Here are the 14 biggest WTF moments of 2024 in rock and metal.
Every year is a wild year in heavy music. When we’re dealing with thousands of bands and an endless stream of tours, there’s bound to be some crazy stuff that happens.
But these moments aren’t all just a byproduct of the road and all that comes with this vagabond sort of lifestyle. There’s mainstream infiltration in the most unexpected ways and even livestock that have proven they’re worthy of being in the rock and metal community — remember the headbanging horse that loves Slipknot?
There’s some shockingly gross moments, ones that outright confused us and made us go, “Really?” while others were purely mesmerizing and impressive for so many reasons.
Well, we’ve teased you enough! Let’s take a look at all these WTF moments from the year:
Black Metal Band Martyrdom Apologize for Pig’s Head Incident
When: January, 2024
Local Houston, Texas black metal group Martyrdom issued an apology for their “actions and gimmicks” at a show.
They had tossed a severed pig’s head into the crowd at a venue called The White Swan, which was not the first time the band had engaged in such activity onstage. The video clip went viral and a lot of people were appropriately grossed out by the antics.
Martyrdom confessed they had conspired to “add a little bit of imagery and shock value” to their set, aligning with the subgenre’s historically controversial nature. The statement that was released was profusely apologetic.
They’re a young band and it seems like they naively just thought that this is what you do if you form a black metal band.
Florida Man Plays System of a Down + Deftones Songs on Guitar During Brain Surgery
When: January, 2024
Let’s clear the air first — this is not the type of story you usually think about when you hear of a WTF moment. This one is a story of the remarkable achievements of humans as a species.
Florida man Christopher Nolen underwent an awake craniotomy, a procedure in which part of the skull is removed in order to access the brain, then the bone is replaced after.
“It was just like out of this world, like, to just like wake up and like have people actively working inside of your head. It’s kind of an insane feeling,” Nolen told WSVN Miami.
While doctors worked to remove a brain tumor, Nolen awoke during a portion of the procedure and played guitar, busting out riffs by Deftones and System of a Down. This afforded surgeons the ability to work in a more aggressive manner with the ability to actively monitor Nolen’s manual dexterity.
Even System of a Down’s Serj Tankian was mesmerized by the news, questioning, “What????” in a post on X.
Headbanging, Slipknot-Loving Horse Has Hilarious Reaction to Country Music
When: February, 2024
This one has to be seen to be believed. Fortunately, there’s a video you can watch below!
Pretty, a Canadian quarter horse went viral for headbanging to metal music (including Slipknot) as well as for showing off her apparent disdain for country music.
Rammstein, Shinedown, Disturbed, Motorhead Drowning Pool, Pantera and Rage Against the Machine all met Pretty’s approval. Country star Morgan Wallen, however… not so much.
Jared Leto’s Confusing April Fools Prank on Wheel of Fortune
When: April, 2024
Amid longtime host Pat Sajak’s final season as the host of the TV game show Wheel of Fortune, Jared Leto was at the center of a confusing April Fool’s Day prank.
The Thirty Seconds to Mars singer and famed actor casually began hosting the show, as if this is what he’s always done. There was one problem, though… not everyone watching knew who Leto was.
The whole thing was just plain awkward and Sajak quickly reclaimed his role during the episode after the first contestant spun the wheel.
Video – Neighbors Call Cops on Metalcore Singer in Hilarious Misunderstanding
When: June, 2024 No, nobody’s getting murdered, it’s just some metalcore screams. Carry on, officers!
This really happened to Silent Planet‘s Garrett Russell when a neighbor in a residential area alerted the authorities about some of their concerns. It turns out Russell was just tracking some vocals.
“I heard it when I walked up and I was like ‘that’s not normal. I don’t know what’s going on,'” the police officer is heard saying in the video clip.
Russell explained the situation, the cops left and that was that.
NFL’s Travis + Jason Kelce Unveil Death Metal Logo for Their Beer Company
When: July, 2024
We’re going to do you a favor and put all of the Kelce Bros. news all in one place for you. We know if you saw three headlines in this recap dedicated solely to the NFL stars, you’d lose your mind.
The two are part-owners in Garage Beer, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based brewing company. Over the summer, they unveiled a logo that appeared to directly parody the completely illegible logo of 2020s death metal standouts Sanguisugabogg.
The band even engaged in some banter on X.
That same week, Travis Kelce won a karaoke trophy after belting out Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”
Later, in August, Garage Beer parodied Korn’s logo on a new merch item, too.
Oh, we almost forgot about Travis doing the “Ooh-wah-ah-ah” noise as Disturbed’s “Down With the Sickness” played at an event after the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl.
Okay, that’s it for the Kelces for 2024. We promise!
Steve Perry’s Imposter Steals $122,000 From 75-Year-Old Journey Fan
When: July, 2024
There have been a lot of scams happening in rock and metal over the last few years. Unfortunately, elders continue to be the targets of financial swindling by nefarious criminals.
Oftentimes, these scammers pretend to be a famous musician and reach out to a person in direct messages on social media.
That’s what reportedly happened to a 75-year-old resident of Cleveland, Ohio.
A woman is said to have been taken for $122,000 by someone pretending to be erstwhile Journey singer Steve Perry. She allegedly wire transferred $72,000 to multiple people in different states as part of the elaborate scheme. An additional $50,000 in gift cards were provided by this woman as well.
It wasn’t until the imposter demanded the woman submit photos of her passport and driver’s license that she became concerned this was all a scam.
Paul Natkin / Diy13, Getty Images
Gojira Become First Metal Band to Play Olympics Opening Ceremony
When: July
When we all got word that Gojira would be performing at the Olympics opening ceremony in their home country of France, the reaction was a mix of shocked amazement and bewilderment. An extreme metal band on the world stage? Surely, there had to be a compromise…
WRONG!
Gojira pulled off the most metal thing that has ever happened, bringing extreme music to the forefront and in a diabolically theatrical manner.
It began with a close-up of a beheaded Marie Antoinette holding her own head before the camera panned out to reveal a castle, with Gojira’s members perched atop balconies. Walls of fire shot up into the sky and the band played a breakdown. It was a perfect scene for depicting an important (albeit, violent) part of French history and its liberation.
Joining Gojira was opera singer Marina Viotti and her presence certainly helped legitimize extreme music as an art form considering how well the two styles meshed together.
Metal has long been shunned by the mainstream, dismissed as noise and diluted when given the chance to be in front of the masses. This was entirely on metal’s own terms, no compromise, and we couldn’t thank Gojira enough for giving us this memory that will last a lifetime.
WTF, did that really happen?! We still can’t believe it…
People Suddenly Got Outraged Over Cannibal Corpse Lyrics
When: August
Cannibal Corpse are no strangers to controversy. Their shocking imagery has been banned in various parts of the world and the band’s lyrical content is rather deranged. As we know, this doesn’t reflect the individuals in the band, who are noted sweethearts who apply horror movie tactics to their brutal brand of music.
It actually started when lyrics for the song “Panty Shot” by Mindless Self Indulgence were shared in an X post that read, “‘Separate the art from the artist’, but this is the ‘art.'” The screenshot of lyrics included lines such as “Five year old pantyshot / I can see between her legs.”
READ MORE: Sexual Assault Lawsuit Against Mindless Self Indulgence Singer Reaches Conclusion
Another person responded, saying, “Wait till they see this one,” and shared the lyrics to “Necropedophile” off Cannibal Corpse’s classic album, Tomb of the Mutilated.
Naturally, this criminal perversion offended quite a lot of people, who were presumably not familiar with the band.
The internet mostly lampooned the Cannibal Corpse detractors.
We Woke Up + Saw Tommy Lee Naked on Instagram Again
When: Sept., 2024
Not again! Despite continued, blatant violations of Instagram’s community guidelines, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee appears to have carte blanche when it comes to sharing video clips of his genitals on the social media platform.
This time, he dropped his pants at a DJ booth and we all got a backside view of his dangling, 61-year-old testicles.
Brittney Furlan / Tommy Lee
When We Were Young Festival Merch Filled With Band Name Typos
When: Oct., 2024 Typos are one thing — we’re human and it happens. But when misspellings run rampant on festival merch and it goes viral for just how many errors there are… yikes!
Here’s some of the band name typos that were spotted on different pieces of When We Were Young festival merch:
- Amor For Sleep (Armor For Sleep)
- Moveuments (Movements)
- All Amercian Rejects (All American Rejects)
- New and Glory (New Found Glory)
- Sleeping With Siriens (Sleeping With Sirens)
- We Are In the Crowd (We Are the In Crowd)
- Amberlin (Anberlin)
Some consumers reported duplicates of band names and that others, such as Senses Fail, weren’t even featured in the list of performing artists on certain pieces of merch.
Comment byu/Tekknochangedmylife from discussion inWhenWeWereYoungFest
Security Guard Drags Metalcore Vocalist Offstage, Venue Promoter Responds
When: Oct., 2024
Last year, the worst wall of death ever took place at an Alpha Wolf show in Kentucky. It was a real WTF moment and the Australian metalcore powerhouse grace such a list for the second consecutive year.
This time, it’s because a security staff member at AEG-owned venue The Warfield in San Francisco dragged vocalist Lochie Keogh off the stage by his ankle. This reportedly took place after Keogh had yanked a knit hat off of one of the security guards’ heads and tossed it onstage.
The vocalist had also said that security had mistreated the bands throughout the day.
Others at the show claim they had been dropped on their head while crowdsurfing, crossing over the barrier where security is typically positioned to catch and ensure the safety of the crowdsurfing concertgoers.
To see a security guard act so aggressively with a band member and endangering their wellbeing was shocking.
Mark Zuckerberg Drops Rock Cover of Lil Jon’s ‘Get Low’ With T-Pain
When: Nov., 2024
We all thought “WTF?” to ourselves when we saw this news, right?
Meta mogul Mark Zuckerberg teamed up with T-Pain (who dropped an incredible cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” in January) to cover one of the most well-known party anthems there is — 2002’s “Get Low,” by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz.
The duo dubbed themselves Z-Pain and served up an acoustic rendition that sounds like a 2000s emo ballad. Of course, the song’s crude sexual lyrics sung in a whiny melodic timbre make it outright laughable and maybe that was their intention.
If you’re wondering why this exists, Zuckerberg thought it would make a nice anniversary present for his wife.
Metalcore Singer Admits to Faking Cancer Diagnosis for Money, Band Had No Idea
When: November
Closing out a year in WTF is the disturbing story of Nathaphon “Bon” Jutathaveewan, the vocalist for Thai metalcore band Annalynn who faked a cancer diagnosis in order to raise money for himself.
After a GoFundMe page was launched and merch was sold, Bon confessed to the whole thing being a scam in order to help pay off personal debts. He also acknowledged that his bandmates were completely unaware.
The other band members revealed that they had raised the question of legitimacy about the cancer diagnosis directly with Bon, asking for evidence of his claims. Annalynn abstained from band activities during the time they received added attention due to Bon’s claimed medical diagnosis at the time.
Rock + Metal Bands That Broke Up in 2024
For some, 2024 was the end of the road.
Gallery Credit: Chad Childers, Loudwire
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