Diama Luciano Unapologetic Riffing and Trans Identity

Denver’s metal scene is exploding and expanding by the day—On any given night, you can catch an awesome, local death metal or doom show. But, like many other exports from the Mile High City, we are still lacking a bit in diversity. While there are women and people of color who have made massive headlines and hail from Denver, the scene is still overwhelmingly white, male, and straight. 

Enter Diama Luciano (she/they), a queer and femme member of metal community. We sat down with Luciano to learn more about her journey to get here and her experience in the local metal scene.

How did you first get into metal? 

I’ve been into metal since I was very young. The first concert I ever went to was Iron Maiden, and I was only, like, 3 or 4 years old. The only thing I vaguely remember from that show was the massive tapestry of Eddie up on the stage. 

How, if at all, did metal intersect with your coming out story? 

To be totally honest, metal actually hasn’t had that much to do with my coming out. In fact, my place in the metal community was to some degree one of the hardships I had in coming out, as metal is traditionally a very masculine genre, and I was worried I would not be as accepted. However, to my pleasant surprise, the Denver metal community has been overwhelmingly accepting, almost more so than before I started presenting more feminine, and other than a few odd moments, has been very good support for me. 

How do you feel the metal scene in Denver treats queer folks? 

As stated above, I seem to be treated a little better after coming out. When I presented more masculine, it seemed like I was more or less ignored, and I felt myself struggling to make any kind of name for myself, most likely because at that time, I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be. After “coming out” as a more authentic version of myself, it felt like people saw me for who I was, and I became more recognizable and well known in the community.  

Have you had any role models that show you what queerness in metal can look like?

There are a few good examples, but on the whole, it seems that metal is quite lacking in representation of queer people and very lacking in representation of trans people. I feel that this is born out of a fear that we will not be taken seriously. I have no trans role models from the metal scene and don’t really know of any. Not because they don’t exist, as they absolutely do, but they are not well known enough that I have naturally come across them, and I would have to deliberately look for bands that have trans members just for the sake of it.

When you think of even just gay representation in metal, there are usually only two people that come to mind: Rob Halford and Gaahl, both of whom suffered both extreme controversy and loving acceptance when coming out.  

Rob Halford is an extremely important queer icon in metal, given that Judas Priest is one of the foundational creators of metal itself alongside Black Sabbath, meaning that metal in and of itself comes partly from queer origins. 

Gaahl is also extremely important given that black metal was known for being one of the more anti-queer metal communities, and Gaahl basically told the edgy, takes-themselves-too-seriously faction of people within that community to go fuck themselves. Metal is for everybody.

However, the important thing to mention about both of these people is that they are still quite masculine.

Metal is not uniquely to blame for any of this, and its community is not uniquely homophobic. The music industry and fans in general always seem to give LGBTQ people a hard time, as evidenced by Lil Nas X’s treatment by people in the very large and encompassing pop community. 

But I feel metal’s problem is less one of ideology (you won’t find that many Christians hanging around at death and black metal shows) and more one of image. Metal struggles to find a way to unite its serious and aggressive tone with the false belief many people have that gay people are inherently fruity or flamboyant and will change the tone of the genre to something less destructive and serious. 

This comes from a pretty inaccurate characterization of metal, queer people, and even flamboyance. Metal is not a genre that is only supposed to be about the dark and serious nature of life. It is a music genre, and it can be about whatever the artists want it to be about. Metal is not about any specific content or topic; metal is about the WAY in which you address these topics. And even a band that only sings about sunshine and happiness, but does so with crushing riffs and screaming vocals, is still metal. 

 Because metal is only about one thing: It is about the freedom to express yourself in the loudest and most aggressive way possible. It is about being unapologetic and unwavering. It is about breaking AWAY from and annihilating the “norm” and “conformity,” and that includes heteronormativity. In this way, queerdom is very metal, and metal is very queer. And if it won’t allow itself to be queer, then its purpose is fake, and it is not truly a way to shatter norms and barriers and is yet another culture of a specific type of conformity, which celebrates a meaningless image of darkness and spookiness and no actual substance. 

Tell us more about your band and what you’re working on currently. 

The main musical project I am in is Katalysk, a band that formed out of my high school. Its founding members were all a part of our school marching band together and had prior experience playing music with one another. Eventually, we refined what started as a heavier-than-usual crossover thrash band and melted it down and distorted it into its current Apocalyptic Thrashing Death Metal form. 

“Katalysk” tells the tale of a world very similar to our own; it’s people controlled by a government that thrives by stealing from them, brainwashing them to fight one another as the most influential members of society create a problem far larger than division and even war: the Katalysk, the Earth’s owner and keeper—a monster that dwells in the center of the Earth, sleeping until it is awoken by the noise and violence created by the surface world. The monster bursts out of the crust and mantle and sets itself to completely devour and annihilate all of humanity, reclaiming its home. 

To make it abundantly clear, whereas Godzilla was a metaphor for nuclear destruction, Katalysk is one for a climate apocalypse and any number of existential threats we choose to ignore. 

My second project is called Improvised Slaughter, and it is improvisational, that is, made up entirely on the spot, and is a goregrind band. There is not much more to say about that one!

 Katalysk released its first album,  Incessant Awakening, in 2020 and is on all streaming platforms. I highly recommend giving the whole album a complete, unshuffled listen through to really experience it. 

How do you feel about Denver’s queer and metal scenes, and do you feel more safe in one than the other?  

It’s really a bit hard to choose, but to Denver’s massive credit, I feel a bit more at home in the metal scene than anywhere else. I feel a bit safer in the queer community, but find my experiences and interests line up a bit more with the average metalhead I come across than the massively diverse community that is people who do not confirm to cisheteronormativity. 

I love and appreciate deeply Pride and queer culture, but find my personal interests tend to move away from the peaceful and loving and colorful environment and more towards a brutally introspective one. I find immense value in places that are designed to be safe for people to express their identity and find myself very comfortable and understood when I am in them. But I still tend to enjoy the metal community slightly more. Not only am I still free to be who I am—mostly without judgment—in the metal scene, but those folx are more likely to be interested in the specific things I am interested in. 

While I feel that in this environment, I am not quite as well understood, I feel just as respected. And I just love metal so fucking much, it feels very at home to be headbanging with people that feel the same way to music that means a lot to me. In any case, both have a special place in my heart, but the metal scene barely wins out, provided I continue to be accepted as I am.  

Follow Katalysk on Facebook or Bandcamp.

Photos courtesy of Julius Garrido