70,000 Tons of Metal

Tuesday February 15th, 2011

When Nashville photographer Hollis Bennett told me he was about to embark on a cruise called 70,000 Tons of Metal, I told him we’d be writing about it on the blog. Though I’m not a member of the metal community, I know something awesome when I see it.

“Yes, I admit it,” Hollis told me. “I am a metal fan, have been for a long time.” There is, however, no metal scene to speak of in Nashville; and as Hollis was browsing the websites of his favorite bands to find tour locations, he kept noticing references to “70,000 Tons of Metal.” But this was no ordinary concert; it was a heavy metal cruise.

So Hollis tracked down the website, which I highly recommend viewing. This cruise, which bills itself as “the world’s biggest floating metal festival,” illustrated by a remarkable video, was too good to pass up. ”I about lost my shit because of the lineup and right then and there,” Hollis said. “I decided I had to go, and figured if I was going to attend I had better damn well document this so from the very beginning—I decided I would be shooting as well. I figured since I was in the metal scene I could make better photos than an outsider, as I could talk the talk and walk the walk.” What did he expect to shoot? ”I wanted to capture the mayhem that would ensue along with the contradiction that is a bunch of northern Europeans on a boat to Mexico drinking fruity drinks in a hot tub. It was just too good to resist.”

To finance this photographic excursion, Hollis needed a roommate. He posted an ad on the cruise’s online message board, and received a response from a German metalhead named Dirk. “Dirk was about 6’5, 300 pounds, had a shaved head and a mean goatee and was awesome.” But it was not only Dirk’s grooming that made him stand out. “It also helped that he’s an editor for an online music magazine in Germany,” Hollis said, “and it looks like I will be heading over to Germany this summer to cover a huge metal festival.”

Professional connections are very valuable, but for Hollis, the best moment of the cruise was “when I decided to put the camera down for a bit, grab a bucket of Corona and hop in the heavy metal hot tub.” It turns out that waiting for him in the hot tub were the members of Sabaton,”one of the biggest bands from Sweden.”

Would Hollis make the investment again? The answer’s a definite yes. “Everyone was on the exact same page and everyone was there to have a great time and rock hard. And we did.”

-Asad