Like many young bands of their generation, Spiritbox found their momentum all but obliterated by the arrival of the pandemic. At that point, the Canadian metalcore crew - spearheaded by husband and wife duo, frontwoman Courtney LaPlante and guitarist Mike Stringer - had been together for three years, releasing a few singles and playing just under 20 shows in that time.
Courtney and Mike had formed Spiritbox following the end of their time in off-kilter mathcore collective iwrestledabearonce, and by the Spring of 2020, they'd established a reputation as one of the most exciting young heavy bands in the scene. You know what happened next. It happened to countless bands the world over. Everyone isolated. Gigs stopped. The metal world was suddenly in a state of flux.
Keenly aware that they had a kickass new song to promote with no way of getting the rest of the band together, Courtney and Mike started brainstorming ways to film a video for the track with the bare minimum of resources, props or equipment at their disposal. What they emerged with ended up being the most viral metal video of the entire pandemic.
Article continues belowI feel like a lot of directors don't really know what to do with this type of music
Courtney LaPlante
See, Spiritbox had previous: almost every video they'd released thus far was funded almost entirely independently, the band's strong DIY ethos enabling them to conceive and film ideas that didn't need to break the bank, but didn't compromise their artistic vision.
"The sound and the visual are so intertwined for me, and it's one of the things that I'm most disappointed in when it comes to most heavy metal music that I hear," Courtney told Knotfest in 2020. "I feel that the videos, generally, feel like an afterthought. Some videos I watch and I'm like, 'Did the person directing this have this on mute?' I feel like a lot of directors don't really know what to do with this type of music."
Luckily, Spiritbox absolutely did know what to do. Armed with an absolute rager of a track - Holy Roller, a ferociously heavy, djent-coded metalcore banger dealing with themes of religious oppression and control - they grabbed some leftover flower crowns and floral installations from a friend's wedding, Courtney's makeup books and a camera, went outside and started filming.
"This song is just so trippy to me," Courtney explained. "I imagined this girl running around this weird maypole structure, tripping out on acid or something. She looks kinda happy, but then you might be able to see a little fear and uncertainty behind her eyes."
Courtney went to work bringing her idea to life, the singer playing both the spaced-out, "traditionally beautiful" character she'd envisioned and a more sinister, corpsepainted alter ego, ominously watching over her from the shadows.
"It was so fun to be expressive in both a dark and light duality at the same time," she told Knotfest. "I always like to become a character in my music videos."
She later told Metal Injection that the evil character was "inspired by the aesthetic of black metal", although she added with a chuckle that she personally "was more inspired by nu metal", pointing to the OTT makeup of Limp Bizkit guitarist West Borland as a major inspiration.
Of course, there was one other obvious influence looming over the Holy Roller video: Ari Aster's masterful 2019 horror Midsommar, which sees a flower crown-donning Florence Pugh steadily lose her mind while being consumed by a sinister Swedish cult. While Courtney stopped short of naming Midsommar as the main influence behind Holy Roller, she did admit that Aster's work had deeply impacted her on a creative level.
“I really like both of the Ari Aster movies I’ve seen, Midsommar and Hereditary," she told Metal Hammer. "I like disturbing thrillers and his movies execute that well in a way that they’ve greatly impacted me, but I never wanna watch them again because I was so disturbed by them! I still love to read everything I can find about them and their beautiful cinematography, though."
Regardless, against all odds, Courtney and Mike managed to produced a DIY video that wasn't just effectively creepy: it was an instant classic, and when Holy Roller hit Youtube on July 3, 2020, the metal world went dizzy for it. Within weeks, the video's viewing numbers hit seven figures; today, they're on well over eight, sitting at just under 11 million.
For a band yet to release a full studio album, it was a hell of an achievement - even if Courtney was pretty much sick of the song by the time the rest of the world was done spinning it on repeat. "It’s an annoying song!" she joked to Metal Injection. “It’s still in my head just from recording it."
Holy Roller's legacy was just beginning, though. Once touring finally resumed in 2021, the track consolidated itself as a fan favourite and, in 2022, the song took on a whole new life when ten year old English metal fan Harper covered it on an episode of pop-leaning US talent show America's Got Talent, shocking Simon Cowell and his judge pals by screaming the house down.
The video of Harper's cover quickly went viral, amassing millions of views on social media and bringing Spiritbox's breakout anthem to a whole new audience. “Simon asked if I had ever seen The Exorcist!” Harper told Metal Hammer in late 2022, her performance apparently conjuring visions of Linda Blair's demonic spinning head.
Things came full circle on the day the America's Got Talent episode aired in the States, with Courtney LaPlante actually inviting Harper to come on stage with Spiritbox during a show in London to perform Holy Roller live.
“Imagine meeting your biggest hero – that’s how it felt!” beamed Harper. “When I got onstage, I definitely had more energy than on America’s Got Talent. You could see it. I think it was because the band and Courtney were there, and they hyped me up.”
Six years on from Holy Roller's release and Spiritbox's career has only gone from strength to strength. Three-times Grammy nominated, sharing stages with the likes of Korn, Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon and due to headline London's prestigious Wembley Arena this September, their ascent shows zero signs of slowing down. And it's entirely possibly that none of it would have happened without some old flower crowns, a good makeup job and one ambitious idea.
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