Slay at Home Virtual Fest Lines Up Gavin Rossdale, Tesseract, Suicide Silence & More

The May 29-30 event will benefit the Recording Academy's MusicCares and GlobalGiving.

News site Metal Injection, in conjunction with FG3, is hosting the Slay at Home virtual metal music and art festival starting at 3 p.m. EST on Friday (May 29). The two-day event will support the Recording Academy’s MusiCares fund and GlobalGiving, which provides resources to communities on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. The festival’s website features donation links to the charities, which will also be listed in the descriptions of the video footage aired during the event.

“This is not about proceeds, where I try to push products to recoup costs or get paid,” explains Frank Godla, co-founder/producer/director of Metal Injection, who curated Slay at Home. “It’s strictly a fundraiser… 100% of every donation goes directly to the charities.”

Among the performances recorded by artists in their homes are sets from Bush’s Gavin Rossdale, Tesseract, Suicide Silence, Darkest Hour and Trivium’s Matt Heafy. According to Godla, artists recorded their parts and then sent them to their bandmates to add more layers. However, “there are a couple European bands performing live in the same room because social-distancing requirements aren’t a thing in certain parts of the world. The effort here was to slay at home and continue to be creative while following the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines, which nearly all of the artists do.”

In addition, Godla handpicked several dozen performers to collaborate with one another using the same file-sharing methods, and videos have been created for each song that will be played in-between band sets. He says many of the people involved have never met before.

“I don’t want to spoil too many surprises, but I have members of Gwar, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies and The Black Dahlia Murder on one song together,” Godla says. “[There’s] also a worldwide commissioned debut of a song by Ben Weinman and Billy Rymer, former bandmates in The Dillinger Escape Plan, along with Brian Sullivan of Thoughtcrimes.” Other pairings include Stone Sour’s Roy Mayorga, Zeal & Ardor’s Manuel Gagneux and Tiziano Volante, and Johnny Kelly of Type O Negative and Silvertomb.

Reflecting the intertwined worlds of visual art and metal, Slay at Home will feature nearly a dozen art installations, including ones by Vincent Castiglia, who’s renowned for painting with his own blood; Gojira drummer Mario Duplantier and tattoo artist Trine Grimm. “Some of it will be an exhibition slide show of their work; some of it is video of them working on a piece. With the photographers, I had them include a voice-over about their feelings on shooting live shows and what they miss the most while their work is being presented,” says Godla. “Hopefully, it sparks attention for the viewer to look into every artist involved because I made a real effort for this event to be a place of discovery.”

For complete lineup and schedule information, visit slayathomefest.com.