ZRockR Goes to Hell’s Heroes: Day One

March 20, 2025 –For most music lovers, the topic of dream lineup has probably come up in a conversation or two. Every time a new festival lineup, or massive tour gets announced, anyone who has some sort of push or pull within the live performance world has an opinion on who should have been on the bill, or if a band should get added or removed, if the tour dates suck, if the venues suck, you get the vibe. I think this is why Christian Larsen, vocalist of such bands as Necrofier and Night Cobra, is one of my all-time favorite people to look up to now. Not because he’s fought for civil rights, or healed a major disease, but because he nearly single-handedly built a wildly successful music festival based solely on the kinds of bands he likes to listen to and watch. He did what most only fantasize of in their online discussion boards, and I, for one, think he’s a genius.

This past weekend, ZRockR Magazine was invited to partake in this very festival, and I got to go along as the official correspondent on the job. Hell’s Heroes celebrated its seventh iteration this year. With over five thousand members in attendance – traveling from every corner of the world, including England, Australia, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Mexico, and Sweden – it was the place to be for people who enjoy beer, denim, leather, and absolute chaos. Luckily, I only had to travel from San Antonio, but by the end of the festival, I clearly understood why so many of these devoted patrons, many of which had been coming here since Hell’s Heroes III, IV, and/or V, would commit to such a large pilgrimage. Hell’s Heroes is an experience unlike any other. Let me take you down that experience.

The first thing that comes to mind when I walk down memory lane with Hell’s Heroes is that my San Antonio homies in Black Jackal opened up the inside stage on day one, and I couldn’t have been happier with the way that they killed it. The child of such bands as Motorhead and Venom, Black Jackal ripped through that crowd in a way that left the audience in pieces. Pulling out the corpse paint, metal spikes, and goat skull accessories, they began a theme of theatrical performance that would be the staple of day one’s lineup. Half way through my three-song limit, I felt the sudden urge to break a bottle of Jack over someone’s head. Worrying? Maybe, but in my opinion, that’s the sign of a good black ‘n roll band. The entire rest of the festival I saw people wandering around wearing their shirts. It’s a great feeling when you see such beautiful things happening to people you’ve been familiar with, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t
throw them a massive shout out at the top of this article.

Following that, I got to watch the geezers in Satan perform their album “Court in the Act.” Pretty standard heavy metal type stuff. I can’t say I’m too familiar with their material, but I mention this set specifically because this was the third band of the day and it was when the spirit of the festival began to emerge. Not even four songs into the setlist, someone decided to empty out a garbage bin, and crawl inside of it, and start crowd surfing in it. The battle between the moshers and the security guards over this trashcan was one that lasted all weekend, and it stated with Brian Ross interrupting the song they were playing to point at the bobbing plastic bin and exclaim, “that is an asshole in a trash can. Now I’ve seen it all.”

Chamber Mage played a set that spoke to me in the way of experimentation. Their music is built on a healthy backbone made of your average run-of-the-mill traditional heavy metal, but that backbone is tied together with sinews and tissues that I found really complex. There was anelement of doom rock in their sound that made their music sound sludgy, sticky, and gross in a way, and yet still very polished and melodic. It was like it dripped a blacklight ooze that was neither too toxic, nor too sweet. Their lyrics were pretty dark, and the lighting design reflected that glow-in-the-dark feel that seemed to pulsate from them heavily. I was a fan by the end of the set, a set that was perfectly placed exactly where it lay.

Next to take that stage was Savage Master, a female fronted band cut from a similar cloth, and yet draped in mystery and theatrical aura. Savage Master’s musicians – all donning hoods and ritualistic garments – carried a coffin out on to the foggy backlit stage. It was from that coffin that Stacey Savage, the vocalist and leading lady of the act, would arise from her slumber and begin singing her fantastical occult lyrics with a dagger in one hand and a whip in the other. I had been familiar with Savage Master’s work, and had been looking forward to the performance. The theater of Savage Master involved bloody chalices, costume changes, whip action, and much more, and yet the power of that performance was about to be carried onwards.

As soon as Savage Master took their leave, Castle Rat played. Castle Rat is a band that wields the powers of vampires, plague doctors, chainmail underboob, sword fights, a rodent reaper in fishnets and leather lingerie, the spirit of Xena: Warrior Princess, and a guitar tone that would make the lads in Electric Wizard salivate, as if they were weapons of mass destruction, and we the targets of devastation. Castle Rat plays doom metal so sludgy and slow that it only took a matter of minutes before the whole place smelled like weed. Between the music and the insane dance performances and dialogue that separated the songs, Castle Rat burned their place into Hell’s Heroes with a vengeance.

With wild eyes and wilder riffs, the California thrashers in Hirax blew the heavy motif to a new level, kicking it up a notch with notably speedy drumming and vocals from the ever-talented Katon de Pena. Hirax was one of the angrier, more insane bands on the lineup. Not only in blistering sonic heat, and not only in wild lyrics, but Hirax’s stage presence was palpable and exciting. Eyes bulging from his head, de Pena ran up and down that stage like a wild beast, a creature that had been let out of his cage and set upon the masses. In the rubble of Hirax’s performance, the day was nearly done

A palette cleanser was needed at this time. Christian Larsen, genius extraordinaire that he is, knew this. and that’s why he placed the only punk band on the whole lineup, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (DRI), right here. Punk rock is an interesting genre, and sometimes I can’t tell if I actually like it or not. On the one hand, DRI’s set was a forty-five minute injection of pure insanity and adrenaline that was genuinely one of the best things I’d seen all weekend. Those boys still have it in them, even after all these years. On the other hand, is it weird that a crowd of thousands of adults were screaming the lyrics to “Couch Slouch,” a song about how much the singer wants to be a lazy teenager who just sleeps all day? If it is, then who am I to judge, because I screamed those lyrics right back at them. Is it hard to take pictures of a band while you’re screaming back up at them? Yes. Yes it is, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

And then it was back to the metallic insanity, this time with a band called Bewitcher. Bewitcher was one of my most anticipated performances of the festival, and they didn’t disappoint. Following a day mostly comprised of traditional heavy metal bands, hair metal, and clean doom rock, Bewitcher was a breath of fresh air because they sound the way I like my metal to sound: angry and disgusting. My lungs filled with a healthy disdain after I heard those opening riffs pulsate throughout the room, and it was as if I’d drank water for the first time in days.Bewitcher could only be outdone by one artist, and it was the one I’d been waiting on all day.

Abbath knows their audience. They know what their fans want to hear. We like the newer stuff a lot, we really do, but we want to hear the famous, older songs. I guess if you had to put it into simpler terms, one could say: We want to hear Immortal. So when Abbath walked through the haze of stage smoke to perform their classic Immortal songs, not a single soul in that audience could remain quiet. The awe of such a large and powerful set was universal in that moment. Abbath is a force to be reckoned with. Starting with “Withstand the Fall of Time” was a power move. I shot all of my shots in the first two songs and then spent my final moments right against the stage simply thrashing out with another photographer who was there with me. Abbath is addictive. See them when they come to your town.

The after-party featured the likes of dungeon synth performers Quest Master, and Fief, and ended with the sludge-doom group, Worm. And with that, day one was complete, and the madness had been laid to rest for just a few hours.