Insect to Monarch are working on a horror record with a vampire rock opera, banjo, steel guitar, and a lead single filmed inside a haunted attraction hot enough to turn the entire band pink.
This does not appear to be an identity crisis.
For a band named after metamorphosis, changing shape may be the most consistent thing about them.
The Jackson, Tennessee group has been building toward this version of itself for years. Their four-song debut, Chapter 1, arrived in 2017, the same year Insect to Monarch received a Tennessee Music Award for Metal Band of the Year. Chapter 2 followed in 2018, bringing "Chrysalis" and its very on-brand fixation with transformation. After returning with More Than Blood in 2024, the band is now using horror as permission to become considerably less predictable.
The horror concept is already escaping its cage
"Haunt Me" is officially billed as the first single from Insect to Monarch's horror-themed project, currently planned for 2026. During their conversation with the Ferg, however, the band made it clear that the concept is not simply a collection of heavy songs wearing Halloween makeup. Each track is intended to tell its own frightening story.
One of those stories has become what Michael enthusiastically described as a "vampire rock opera."
Another song brings in banjo and steel guitar, leading the room toward the extremely useful genre designation "Southern-style metal swamp." Nobody seemed entirely certain that this was the correct terminology, but it is difficult to improve upon. "Progressive alternative metal with regional instrumentation" may be more respectable. It is also dead on arrival.
"Southern-style metal swamp" already has mud on its boots.
That willingness to move sideways is what makes the upcoming project interesting. Horror works best here as a creative framework rather than a costume. A vampire story can become theatrical. A rural nightmare can drag steel guitar through something filthy and low-lit. "Haunt Me" can stay closer to the band's modern hard-rock center without forcing every other song to repeat it.
The concept gives Insect to Monarch a common atmosphere without demanding one uniform sound. In a genre that frequently mistakes consistency for repeating the same riff in different trousers, that freedom matters.
"We're just going to look like we're in a sauna"
The official video for "Haunt Me" was filmed at Hillside Terror, a haunted attraction that offered the band a ready-made set full of narrow rooms and unsettling scenery. The location looked right. It was also brutally hot.
The cramped performance footage feels claustrophobic because there was apparently very little acting required. Once the first take was finished, the band realized no amount of editing would disguise the sweat or increasingly red faces.
"We're just going to look like we're in a sauna. It's fine."
That may not appear in most production handbooks, but it is an excellent summary of making an independent music video. Use the location you can access. Trust the person behind the camera. Keep playing while your internal organs slowly become soup.
The discomfort ultimately helps the video. "Haunt Me" does not look clinically staged or suspiciously untouched by human moisture. The band appears trapped inside the environment with the song, which gives the performance an urgency that an air-conditioned soundstage would have struggled to manufacture.
Director Mike Robinson of Black Oaks Productions had previously played with members of Insect to Monarch, allowing him to coach their movements without the awkwardness of a stranger repeatedly asking five sweaty musicians to look more natural. That familiarity mattered in a room where nobody had much space to move and every wrong angle probably revealed another wall six inches away.
The acoustic guitar hiding inside "Chrysalis"
The band's most revealing comment did not concern the new horror project at all.
While discussing "Chrysalis," the Ferg pointed toward a brief acoustic guitar passage tucked into the song after the solo. The track is otherwise built around low tunings, heavy rhythm, and one of the earliest riffs written after Matt began experimenting with a seven-string guitar.
The acoustic section changes the temperature without abandoning the song. It also fits a track explicitly concerned with transition and metamorphosis, even though the band's explanation for keeping it was considerably less ceremonial.
"You can't be metal all the time, bro."
There it is.
Insect to Monarch estimated that their vocal balance sits somewhere around 70 percent singing and 30 percent screaming. The clean vocals give listeners something to understand and sing back. The screams retain their impact because they are not flattened into a constant texture.
That balance seems increasingly central to the band. Their influences run through Tool, Deftones, Pantera, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Karnivool, and a separate pocket of affection for Mötley Crüe, Ratt, and Def Leppard. Those ingredients could easily produce a playlist with no apparent adult supervision. Instead, the band appears to be using the differences as leverage.
The acoustic interruption in "Chrysalis," the crowd-ready "oohs" added to "Infinite Inferno," and the banjo lurking somewhere inside the new material all come from the same instinct: a heavy song does not become less heavy because it understands contrast.
Sometimes the quickest way to make the next impact feel larger is to stop punching for a moment.
The band behind the butterfly
The transformation is not limited to arrangements.
Insect to Monarch grew out of an earlier project called Caskets and Cures. Michael and Matt continued producing music after that band ended, eventually realizing they had accumulated songs without enough musicians to perform them. The current lineup took shape through several members, temporary identities, and at least one return to the Insect to Monarch name partly because the merchandise and web pages already existed.
Romantic stories about artistic rebirth rarely acknowledge the persuasive power of not having to reorder all the shirts.
The lineup now includes Scotty, who produced More Than Blood before settling behind the drum kit. That relationship has changed how the band approaches studio time. Instead of paying for a narrow recording window and racing the clock, they can keep revising until a song reaches the point where nobody can identify another useful improvement.
That does not mean endlessly polishing every rough surface. It means allowing the vampire opera to become a vampire opera, letting the steel guitar wander into the swamp, and trusting that "Haunt Me" can survive everyone looking freshly boiled.
Insect to Monarch are not attempting to become unrecognizable. They are discovering how much territory their identity can hold.
Hogwarts is available on select weekends
When asked about dream venues, the band named several legitimate rooms, including Red Rocks and the Roxy.
Then someone suggested Hogwarts.
The Quidditch arena is not constantly occupied, after all. There are scheduling opportunities. The acoustics remain untested, but the castle already has floating candles, practical fog effects, and an alarming history of preventable student deaths. Metal promoters have worked with less.
By the end of the interview, Insect to Monarch also claimed they were not physically present because the entire conversation was holographic. In reality, they were fishing, an activity discussed often enough to suggest that the metal band may be a secondary operation attached to a highly committed angling society.
That loose chemistry is part of the appeal. The band can talk seriously about production, arrangement, local venues, and protecting younger fans at all-ages shows without behaving as though humor might contaminate the heaviness.
The forthcoming horror record sounds promising for the same reason. Insect to Monarch are not approaching it with a rigid plan to prove how dark or technically impressive they can be. They are following the ideas that make the room react: a vampire opera, a haunted sauna, a clean melody, an unexpected instrument, or a phrase as beautifully ridiculous as Southern-style metal swamp.
You cannot be metal all the time.
Apparently, you can still make a horror album while fishing.
Watch the full Pretty Loud Mag companion video for the complete conversation, and follow Insect to Monarch on Facebook or Instagram for new music and show updates.