How Tetrarch found themselves on the cutting edge of the nu-metal revival

Of all the subgenre resurgences we’ve seen in heavy music over the last two decades, the ‘nu-metal revival’ must surely be the most baffling. What sort of musician nowadays, we wonder, would willingly invoke that overwhelmingly maligned era of New Era caps and baffling hairstyles? Does its often self-destructive, bone-headed machismo have a place in 2021? And do we need to start thinking about removing the mothballs from our JNCO jeans and XXL hoodies?

“It’s crazy,” laughs Tetrarch guitarist Diamond Rowe, one of the leading lights in this generation’s fast-rising nu-breed, “because we never set out to be that.”

Dressed down on a sunny Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, with her guitar and a Metallica Ride The Lightning poster in the background, it’s easy to believe Diamond as she explains that helping resuscitate the presumed-dead scene was as big a surprise to Tetrarch as to anyone.

“We’ve always loved really heavy bands,” she grins, infectiously, “but we want to write songs that you might still hear on the radio. We want the edginess alongside the big sing-along choruses and the moments where you can jump in the pit. People already associate that formula with nu-metal. Then you throw in the fact that we love bands like Korn and Slipknot, and, all of a sudden, we are a nu-metal band. At first it was like, ’Damn, I didn’t think we were nu-metal!’ but then it was like, ’Fuck it, I guess we’re nu-metal now…’”

In understanding the subgenre’s enduring relevance, Diamond continues, it’s pivotal that we look past the bad fashion choices and adolescent awkwardness, the bleached hair and misguided teenage rage with which the tag is synonymous in so many fans’ minds, and we remember the qualities that made it such a revitalising force in the broader metal community in the first place. Big riffs, bigger personalities. Songs with enough bounce to springboard their way into the upper echelons of mainstream consciousness. Really, what’s not to love?

In the late 1990s, it was about taking back alt. credibility from the plaid-shirted rockers who’d usurped the old metal gods. In the 2020s, competition comes in the form of outsider electro and SoundCloud rap, but – too damn rowdy to have ever been considered ‘dad rock’ – why can’t the slamming old formula win back the hearts and minds of the current disaffected youth?

“There’s something attractive about that attitude, confidence and charisma those bands had,” Diamond explains. “If you look at artists like Disturbed, Korn or Slipknot, they were larger than life, humongous personalities, with that youthful energy, like pop stars. It wasn’t just a bunch of dudes with black T-shirts and jeans on. They had style. Back then, you could look at a picture of any one of those bands and name every member. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; it’s something our genre should strive to have again. Metal fans wonder why metal bands don’t win GRAMMYs, but it’s because those same guys get mad when bands get big.”

Indeed, Diamond has never been afraid to stand out from the crowd, or to shoot for the stars.

Growing up as a young African-American woman in a “white-dominant” neighbourhood in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of music industry veterans, she was a tomboy with a host of hobbies uncommon in kids of her demographic: hockey, skateboarding, dirt bikes. Attending a buttoned-down private Christian school, she found herself fascinated by the dyed hair, unorthodox make-up and rebellious nature of an older, Nirvana-worshipping girl in her brother’s grade.

“It fit my personality,” she grins, remembering the illicit adrenaline-rush of first spinning Nevermind and System Of A Down’s Toxicity. “I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself. It felt like you had a secret: something you know about that nobody else does.”

Determined to ascend the rock altar rather than just worshipping at its base, Diamond swiftly moved into making music as well as listening to it. “When I was getting into anything when I was young – motocross, hockey, anything weird I was into as a kid – I wanted to do it. When I was getting into rock and metal, I knew I wanted to be in a band.”

Having begun to learn guitar (Metallica’s Master Of Puppets was her first full album committed to memory), finding the only other kid with similar inclinations in said Christian school wasn’t overly difficult. Guitarist and singer Josh Fore initially rebuffed Diamond’s request to jam (“I guess he didn’t want a girl in the band,” she shrugs, genuinely amused by the memory) but her prodigious talent didn’t take long to change his mind.

Mutual ambition bound the pair, and a rare musical spark propelled them skyward. Cover versions of Bob Seger and Green Day songs eventually made way for thrashier compositions that could’ve been lifted from Metallica’s Kill ’Em All or Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. The unusual band name – a reference to groups of four provincial rulers in Ancient Rome – was lifted straight from their 10th grade history class (“Our teacher mentioned the Tetrarch, this empire ruled by four people,” Diamond remembers. “There were four of us, and we wanted to rule the world, so we thought, ‘Alright, let’s just try that…’”). A progression of school talent shows, local gigs and DIY touring slowly expanded the boundaries of their burgeoning dominion.

“We started from the very bottom and we grew together,” Diamond remembers. “Even at an early age, we knew we wanted to do this. We were in for the grind.”

Attracting substantial attention straight out of high school, the band found themselves pulled in different directions, with many industry bigwigs pushing them to choose between underground heaviosity and mainstream palatability. Their determination to walk a middle-path was rewarded real buzz around 2008’s Pravada and 2011’s The Will To Fight EPs, with a massive show alongside Alter Bridge, Seether and Avenged Sevenfold following the same year at Atlanta’s 12,000-cap Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. 2013’s Relentless EP built their reputation further still, but it was only during preparations for 2017’s debut LP Freak – having relocated to Los Angeles in 2015, their line-up finalised by bassist Ryan Lerner and drummer Ruben Limas – that Tetrarch stumbled onto that now-signature sound.

“Tetrarch is a lot of different things,” Diamond stresses. “We’re melodic, fast, groovy, super-heavy… we don’t box ourselves in. We began to try out things we’d always wanted to, but never had – creepy guitar sounds, different time signatures – and hit the nail on the head. When that immediately began to resonate, we realised this is who we are.”

As the band have grown, so too has Diamond’s profile as one of the best and most important guitarists in rock and metal today, with numerous institutions and publications making her the first-ever African-American woman selected for their prestigious ‘greatest guitarists’ lists…

“I was always into those ‘guitar hero’ type players,” she relishes the acclaim, having spent years working on an all-round performance that shines in Tetrarch’s high-impact compositions. “I loved those guitarists who, when you went to a show, you were interested in seeing that person just as much as the lead-singer: your Zakk Wyldes; Dimebag; Kirk Hammett; Alexi Laiho; Dave Mustaine; Mark Morton... I never just wanted to be the guitar player in the back…”

Faced with plaudits specifically for being the first black female to make those lists, Diamond is more reflective.

“My first metal show was Summer Sanitarium 2003,” she remembers the mammoth stadium-tour featuring Metallica, Mudvayne, Deftones, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. “Out of 42,000 people, I don’t remember seeing many minorities there at all. But that was normal for me; it didn’t bother me at all. And it is changing nowadays. I always wonder if [there is a lack of diversity] because other demographics aren’t exposed to this music so much. Not to say they wouldn’t like it, but their friends aren’t playing it, MTV aren’t playing it, and it’s not getting that huge press exposure…

“I can honestly say that I was never really treated differently [because of who I am] in a negative sense. I was always a tomboy into crazy stuff, so I didn’t think too much about it. It was only when we started playing live shows at venues that it was this different thing that drew people in. They’d be like, ‘Oh my god, there’s this black chick and she’s shredding – it’s insane!’

“I am very honoured to trailblaze and to lead the charge of it. There are a lot of eyes on me, which is super humbling and very cool. At first I thought it was stupid that people kept pointing out [the fact that I’m a woman and the colour of my skin], but as time has gone on I’ve come to realise it can be a positive. It’s helped our career a lot. Every band that gets to a certain point has something about them that’s different. It draws people in, and the band gains fans because of it. But this was never a gimmick. It’s genuine to me. I do what I do because I have so much passion for [this music] and our band. I just do the same as I would if I were a white boy…”

The arrival of second LP Unstable promises another quantum leap both for Diamond’s reputation and that of her band. Sonically, tracks like You Never Listen and Negative Noise suggest answers to the questions of what it might’ve sounded like if Chester Bennington had joined Korn, or if Slipknot had ever delved deeper into the cataclysmic heaviness of their first two albums. Thematically, too, they tap into the angsty universality that made nu-metal a platinum-selling phenomenon the first time out.

“We wanted to make an album that people can relate to,” Diamond says. “‘Unstable’ could be a reference to mental health, or it could be about an unstable relationship; an unstable situation; anything. Songs like I’m Not Right are about looking in the mirror and not liking who you see looking back, but that, too, could be something very small or something very big. Everyone can connect with pain and heartbreak. We’ve always just been about embracing who you are, being proud of that, and moving forward confidently in that.

“Embrace the freak in you. Embrace all the weird parts of yourself.”

Having bucked the trend of young bands cursed by COVID, too, Tetrarch saw 2020 deliver their biggest period of growth – in streaming, sales and airplay – after almost 14 years as a touring band, without even playing a show. Tantalisingly, Diamond suggests they’re still just getting up to speed.

“We started out as 11 year olds dreaming of this. To see it coming to fruition is genuinely humbling,” she waves off with the hard-earned confidence of a performer who knows we’ll soon be seeing her again. “We’ve worked so hard for everything that we’re appreciative of every step: sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots; moving from a van into a bus; getting to play that first amphitheatre show; seeing ourselves in our favourite magazines and doing interviews like this. When we get to play festivals, even if we know that we deserve to be on the bill at this point, we always remember to say thanks for having us. We know that none of this is owed to us. But ever since we were kids we genuinely have wanted to be the biggest band in our genre. Everything we do is with that in mind. We don’t have time to stop!”

Tetrarch's new album Unstable is out now via Napalm Records.

Read this next:

• Freaks unleashed: The story behind Slipknot’s debut album
• The 21 greatest nu-metal albums of all time – ranked
• 10 lesser known Linkin Park songs that everyone needs to hear