Netflix’s Metal Lords is now streaming. The coming-of-age film stars Jaeden Martell, Isis Hainsworth, and Adrian Greensmith with Brett Gelman and Joe Manganiello. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello also serves as the executive music producer for the movie.
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“Two kids want to start a heavy metal band in a high school where exactly two kids care about heavy metal. Hunter (Adrian Greensmith) is a diehard metal fan —is there any other kind?— who knows his history and can shred,” says the official synopsis. “His dream in life is to win at the upcoming Battle of the Bands. He enlists his best friend Kevin (Jaeden Martell) to man the drums. But with schoolmates more interested in Bieber than Black Sabbath, finding a bassist is a struggle. Until Kevin overhears Emily (Isis Hainsworth) slaying on her cello. The motley crew must contend with school, parents, hormones and teen angst while trying to get along long enough for Skullf*cker to win the Battle of the Bands.”
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to the three main Metal Lords stars about the film, their characters, and their appreciation of metal music.
Tyler Treese: Jaeden, there are some awesome cameos by metal royalty in the film. You have a scene with Scott Ian, Kirk Hammett, Rob Halford, and Tom Morello. Were they actually on set with you, or how was that scene filmed?
Jaeden Martell: Yeah, so we actually shot that a few weeks after we wrapped in L.A. on this little studio and it was quite entertaining to watch them all together. And, they were talking about stuff that, I shouldn’t talk about [laughs], because they’re all friends, they’ve been in this scene forever, and they’ve essentially grown up together. But it was kind of amazing to see these people who are masters at their craft try something new and see them be a little nervous, that’s pretty special.
That’s awesome.
Adrian, there’s a real insecurity to your character, who has this strained relationship with his father, and we see this arc play out throughout the film. Can you speak to just how fulfilling it is as an actor to have so much depth to work with for the character?
Adrian Greensmith: Yeah, very lucky. Very, very lucky. Also, fun to play somebody quite different to myself and also somebody who’s, um, what’s the word? Abrasive. Who has…he has no problem telling somebody to shut up, and I find that quite difficult [laughs]. So that’s interesting to do, that was an interesting process. But yeah, I was lucky to have somebody who had a lot of depth
Isis, your character has some freakout moments in the film, where you’re cursing, and throwing objects. Were those fun to play or was it stressful to kind of get into that mind state?
Isis Hainsworth: It was so fun. It was so fun. I loved it. I never get to do that in my every day, so it’s really nice to just go crazy. We didn’t script them, so they were just kind of like “Go!” And so I just went, it was really good. Yeah. Fun.
Jaeden, there’s a lot of actual playing of instruments in the film. Did you have a musical background?
Martell: No. I had never really played the drums. So it was a lot of practice and I worked with this drummer Glen Sobel who’s a drummer for Alice Cooper’s band. Amazing, amazing teacher. So I had to start from scratch, really.
It looks really good throughout the film, all three of you.
Adrian, music’s such a powerful form of expression, and your character really finds an outlet through it. Can you speak to your own personal connection with music and how you related to the character?
Greensmith: Yeah. My mom’s a musician, she’s a pianist, so, I think music is a nice grounding thing and quite an emotive thing for me. And it was nice, it was nice. Usually, Hunter was almost softer when he was playing the guitar, which is funny because the music isn’t soft, but it was nice to be able to juggle that with his dialogue, which is not soft. It’s very harsh. So that was cool. That was fun to play with.
Isis, I was curious if you were a fan of metal music before this and if not, did it really give you a new appreciation for the genre?
Hainsworth: Yeah, I think I had this idea in my head of what metal was and that it just wasn’t for me. And then yeah, throughout the process of making this movie, [realizing] that metal is so many different things all in one, definitely. I have massive respect for it since making the movie, it’s been really eye-opening. There are some songs I’ve got on my playlist [laughs].