Catholic death metal band gives authentic message of hope amid suffering to 'deathcore' music scene

LANSING, Mich. (OSV News) -- The members of the deathcore metal band Voluntary Mortification are considerate country neighbors, wrapping up garage rehearsals by 8:30 p.m., before the sun disappears over the surrounding fields.

From the end of the long driveway leading off the dirt road, the views of mid-Michigan farmland are idyllic. Inside the garage, vocalist and founding band member Conner Luttig is screaming into a mic over the crash of drums and eardrum-shattering distortion from a guitar and bass. Luttig's scapular peeks out from his muscle shirt as he preps the band for a four-day tour through Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. The tour's tagline: "We are the death cult," a cheeky embrace of atheist Internet memes that label Christians as obsessed with death.

Luttig and his co-founder, guitarist Jacob Kanclerz, are at ease with engaging with non-Christian, or even hostile, voices. (Perhaps relatedly, Kanclerz’s day job is with the Michigan Catholic Conference's communications office -- Luttig works as a contractor).

Behind the stereotypically "brutal" -- as they say about 20 times in their interview with OSV News -- metal aesthetic they curate on stage, the pair effuse a winsome hospitality that invites curious questions and frequently overflows into real-life friendships. It's the new evangelization, screamed and growled out loud to an audience primed to confront hard truths about death and suffering. And it's working.

"They're the real ones," said photographer Dennis Hall, who crossed paths with Voluntary Mortification while shooting concerts. He began talking religion with Luttig, struck up a friendship and is starting RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) this fall. He said they call each other weekly, checking in.

At a time of personal darkness, Hall said, "Conner was there for me." He paused. "If he's acting like this as a Catholic, I want to be like him, you know what I mean?"

Post-rehearsal, the band explained some context. The metal scene loves shock value and inversions, especially when it comes to Christian imagery. Luttig and Kanclerz see it fitting for a Catholic metal band to flip the inversions on their own heads and proudly reclaim aspects of the faith that confound non-Christians. Their logo is an upside-down cross, but with St. Peter's keys -- a nod to the tradition that the first pope was crucified head-down. And when they ran into atheists mockingly lobbing the term "death cult" across social media, they were somewhat charmed.

"Let's just go with this," Luttig remembered thinking. After all, Kanclerz said, death -- not only the death of Jesus, but the Christian's call to die to self -- "is at the very center of the faith." The name Voluntary Mortification is about the willing embrace of suffering and humility. And the band's origin story begins about five years ago in an Exodus 90 group, where Luttig and Kanclerz met and held each other accountable to an intense, 90-day period of prayer, fasting and other sacrifices.

When the new friends discovered a shared love of heavy metal, the band was born. From the beginning, they knew they'd be unabashed about their faith but intentional in their focus on non-Christian spaces and relationships. This includes their own bandmates: Father-son pair Dominic and Giulian Cardillo, the band's drummer and bassist, don't consider themselves religious.

"I'm not anti-religious," said Giulian, who at 18 is by far the youngest band member. Still, he's attracted to the band's intentionality and substance.

"I'm a fan of the music," he said. "There's a lot of authenticity."

One of their first guitarists returned to the Catholic Church through his time with the band, with Kanclerz accompanying him to his first confession.

Kanclerz grinned, remembering a detail he hadn't shared. While at the Michigan March for Life for work last November, he'd run into the guitarist in the crowd. "He was passing out signs with the Knights of Columbus," he said.

Luttig beamed, clearly floored. "You've never told me this!"

"You know you're fully back in the church when you're volunteering with the Knights at the March for Life," Kanclerz said, laughing.

So is Voluntary Mortification a ministry?

Yes, but Kanclerz doesn't think this is extraordinary. "What we're trying to do is what any Christian should do," he said. "To be comfortable planting yourself wherever you need to be." For him and Luttig, that happens to be the death metal scene.

"We just want to meet people and love them where they're at," Luttig added. He's the band's relationships guy, the one who'll turn tussles in their Facebook comments section into life-changing friendships behind the scenes. "If they want to open up and talk, or we can share our experiences, that's cool."

The result: community. One year, Kanclerz and Luttig started another Exodus 90 group made up of men from around the country whom they've encountered through their music.

For a genre known for theatrics and boundary-pushing -- "they're all trying to out metal each other," as Kanclerz put it -- authenticity is highly valued.

For him and Luttig, trading in this currency means stepping out of their Catholic bubble while being fully, earnestly themselves -- Knights of Columbus whipping the moshpit into a frenzy at 11 p.m. Pro-life husbands and fathers delightedly engaging with fans whose vulgar shirts would turn heads at a church event yet are lining up to buy merch with St. Peter's cross and keys. Committed Christians huddled together in prayer seconds before they turn around on stage, cross themselves and open the floodgates of pummeling, deafening metal.

They've played with bands known for blasphemous lyrics and occult-laden, anti-Christian imagery -- one of their first shows followed an act that burned a Bible on stage. (Luttig, of course, later befriended the guy, who ended up helping them out as a substitute drummer). They wear St. Benedict medals while playing for audiences seeking catharsis -- a full-body, primal experience of sound that doesn't shy away from the reality of pain and death.

By its nature, a Catholic death metal band can't "fall into the trap of thinking the Christian walk is like listening to Shine FM," Kanclerz quipped, referring to the uplifting Christian radio station. "There's some dark stuff out there, but we've always come back to, 'This is why we want to be present in this space.'"

A couple weeks later, Voluntary Mortification is headlining a five-hour, all-metal lineup outside Detroit.

"What'd you think?" Luttig asks a fan after their set.

"F—ing amazing," the man immediately answers.

Above them is a banner with their album art, a brutal -- there's no other way to put it -- hellscape of writhing souls and demons. It fits in perfectly with the surrounding merch tables -- except for one detail.

Suspended in the upper right corner, a figure hangs cruciform over the pit of terror. A beam of light passes through him and pierces the darkness. Luttig grins.