As part of our Highlight of the Week series

Hey! What’s up! I’m Aron and i run a reaction channel over on YouTube going by Azalama Reacts to support music from up and coming artists and signed bands all around the world.
I do this purely for the love of introducing people to new music that they more than likely wouldn’t discover on their own and most of the time these are requests that I get, so they are also bands that I myself wouldn’t of heard of.

Q1. Can you tell us about what lead you to find extreme metal and what about it ignited this passion you have for 

Q1. I first encountered extreme metal back in my early teens with bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Job For A Cowboy, Annotations Of An Autopsy and then one day i bought a copy of metal hammer magazine and that just ignited the fire for me discovering all of these different bands. 

Q2. When did you first get involved in underground music? Can you tell us how that journey started? 

Q2. I first got involved in the underground music scene around 2011 I think. Around this time lots of my mates were in bands and playing lots of gigs around Derby and then 2013 – 2019 I was the vocalist of a metalcore band called A Dying Pride, recording and releasing music, playing gigs around the UK until 2019 when the band called it day. 
We shared the stage with bands such as Enemo-J, Borders, Omen Machine, Ashborn, King Abyss, Osiah, Azazel, Under Blackened Skies to name a few. Doing this was one the SICKEST times in my life. Beneath the music they are just regular guys, friendlier than your average person! 

Q3. Are there any pinnacle events or specific people that have kept you on the path of supporting extreme metal? 

Q3. I would say the pinnacle of me doing this is that i still wanted to be involved in the music scene in some way, shape or form.
Because since i left the music scene to move to Manchester to focus on supporting my new little family and raising my kids, music has always been my passion. I’ve said once the little ones have grown up abit I’m going to pick up the mic again and start another band because you can’t beat that feeling of being on stage jumping into the mosh pits with people reciprocating the energy!
I was staying in touch with my best buds George & Anoki who were A Dying Pride’s guitarist and bassist and they were speaking about starting a new band with just the 2 of them and i was so pumped for them, like “Yeah let me know how it goes and send me some stuff over when you can” and then they messaged me saying they have released their first track that they felt defined them as SIMBULIS and I was like “GUYS. PLEASE LET ME DO A REACTION VIDEO FOR YOU” and my channel started from there.
And from there I have discovered so many sick bands through reaction requests such as Worship The Sacrifice, SYMBYOTE, Existentialist, Rev3rent, Chemical Lobotomy, Break Fifty, Burial Path, Worn Out, Cober Mouth to name a few and I’ve just surpassed 1K subs in just over 2 years, it’s unbelievable, I must be doing something right!

Q4. Can you tell us of any resources, entities or  communities that could be particularly helpful for extreme metal bands in the underground today? 

Q4. I feel the resources that are extremely helpful for the underground community are definitely social media, pages such as yourselves and word of mouth as this type of music still isn’t widely supported in the mainstream and i think the reaction communities really help in boosting visibilty for them too! My work pal Alex isn’t a fan of the heavy music at all he’s mainly into Drum & Bass but he frequently comes to me in work and is like “That band you reacted to last night was sick I’ve told so and so to go and check them out” so yeah man I think people see how other people react and they get it, they see and feel the energy of this music and it gets people talking. Also, gigs! Get to your local venues as often as you can to support them and the acts that they have on! I’m a big supporter of The Hairy Dog in Derby – they are also grass roots venue and mate the amount of shows they have from such sick bands is incredible!
Nicole who is their promoter who goes by Emotrrrash Promotions works so hard to provide Derby with a sick live music scene!

Q5. How many band tshirts and merch items do you think you’ve collected so far? 

Q5. How many band tshirts do i own? Fuck. Way too many to count haha! My partner keeps going mad at me telling me to get rid of some because I still have all the tshirts that don’t fit me but I can’t get rid of them man!! Every gig i go to I keep coming back with more so the list is growing haha!!

Q6. What your favourite metal themed movie? (Rockumentaries count) 

Q6. This is a tricky one because I’m not a huge fan of those kind of films cos i feel they just belittle the metal scene and use metalheads as a gimmick. I think I’ll go with the pick of destiny cos that’s genuinely funny!

Q7. Are there any extreme metal bands in the underground today that you feel the readers need to listen to? 

Q7. The extreme metal bands that I feel readers need to be listening to right now are Worship The Sacrifice, Existentialist and SYMBYOTE, these guys are absolutely crushing it with what they are releasing!

Subscribe to his channel now! And discover some amazing metal! https://youtube.com/@azalamareacts?si=bkcTbNe7rfANNfuM