Students get lesson in rockin' musicCalifornia band Judgement Day jams at high school
By Chris Hagan • Statesman Journal
April 16, 2008
The relaxing hum of orchestral tuning bounced off the walls of the auditorium at West Salem High School.
Nearly 40 students from multiple Salem schools looked up at the instructor, holding his violin at the back of stage.
"OK, who knows what a power chord is?" said the teacher-for-a-day.
The group of Salem students was taught a lesson in heavy-metal string play April 9 from the Oakland, Calif., band Judgement Day. The band is fronted by brothers Anton and Lewis Patzner on violin and cello with drummer Jon Bush.
While the brothers are both classically trained musicians who retain an affinity for Bach, the Judgement Day sound is closer to Mars Volta than Mozart.
West Salem orchestra director Daryl Silberman invited the group after learning they were touring through Oregon. Silberman, a former California resident herself, first met the brothers at a music camp in Berkeley seven years ago.
"They play the music that they love and that they respond to," she said. "For me that's the best kind of role modeling for young musicians. They wouldn't dissuade anyone from following a path of correct study but they help kids understand that music is just music and you can enjoy it as thoroughly as you are able to."
The group played a full set before leading the assembled students in a jam session, showing techniques they've picked up to play metal-style music on classical instruments.
"Our parents were really into getting us lessons and made sure we practiced every day so we got a proficiency on these instruments at a young age," said Anton Patzner, 26. "But as we got older, we became more interested in popular music, rock music mostly. But we were so much better on these instruments than we were on guitar so it just made sense to go do what we wanted to do with what we knew how to do."
The band's style was also born out of necessity while playing for tips on Bay Area street corners.
"We started off playing on the street where the faster and more high-energy the song is, the more tips you make, so that kind of dictated our style originally," Anton Patzner said.
West Salem senior Carsten Kilde, 17, was turned on to the group by Silberman and helped arrange the event. Clad in a Dethklok T-shirt (the band is a fictional creation for Cartoon Network show "Metalocalypse"), Kilde was inspired when he found musicians combining his love of metal and violin.
"I also play guitar and I'm a huge metal fan, but I had never really found any like string, violin or cello, besides Apocalyptica," Kilde said.
"They're amazing," he said after the performance. "I want to be like that."
Freshman Alex Vickery, 14, wasn't a fan before the event but was impressed by what he saw.
"I don't normally listen to heavy metal but they're really good," Vickery said. "(Anton) just makes my head hurt with how fast his bow moves."
For Anton, he feels it's the band's responsibility to show students just how much a violin plugged into a wall of sound can do.
"There's not really anyone else doing this kind of stuff," he said. "For string players, I feel like it's almost a duty of ours to educate and share what we're doing and what we've learned from our experience."
chagan@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6702
