoreover, he knows what sharing that energy does for people. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you the number of times someone has come up to us at a show and said, \u2018Hey, your music saved my life,’\u201d Newton says. \u201cI\u2019ve had people tell me, \u2018I had a gun in my hand, and I was listening to your music, and that\u2019s what stopped me from doing it.\u2019 It\u2019s heavy. Those moments show you why it\u2019s important that we do this and how lucky we are that we get to do it, that we can have a positive effect on someone\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s the effect Speicher keeps striving for.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re going to do our best,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to do our best every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIf you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Dial 988 or chat at<\/em> 988lifeline.org<\/em><\/a> to reach the <\/a><\/em>988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> The Trevor Project<\/em><\/a>, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ+ youth, is<\/em> 1-866-488-7386. Find other international suicide helplines at Befrienders Worldwide (<\/em>befrienders.org<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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