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Article published Jan 26, 2007 Suffering leads to salvation for band's new singer
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
The promotional photograph for the band Awake the Suffering is a little alarming at first glance.
In the foreground is a pixie-ish, redheaded girl, solemn-faced and staring into the camera from the middle of a set of railroad tracks. Behind her is a group of burly, bearded dudes, dressed in black and menacing in appearance.
Appearances can be deceiving, however. Veronica VerValen, an 18-year-old senior at William Blount High School, isn't a damsel in distress. She's one of the guys — in this case, "guys" being the interchangeable term for local Christian metal band Awake the Suffering.
VerValen joined her Awake the Suffering bandmates — guitarists Jason McMahan and Stephen LaVotto, bassist Brian "Fuzz" Gibbs and drummer Matt Breeden — back in November. She adds both delicacy and ferocity to the group's sound, because her voice can vary from a girlish croon to an otherworldly howl, often within the confines of a single song.
"I don't know where it comes from," VerValen told The Daily Times this week, laughing when asked how such a small girl channels such vocal power. "A lot of people say I sound like a man when I scream. I have a deep singing voice, but when I'm singing regular vocals, I sound like a girl. When I scream, though, people can't believe it's a girl doing it."
Awake the Suffering grew out of the experiences of band founder McMahan, who changed musical directions after being saved. Before, he was a member of a Satanic band and read up on serial killers and bizarre crimes, fascinated but misguided. After becoming a Christian, he formed the band Hallowed Refuge, tapping into such secular hardcore sounds as Rage Against the Machine, Tool and Korn but emphasizing salvation and a better life through Christ in the band's lyrics.
A couple of years ago, Hallowed Refuge changed its name to Awake the Suffering, and last year, VerValen was brought into the fold.
"I've been friends with them for a long time, and I've always gone to their shows," she said. "Last summer, Awake the Suffering asked me to sing with them for one song, and then for their last show of last year, they asked a couple of people to sing with them for a song or two, including me. Everybody liked it, and Jason decided he didn't want to sing any more, so they asked me to join."
VerValen got her start singing with local Christian rock band Burnt Offerings. Moving from Colorado, she found herself drawn to the local Christian hardcore scene and got saved herself a year ago.
"When I moved, I saw everybody was happy out here, and that was strange to me, because I had never been in a Christian atmosphere," she said. "Awake the Suffering was one of the reasons I got saved — I never knew you could like a metal band and be happy and serve God and have fun with it. I saw their lives and saw them in the metal scene, and I wanted to be a better person."
Her salvation is reflected in the lyrics she writes for the band's music, she added.
"I try to think back to points in my life when I didn't really have anything, those depressing points, and I think about how God pulled me through," she said. "I try to write a song where someone might hear it and say, 'If God can do that for you, he can do it for me, too.'"
Not only has she thrown herself into her new band — she's recording with the group, whose new album is tentatively scheduled to drop in June — she's also found an extended family. Those big burly dudes turned out to be pretty cool "big brothers," she said.
"It's awesome and exciting, and I can't wait to see what the future brings," she said.