The Canadian death metal band will headline The Pyramid Scheme’s metal tent at Billy Strings’ Ionia Freak Fair after the guitarist reached out to one of his favorite bands. The back story and festival schedules.
Let Them Eat Metal Cake: Cryptopsy with their tasty gift from Billy Strings. (Courtesy Photo)
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The Billy Strings-Cryptopsy collaboration is one that not many people saw coming.
Well, maybe Michiganders who’ve followed Billy Strings since his early days playing guitar in Muir-based metalcore band To Once Darkened Skies aren’t surprised to learn he’s a big fan of the Montreal death metal band.
But the members of Cryptopsy sure were – and they experienced an unusual highlight in their 30-plus-year career when their paths crossed with the superstar bluegrass singer/songwriter while both acts were on tour in 2024.
Sort of crossed, anyway. Billy and Cryptopsy were slated to play shows in Boise on the same night. Strings, upset that he’d miss seeing one of his all-time favorite metal bands, sent a crew member to deliver a cake to Cryptopsy, and buy an armload of Cryptopsy shirts that Strings and his band wore on stage that night.
“It was a Halloween themed cake because it was close to Halloween, and they bought it at, like, a grocery store or something,” Cryptopsy vocalist Matt McGachy said with a laugh, calling from a Dublin, Ireland, tour stop.
The custom-decorated cake had the phrase “Open Cake Surgery – Love, B.S.” written on it in frosting, a punny reference to Cryptopsy track “Open Face Surgery.” The band later saw video of Billy headbanging to Cryptopsy cut “Graves of the Fathers” as it played on the PA at the conclusion of his Boise show.
That was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. A year later, Cryptopsy celebrated the 30th anniversary of its classic 1994 debut album “Blasphemy Made Flesh” by recording a medley of songs, dubbed “Blasphemy Made Fresh,” with guest vocalists – and one guest guitar solo by their most famous fan. (Scroll down to listen to the track on YouTube.)
Matt McGachy: ‘Eagerly anticipating’ bluegrass fans’ reaction to death metal. (Photo/Mike Lewis)
“I took a chance one night on tour and I was just like, let’s ask Billy (to play a guest solo),” McGachy said. “And we asked him and it was an immediate yes. We were blown away.
“Our Spotify went up by 100,000 listeners in a month,” McGachy said. “I would watch it every few days, and go and check in on it, like, when is it going to drop? I knew the bubble was going to pop, but it was fun and interesting to have that many monthly listeners for a short period of time.”
But here’s the kicker: Billy Strings and Cryptopsy have yet to meet in person. That’ll change when Cryptopsy plays the guitarist’s long-sold-out two-day Ionia Freak Fair festival, headlining the Saturday (Aug. 29) lineup in The Pyramid Scheme Pinball and Metal Tent at the Ionia County Fairgrounds, located just a stone’s throw or two from the town where Billy grew up. About 28,000 people are expected for this inaugural festival.
Billy’s propensity for making unscheduled guest appearances with other acts means a live collaboration with Cryptopsy seems inevitable, right?
“I have an Instagram message that I have to go check and respond to,” McGachy said, laughing. “We did reach out, yes. I’ll just leave that as a maybe. There’s some technical logistics stuff we’ve got to figure out on our end first, but I think it’s worth it and it’ll be fun.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a post-fame Billy played with a metal band on a local stage: In March 2024, the bluegrass-guitarist-turned-metal-shredder famously joined his old friends in Lansing metalcore band Flesh and Blood Robot at the Grand Rapids nightclub The Pyramid Scheme.
GROWING NEW FANS, LOOKING FORWARD TO A ‘STRANGE, FUN’ BLUEGRASS FEST
Michigan’s Flesh and Blood Robot band will perform prior to Cryptopsy in the Freak Fair Metal Tent, along with fellow Mitten State metallers See You Next Tuesday. The Metal Tent lineup for Friday (Aug. 28) includes Bane, For the Fallen Dreams and Heartsick. Scroll down to view all of the Freak Fair schedules.
(Cryptopsy, by the way, follows up its Ionia Freak Fair set with a stop Sunday (Aug. 30) at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids, performing with Flesh & Blood Robot, See You Next Tuesday and Attrition Cult. Tickets, $23, available here.)
Billy clearly curated the Freak Fair to reflect his diverse interests, programming the Metal Tent and slating high-profile jam bands and bluegrass acts such as Leftover Salmon and Greensky Bluegrass for the main stage. And while there’s inevitably going to be some crossover interest among the audience, McGachy said he’s anticipating some odd looks from some folks who might happen to unsuspectingly wander into the tent and get a mega-decibel earful of Cryptopsy’s highly technical, bruising death metal.
“It’s going to be something very strange and fun to be a part of,” the vocalist said. “I know it’s going to do well and it’s going to be interesting, but there’s still going to be some bluegrass fans that aren’t going to understand why an extreme death metal band from Canada is playing at this festival. I’m eagerly anticipating their reactions – it’s a major part of why I’m going.”
Metal Mayhem: Billy Strings with Flesh & Blood Robot at The Pyramid Scheme. (Photo/John Sinkevics)
The association with Billy Strings is an unusual highlight in Cryptopsy’s long career in the metal underground. Formed by drummer Flo Mounier in 1992, the group established itself as one of the most musically proficient and compositionally complex bands in the death metal genre, alongside fellow pioneering acts like Death, Atheist and fellow Canadians Gorguts. McGachy has fronted Cryptopsy since 2007, situating his deep-throated growls among the band’s precisely executed guitar riffs and head-spinning rhythms.
The band has released nine albums, including 1996 genre benchmark “None So Vile” and 2025’s “An Insatiable Violence.” Cryptopsy shifted its career into high gear after the Covid pandemic waned, releasing two albums in three years and supporting them with relentless touring. They’ve been on the road for six of the last 12 months, working their way through North America last spring and a recent run of European summer festivals supplemented by club gigs.
That hard work is paying off. Despite increasing financial and logistical difficulties for underground touring acts, the band is making it functional through sheer force of will, as well as a recent uptick in interest in death metal, a genre that continues to draw young audiences, many of whom will become metalheads for life.
“It’s very impressive to watch this new generation fall in love with a genre,” he said. “The future of the band looks bright – we’re seeing an upswing in everything, in streams, YouTube plays, the views, the ticket sales, the merch sales. Everything is doing better than it has in the past 10 years.
“So we’re definitely just going to keep heading forward and appreciating that up until the point (where) we’re physically incapable of doing it. So we all take care of ourselves, by working out, by eating well, by managing alcohol intake, so that we can perform well.”
The vocalist said that, a few years back, Cryptopsy formulated a 10-year plan to a possible conclusion of the band, but they keep pushing that theoretical end date back.
“It’ll be my 20th anniversary in the band next year and we’ve never been as popular in my era,” he said. “So I’m, I’m just enjoying every show, everything. The expenses are going up, the cost of gas is insane, but we’ve been very, very lucky that it still ends up working out for us, thanks to the fans.”
VIDEO: Cryptopsy, “Blasphemy Made Fresh” (with Billy Strings)
IONIA FREAK FAIR: THE PYRAMID SCHEME METAL TENT SCHEDULE
IONIA FREAK FAIR: MAIN STAGE SCHEDULE
Rally is providing a bus shuttle to the Ionia Freak Fair. Details here.
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