Atlantic Canada’s metal scene is a curious niche in our cultural cornucopia. If anything, it is tenacious. Its fan are fervent. And while they may be toiling away in the shadows (though perhaps not so quietly), the metal scene has had a near constant presence over the last several decades. Now, one fan and former music promoter is hoping to shed some light on the scene with a Maritime Metal Documentary.
Back in 2002, Billy Stever was working as a music promotor in Moncton, working with local bands like Black Frost and Funeral Fog, while running his own metal site called The UnderGrowth. From there he began setting up his own shows, until moving to Montreal in 2007 with the hopes of doing more there.
While the metal scene kept him busy, it never amounted to a full-time job for Stever.
“You cannot make a living off setting up metal shows in the Maritimes,” says Stever.
In the end he landed a job in the film industry and now works for visual effects company called Cinesite. But in that time he released eight albums, and set up over twenty-five shows.
“Before I moved I was doing shows for Fuck The Facts, Krisiun from Brazil, Balphagor from Austria, and Dying Fetus from USA.”
His experience in putting together metal shows across the Maritimes, however, has put Stever in an interesting position. Combining his skills in the film industry, with those of his partners, Dan Crowder of Yacked Media, and associate producer Jeff Mahfoud, they’re hoping to tell the tale of this unique and often overlooked corner of Canada’s music industry.
“I think the scene is defiantly resilient, Maritimes being so isolated and not exactly wealthy,” says Stever. “People take to music to deal with life, boredom, etc.. Metal has always been there since the ’80s, and over time the scene has just gotten bigger and bigger.”
Stever explains that the film will cover three decades; combining the earliest footage they can find all the way to present day. “[From] the 90s when bands were recording on cassette tapes and postering their cities, tape trading and letter writing, [to] the 2000s, with the dawn of the internet and how the scene used it (like the Maritime Metal Message Board that was created by Raland from Dichotic), and into the 2010s, with the rise of social media and how it changed into what it is today.”
He describes the documentary as being one part history and one part analysis of how a music scene evolved along with technology.
Stever says that the idea grew out of the abundance of footage he collected himself as a promoter. Now they’re actively seeking more for the documentary, and asking fans to send them old tapes to be digitized.
The trio have started an Indiegogo to fund the enterprise, primarily to cover the cost of hardware and returning to the Maritimes to interview bands while they hunt for more footage. They’ve already interviewed members of Tolerance from Prince Edward Island, Iron Giant from Moncton, and Dichotic from Halifax, most of which have been living in Ottawa for the nearly two decades.
“It just gets bigger and bigger,” says Stever. “Also the scene is very diverse. There is everything from hard rock, stoner rock to extreme Black and Death Metal, and every thing in-between. So it is a scene that can appeal to every type of fan.”
They’ve placed the goal for their documentary at a modest $30k, or just a fraction of what it would cost most music documentaries to be produced. But as Stever says, it’s not like they’re flying all over the world chasing down Iron Maiden. They’re at the pub, hoping to catch Tony on a good day, and when they do they’ll have the proper gear for it.
Naturally the Indiegogo campaign comes with a handful of perks that range from physical copies, to t-shirts, to tickets to the premiere. If you’re looking to support the Maritime Metal Documentary (working title), you can do so by clicking here.