Metal Band Hemorage Usually Crashes the Party — Now They’re Invited Guests

If it weren’t for a small black-and-white band sticker slapped on the door of the faded, peach colored building, you’d completely miss the entrance to the Bayview headquarters of San Francisco metal band Hemorage.

“This is like our training facility,” Orc tells me as we wind through the warehouse. “We actually throw shows for other bands here too, but it’s mainly a practice space.”

Clothing hangers, tools, alcohol, cleaning supplies and plastic tubs full of merch line the walls along the path to the rehearsal space. Inside, the back wall is painted black with “HEMORAGE” painted across it in white. Felt squares in a tricolor blend of black, orange and turquoise dot the walls and ceiling for makeshift soundproofing, while Polaroids from the band’s shows sit in a pile off to the side, along with a few mismatched chairs, which Orc grabs for us to sit on.

Hemorage has spent years establishing themselves in the metal scene with a unique DIY ethos. Tired of dealing with music venues and promoters, the band, which also consists of vocalist and guitarist Bona “Toby” Pak and drummer Ron Roussell, began taking matters into their own hands with pop-up, guerrilla-style shows out of the back of their bus.

Hemorage has made these aftershow appearances for Bay Area crowds leaving concerts for bands like Hatebreed and Metallica, and proudly crashed music festivals like Riot Fest. Last year, they even pulled up unannounced for an impromptu concert on the street outside of Outside Lands.

But this year, their hard work and years of surprise shows are paying off. After a multi-state tour that kicked off last month in Petaluma, they’ll finish the tour with a dream stop: Aftershock Festival in Sacramento. Having played guerrilla-style in the parking lot outside Aftershock for the past two years, Hemorage will make their debut on Friday as an official artist on the festival’s Soundwave stage.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Orc tells me. “They actually reached out to us and I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a lie until I looked [him] up on LinkedIn and there was like, a legit guy!”

I ask Orc if Aftershock knew they’d played in their parking lot before. “I think they’ve been aware,” he said. “But we didn’t realize how many people [had] actually heard of us.”

After years of performing guerrilla shows, it’s clear that the band has the attention of the local punk and thrash scene. Hemorage has made a point to seek out crowds for bands they also admire, like Exodus and Slayer, and perform pop-up shows for them.

“We’re chasing the big crowd because the more people we play in front of, the more people hear about us,” says Orc. “It’s a snowball effect kind of thing, you know?”

I ask if any bands have ever gotten mad at them for crashing their shows, and Orc laughs. Without naming names, “there was one band member from a big band that didn’t like us,” he tells me. “But we just ignored it and kept going.”

Police, on the other hand, can’t always be ignored.

“We don’t get in trouble that often,” Orc tells me. “Sometimes the cops shut us down, but sometimes they let us finish.”

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if the cops or headlining bands don’t like Hemorage’s approach, because the fans certainly do. “The craziest ones [guerrilla shows] are like when there’s so many people around us — people jumping on things, people climbing on things,” Orc says. He estimates they’ve done over 500 of these types of shows throughout the band’s history, which spans more than a decade.

Their drive to keep playing stems from one of Hemorage’s biggest goals: to put Bay Area punk and metal artists back on the map. “That’s the reason we’re still here [in San Francisco],” Orc tells me. “A lot of people write off the Bay Area. People don’t expect anything cool that’s coming out of San Francisco anymore. We just want to thrive here, and then we can carry that flag and maybe inspire the next generation of musicians.”

Soon, Pak and Roussell arrive for practice, and they show me the new matte black guitars the band has decided to start using. After some chit-chat, the three fall seamlessly into practice mode, playing just as loud as you’d imagine for a thrash metal band.

Before leaving, I ask Orc how being part of the official Aftershock lineup feels compared to playing in the parking lot.

“We’ve never gotten a shot at playing a big show or opening for a bigger artist here in the Bay Area,” Orc says. “It feels really good.”

I also ask if there’s any chance fans will be able to catch a parking lot show after their set on Friday, when Aftershock gets out. Orc tells me he can’t confirm or deny anything, because of course, they’re obligated to the contract they signed.

“But we might,” he says, laughing. “We might just do it.”

Hemorage performs Friday, Oct. 11, on the Soundwave stage at the Aftershock festival in Sacramento’s Discovery Park. Details here.