Keeping Shock Rock Alive: 5 Modern Heavy Bands That Wear Make-Up

Well, of all the heavy bands that wear make-up, KISS is probably the most famous. And now they’ve hung up their suits, taken off the face paint, and become avatars. But there are plenty of groups keeping the dramatic make-up tradition going in rock and roll. It was there before those New York shock rock icons arrived—Arthur Brown, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, New York Dolls—and it grew stronger afterward. Post-grunge and into the new millennium, many heavy rock bands, especially, have embraced a dramatic look enhanced by great make-up.

1. Ghost

Following in the grand glam footsteps of artists like KISS and Alice Cooper, but with a sound that owes more to the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, and Black Sabbath, the brainchild of Swedish rocker Tobias Forge has grown in popularity since 2006. The one consistent member, Forge always adorns himself in a new outfit as every album and tour cycle brings about a new iteration of his grim looking Catholic authority figures. So far he has portrayed Papa Emeritus I through III, Cardinal Copia, and Papa Emeritus IV whom he recently retired. Over the years, his different band members have hidden their identities by being masked or hooded.

“If we want to have a rock culture where we go to wide-open spaces and see larger-than-life spectacle, then bands need to step up,” Forge told The Guardian in 2018. “We need to put a little faith into the teenagers that are forming bands now; it takes more than a stack of Marshalls to get a big rock crowd enthusiastic these days.”

2. Avatar

Forge’s fellow Swedes in the headbanging Avatar enjoy crafting colorful stage identities akin to carnival or circus members, and they have done so for two decades. The band members tend to wear guyliner while frontman Johannes Eckerström’s black and white clown make-up might invoke the image of Alice Cooper or Eric Draven from The Crow. 

[RELATED: 5 of the Most Shocking Alice Cooper Lyrics]

In a 2014 interview with Metal Exposure, Eckerström recalled of first getting made up: “I was thinking: sweet, awesome, now I have this cool mask. The first time I went up on stage and I saw the reaction of people, I was terrified. I realized that it is not a mask.” Either way, their audience loves their look and vibe. It’s an intense rock and roll carnival.

3. Behemoth

For more than 30 years, this extreme metal band from Poland have been cranking their stacks and agitating deeply religious types, most notably in their home country where frontman Nergal was put on trial for blasphemy in 2010 for ripping up a Bible onstage three years earlier. The charges were dropped. Nergal has faced other charges of offending the public that have failed to stick.

While the thunderous trio started out wearing classic black metal corpse paint, their makeup has changed and evolved over the years, often taking on a scattered, ashen look to it. They have worn horns, hoods, and most dramatically, large, semi-metallic head pieces to watch their ominous visages.

In 2016, Nergal told WDR “Rockpalast”: “The band started in ’91. We did the second photo session in March ’92, and we were already wearing corpsepaint. And I was, like, 16 back then, so from the very started I [decided] that this was gonna be the direction for the band. And then, throughout all the career, it would just develop and it would just change, and we would just switch forms, but the core is the same.”

4. Rob Zombie

Ever since he began going for the cool ghoul rocker look, Rob Zombie has emphasized the theatrical. When he went solo, he just kept expanding on that and eventually got into making movies and comics. From Hellbilly Deluxe through to the more recent The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy, he has tweaked his painted looks drawing inspiration from sources like Frankenstein, German Expressonism, and Charles Manson. His bandmates have drawn looks from the likes of evil clowns to the undead. It all makes sense given Zombie’s lifelong fascination with horror and watching his parents at work as carnies during his childhood. The makeup doesn’t always show up in videos, but it does onstage even if at times the band members get absorbed into the intense lighting and video backdrops.

For Zombie, image and presentation have always imperative. “It all seemed like one giant thing to me,” he told Banger Films in 2004. “That’s why when it came time to put the band together I was just obsessed with the t-shirts and the stage show as much as with the music. It was all important.”

5. Motionless in White

The popular metalcore band siphons a Goth influence into their songs and videos. Over the years, the group have played with different black designs on their pale white faces and enhanced that with different hair color at times.

In a 2011 interview with Thrillcall, the group’s frontman Chris Motionless explained about his love for make-up: “Probably since 8 or 9th grade, when I heard of AFI, then got into the Misfits I started wearing all black and makeup and everything. It became what I personally liked. Then, when I met these guys and as the band progressed we just kind of took it to extremes, more and more extreme. It’s not doing anything that’s completely unique, but we don’t want to be basic or bland at what we do. Anyone can wear makeup, and it’s just wearing makeup, but we strive to get it to be a little more like WOAH!”

The group even has a makeup collection available for sale.

Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images