Fire at the Plantation House (FatPH) is a one-person metal project based in occupied Ramaytush Ohlone land (otherwise known as San Francisco) that lyrically wrestles with the injustices that shape our world and pushes the musical boundaries of its sole member, John Angel.
Weaving together eclectic genres such as death metal, bluegrass, neo-soul, and sacred choir, Angel creates vast musical journeys that manage to stay rooted in memorable melodies and mosh-inducing riffs.
He explores how systems of oppression in the past project themselves into our present and future in his lyrics and confronts what it is to be a person of privilege who wants to change the world for the better.
FatPH’s origins lie in Angel learning of the theory that spirituals originating from the enslaved population in the antebellum southeastern US were used by said population to communicate and coordinate without arousing suspicion of white authorities.
Angel became interested in using such a spiritual as a musical point of departure for a work about Nat Turner’s Rebellion.
This eventually culminated in FatPH’s debut album, Southampton Insurrection. Written during the uprisings in response to George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police, Southampton Insurrection attempts to lyrically draw parallels between those uprisings and Nat Turner’s Rebellion as well as wrestle with what it is to be a person of privilege who wants to liberatory movements but is unsure how.
While Angel’s first and foremost musical love is metal and hardcore he listens to a wide variety of music and studied classical and jazz in school.
He combines all the genres he loves in his compositions as FatPH and seeks to push his abilities and expand his musical horizons through this project. Angel knows high-minded rhetoric about marginalized peoples rings hollow without material support.
He’s also aware that his use of spirituals in his music can be credibly accused of cultural appropriation. Therefore, the only moral course of action for him is to give 50% of proceeds from sales of and related to Southampton Insurrection to Feed the People Collective, a POC-led, grassroots organization committed to teaching urban farming to and cooking local produce to make healthy, delicious meals for the people of occupied Ramaytush Ohlone land.
And did I mention his tasty riffs?