Women artists are pushing back against gender stereotypes at the French heavy metal festival Hellfest, where men have long dominated the loud and rebellious genre.
With around 60,000 visitors per day, the 18th edition of France’s biggest metal festival wrapped up last Sunday after four days of head-banging performances.
Marked by loud guitars and guttural shouting, heavy metal has historically been associated with men and virility.
On Friday, nine bands featuring at least one woman took to one of Hellfest’s main stages, a notable step towards recognising women in the genre.
Hellfest showcases around 180 bands spanning metal subgenres from thrash and black metal to hardcore punk, with major acts like Korn, Muse and Scorpions performing.
Among the newer voices carving space in the scene is Camille Contreras, a chemical engineer by training and self-taught metalcore vocalist, who faced a backlash in 2023 after joining French band Novelists as their lead singer.
“There were a few remarks, but I didn’t really take them personally because they said ‘a girl shouldn’t shout’,” Contreras said.
“I told myself ‘this guy, he’s just stupid’.”
Contreras proved her vocal strength during live shows, helping Novelists gain international traction with tours in the US and China.
Her four bandmates said the decision to bring her in went beyond voice, praising her performance style, stage presence, good mood, ability to convey atmosphere and diversity.
“I know a lot of my colleagues had a lot of problems being accepted as a woman”
Praised by her bandmates as “transgressive” for challenging “norms and many stereotypes”, Contreras − nicknamed the “devil’s diva” − fired up the Hellfest crowd during their Sunday set.
She wasn’t the only woman making waves at the festival.
US rock giant Linkin Park, best known for hits like In the End and Numb, returned to the Hellfest stage on Sunday with new vocalist Emily Armstrong, who joined in 2024 following the 2017 death of frontman Chester Bennington.
“They were in the right state of mind by choosing to make a 180° U-turn, rather than creating a copy of Chester, and it’s working really well,” said Christie Medina-Gonzalez, programmer and artistic coordinator for Hellfest.
‘Very good start’
Women are still underrepresented at the festival but they are becoming “much more widespread now”, according to Contreras.
“All of the attitudes are evolving a little,” she said.
“Women are maybe less scared of showing who they are,” she added, noting that “there are more and more female bands in all kinds of subgenres” of heavy metal, which nevertheless remains “very standardised” and “very masculine”.
Friday’s stage dedicated to woman-fronted acts featured performances by the neo-Viking metal collective Heilung, from Scandinavia and Germany, alongside Dutch symphonic metal bands Epica and Within Temptation.
The initiative is “a very good start to make women more visible”, said Sharon den Adel, co-founder of Within Temptation with her husband and guitarist Robert Westerholt.
“I know a lot of my colleagues had a lot of problems being accepted as a woman,” Den Adel said.
When the lead vocalist was growing up, people often asked who her idols were.
Now, with more women playing guitar and playing drums, female performances are more visible, she said.
As metal artists, women “will plant seeds in young girls’ minds of, ‘I can be this, this is also an option for me, maybe I can do this passion as well’”.