Greta Thunberg Pivots To Death Metal
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has led global student protests for climate justice, gave a fiery speech at the UN climate action summit in New York this week. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she told the assembled world leaders. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth — how dare you!”
Björk has closed her concerts with a message from Thunberg, the 1975 used one of her speeches as the intro for their new album, and Raffi has sampled her on a track. And now, her “how dare you” speech has been turned into a death metal song.
“When I saw her speech, I was very impressed by her passion and outrage,” thrash-metal drummer John Meredith, who plays in the band Suaka, tells Rolling Stone. “And the words she chose just evoked the darkness of the metal music I love: Entombed, Gojira, At the Gates, Sepultura.” And so, of course, he decided to combine the two in a viral video.
Greta, for one, is a fan of the mashup. “I have moved on from this climate thing,” she wrote on Twitter. “From now on I will be doing death metal only!!”
I have moved on from this climate thing… From now on I will be doing death metal only!! https://t.co/mYqXxFuE77
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 28, 2019
UPDATE: Despotz Records has released the metal remix as a single titled “How Dare You” with all proceeds going to Greenpeace. Buy it at Bandcamp.