Spiritual healing
The crowd at 2019’s Lollapalooza festival are primed with a remix of Korn’s Freak On A Leash, before Eric Whitney runs onstage. Corpsepainted and wearing a dress and fishnets, he starts rapping and jumping in front of a flashing black metal logo that spells out the name of his alter ego: Ghostemane. Before long, a fan is paraded out by an executioner and chained to a stretcher, where he will remain for the duration of the set, getting his face tattooed with their lyrics.
Eric might be at the forefront of what’s been dubbed trap metal, mixing beats and bars with industrial noise and aggressive vocals, but make no mistake - he’s one of us. Blending the sounds of his idol, Trent Reznor, with the aesthetics of Marilyn Manson and a love of hip hop, he’s bringing 90s metal culture into the 2020s, repackaging it for a new generation and blurring its boundaries. He’s supported fellow genre disruptors Code Orange, been mentored by Slipknot’s Clown, and recorded with legendary producer Ross Robinson. In short, he’s this decade’s king of the misfits.
“It’s no secret that 90s nu metal stuff is a huge inspiration, because I feel
