This movie features a full metal racket.
“Breaking a Monster,” a new documentary about Brooklyn’s most brutal middle school metal band will screen at BAMcinemaFest on June 20. The film, a fly-on-the-wall look at the first days of fame for kiddo headbangers Unlocking the Truth, is more of an unusual coming of age story than a classic music documentary, said the filmmaker.
“It tells the story that is much more complex and more universal than the story of any one band,” said filmmaker Luke Meyer. “It just so happens to touch on all this stuff happening to them that is really remarkable.”
For the uninitiated, Unlocking the Truth is a teenage metal band from Flatbush whose searing riffs and baby-faced scowls went viral in 2013. Frontman/guitarist Malcolm Brickhouse, bassist Alec Atkins, and drummer Jarad Dawkins just finished eighth grade, but they have also melted faces at major festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella.
The young headbangers honed their craft by playing in Manhattan’s Times Square, and Meyer began filming them in early 2013 for a short documentary. That film was part of the viral wave that launched the band onto big stages and into a five-album, $1.8 million contract with Sony — and Meyer was there to capture it.
“They were not your average kids, but they were still kids with relatively normal lives for their age,” he said. “Now they’re going on tours, working on an album, they were just on ‘The View.’ It’s a massive change.”
Meyer considers himself lucky he was able to get in with the band before their big break. The film captures the boys as they meet with record executives, perform at South By Southwest, and negotiate seventh grade. These kids can shred, but it is impossible to forget how young they are. The contrast between their youth and the demands of fame and the music industry is the key to the film, said Meyer.
“It’s been a pretty dramatic ride they are on,” Meyer said. “I really got to see them go through learning how to keep their own identities as people, go through adult decision processes, and letting go of their childhood.”
“Breaking a Monster,” at BAM [30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Place and St. Felix Street in Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100, www.bam.org/
