Blood of Lilith Creates All-Woman Metal Festival: "Every Fucking Metal Band You Meet Is a Bunch of Dudes"

Blood of Lilith doesn't mess around. The three badass women behind the metal trio were already Denver scene veterans before coming together in 2020 and bringing a long-held vision to fruition.

“We knew we wanted an all-female heavy-metal band,” says drummer Amber Chance, adding that she was tapped by longtime friend and local musician Lisa Ogden for the assignment. “Lisa didn’t give me a choice to come play drums with her. It was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

After recruiting bassist Tiffany Rubio, Blood of Lilith began sharing a steady stream of singles and music videos leading up to the release of its debut album, ORIGINS, earlier this year, while amassing a healthy TikTok following of nearly 10,000.

“We want to bring something new and fresh,” Chance explains. “Every fucking metal band you meet is a bunch of dudes.”

“It’s just oversaturated for guys in metal,” agrees Ogden, the band’s guitarist and vocalist.

Influenced by other powerhouse women in metal such as heavy-metal lead singer Otep Shamaya and Canadian groove-metal group Kittie, the Blood of Lilith members are conscious of how they’re inspiring the next generation of future female metal musicians locally.

“It’s our favorite thing, hands down, when we’re playing an all-ages show and young girls come up to us and want to take pictures or buy our merch,” Ogden shares.

The band’s name is also empowering, as it’s a reference to the biblical character Lilith, who was said to be created from the same soil as Adam and became his first wife following his separation from Eve. But she refused to be relegated to a subservient role and was subsequently banished from the Garden of Eden. The mother of Adam’s evil offspring, Lilith was historically cast as a she-demon, but in more recent times, she is hailed more as a feminist icon who refused to settle for anything less than equal rights to her male counterpart.

“I want to be a part of passing that on to the next generation, too, and making it better for the next generation,” Ogden says, referencing how past women in rock, including Lita Ford of punk band the Runaways, helped pave the way.

“Now we’re the ones who want to leave something for the next generation to want to be a part of and aspire to,” she continues. “A lot of our songs are about female empowerment.”

Part of that is organizing an all-woman metal festival called Femme Fest, which happens at the Roxy Theatre on Friday, November 10. Along with Blood of Lilith, local acts Hygeia, Chemical Violet, Burning Silence and Hel Hath Fury are also on the bill.

Chance took it upon herself to book the show through Swinging Noose Productions. “We wanted an all-women metal show. This is what I came up with,” she says. “I wanted some new and fresh local women-fronted bands to put on this fest to just celebrate local women in the Denver metal community and create a safe place and awesome show.”

While it’s noteworthy and awesome that the three women are taking matters into their own hands and providing a blueprint for others like them, the band’s music also stands on its own: Equal parts thrash, Viking metal and punk rock, ORIGINS is eleven tracks of top-notch musicianship and energy, featuring anthems such as “Pussy Power” and “Dic Pic.”

“We’ve kind of adopted just calling it ‘whatever-core,’ because we just write what we like and what we feel and what works,” Chance says of the band's sound.

“It’s really a smorgasbord,” Rubio adds.

Of course, switching from drop-C guitar tuning to a heavier drop-A tone recently only helps Blood of Lilith’s auditory message hit home that much more. “We started a little bit lighter, then we got heavier right before we recorded the album,” Ogden explains. “All the writing we’ve been doing since has been a lot more core style — slamcore, breakdowns, 808s and samples. We play all kinds of different stuff."

There are some “old-school Kittie” vibes, adds Rubio, who shares that Femme Fest will be her last show on stage as bassist for Blood of Lilith before she takes on a more behind-the-scenes role (Maggie Alex was named the band’s new bass player this week).

Then there’s “Josie and Her Pussy Cats,” which the band released as a single with a music video during Halloween last year. Chance calls it a “Fuck with us and we’ll kick your ass” tune.

Blood of Lilith is also currently working on a Yuletide special set to drop on the winter solstice, December 21. The trio will be playing live more often moving forward, as well. “We’re going to be playing your house, your mom’s house, your cousin’s house,” Ogden says.

Blood of Lilith already opened for Otep and Infected Rain within the past year, and would like to “get on Kittie’s radar,” Chance shares.

 “We’ve been putting it out there that we’ll open for Kittie one day,” she says.

Kittie hasn’t announced any tour plans for 2024 yet, but after chatting with Ogden, Chance and Rubio, it seems inevitable that Blood of Lilith will be the local opener whenever the group hits Denver next.

“We’re just doing cool shit with our friends,” Chance concludes.

Femme Fest, 6:30 p.m. Friday, November 10, Roxy Theatre, 2549 Welton Street. Tickets are $10.