Friday, June 11, 2004

Screamo dreaming

‘Bleeding Through’ rock star returns for visit

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By Tony Evans

The Wood River Valley’s first bona-fide (native) rock star came home to Deer Creek for a visit with family and friends last weekend. Marta Petersen, 20, has been touring the United States and Europe for several months, playing keyboards in the hardcore band Bleeding Through. The band just completed an MTV video and landed a second-stage spot in the upcoming national Ozzfest tour.

Marta Petersen, right, and her mother, Kim, relax during Marta’s break from touring. Photo by Tony Evans

As an emerging talent and cult figure in the scary, post-punk world of death metal, thrash and screamo, Marta no longer uses her last name. "Like Madonna," she says with a laugh, as she plays a Chopin prelude on the family grand piano during a one-week break from touring with the pale-skinned creatures of the night. Her mother, Kim Petersen, watches beaming with pride.

"She is the best kid. I couldn’t be more happy for her."

Marta is a 2002 graduate of the Wood River High School.

"I’m finally making a little money, bought a few toys," Marta says, pointing to a G4 laptop and tossing an IPod to her brother, Jenz. The music files include Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, and Joy Division. And newer bands like Dimmu Borgir, Hate Breed, and Marta’s favorite of the moment A.F.I. (A Fire Inside).

"Bleeding Through is a live band," she says. "There is a lot of crowd involvement. The shows are completely out of hand. In Cologne, Germany, a guy "crowd-surfed" above the heads to the stage, somehow got past security and tackled me. That was before we even started playing." Another fan follows the band wearing a tattoo of Marta’s face and signature on his thigh. Closer to home she was approached for an autograph at Viva Taqueria in Hailey.

By all accounts it’s only just beginning. ‘Bleeding Through’ has been featured in Spin, Revolver, Metal Hammer and other magazines, creating a buzz about their latest CD, "This is Love, This is Murderous." Critic Ryan Downey describes the Orange County-based band, which also features Brandon Schiappetti on lead vocals, as " having clawed their way up from the hardcore underground and quickly become a force to be reckoned with … redefining the parameters of heavy music in yet another invigorating new strain."

The lush and dreamy gardens of the Petersen’s Deer Creek home couldn’t be further from the hellish fury of a death metal music tour. Nor could the "Straight Edge" philosophy of Bleeding Through reach further from the punk and death-metal traditions the band echoes. Bleeding Through band members do not partake of drugs, alcohol, or smoke, preferring to "grit it out, " in the words of Schiapetti.

Behind the visceral roar of Bleeding Through’s sound, behind the tattoos and the earring-holes you could throw a cat through, are lyrics about the eternal vagaries of human existence—love, pain, betrayal, and longing—all expressed in the company of life’s rowdiest demons.

Marta will travel for the next four months, playing every other night in venues across America, then, perhaps, back to Europe.

"I love touring. I’m going to do this until it doesn’t happen anymore."

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