Malcolm Brickhouse of Unlocking the Truth crowd surfs after opening the Coachella Stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday, April 19, 2014. (Vanessa Franko/Staff)
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival always has a few hard rock acts in the mix, but this year, the festival changed things up by having the youngest group in its history–Unlocking the Truth, a metal trio of power players who are only 12 and 13 years old, perform on the main stage.
(Check out photos of Unlocking the Truth performing during weekend one at the Coachella Festival).
They dominated an opening set on Saturday and ended it by crowd surfing.
“When I say ‘Rise,’ everybody bounce,” guitarist and singer Malcolm Brickhouse commanded from the stage.
In an interview after the show, he said Corey Taylor of Slipknot was his inspiration for his stage banter.
Brickhouse said the weekend two crowd was better, but that weekend one had an edge when it came to crowd surfing.
“Last week I went all the way in the back,” he said in the post-set interview.
Drummer Jarad Dawkins, who formed the band with Brickhouse after meeting at a birthday party, said he hadn’t heard of Coachella when the band booked the date. He had to look up information about it and was impressed by the list of performers.
“This is the real deal,” he said.
Dawkins said the festival will likely be the show that helps the band ascend to being recognized on the street.
The band sounds like the thrash of Anthrax with the guitar work of Iron Maiden, and they’re only a trio.
Unlocking the Truth just signed a record deal, have a few dates coming up on the Warped Tour and a documentary in the works.
Brickhouse and bassist Alec Atkins didn’t get to enjoy a lot of the festival last weekend, but did catch Skrillex. Dawkins was hoping to see Skrillex this weekend, as well as Pharrell Williams.
Check out a photo gallery of Unlocking the Truth from weekend one.