When Matt Engel was in third grade, there were three things he wanted to be when he grew up.
“A stuntman, a mortician or a rock star,” he said.
Unlike most of us, he has made two of those three childhood ambitions a reality.
Every Thursday, Matt Engel, along with his brother, teenage nephew and his friend head to a literal castle in Lemay that features turrets, a gate and monster statues in every corner to make music inspired by monsters and death.
This is Torchlight Parade, a St. Louis metal band that comes back from the dead at night. Matt Engel and his brother, Doug Engel, started the band in 2017 and are uniquely qualified to write and perform songs about horror. That’s because Doug Engel is a hearse driver and Matt Engel is an embalmer.
Matt Engel came up with the band’s name after reading the phrase in mortuary college.
“I came across a torchlight parade being a funeral procession at night,” he said. “That name, it just jumped out of the book, it always stuck with me.”
The band has had a busy year. In April, the group signed a deal with record label Pavement Entertainment and released its third album “Children of the Night,” last Halloween. The album is an ode to classic monster and horror films with songs like “Haddonfield’s Revenge,” “Howl’n Wolf” and “Frankenstein of Death” inspired by Michael Myers, the Wolfman and Frankenstein, respectively.
The songs are supposed to be fun, lighthearted records that take inspiration from the brothers’ day jobs but are also an escape from the grief that comes with them.
“You've got to kind of disconnect from all that and leave it there,” Matt Engel said.
While Matt Engel was in school, he would return to the St. Louis area to catch his brother and his other band’s performances. Eventually, the two formed Torchlight.
“Nothing was going on for a while, but as life gets busy, [the band] was always in the back of our heads,” Doug Engel said.
Around 2017, the band started getting gigs opening for metal acts like Stryper and Quiet Riot.
“When you're up here on the stage, and look over and you see your brother, you’re like, ‘Dude, we're doing this,’” Doug Engel said. “And we're not just playing at some bar where people come in and there just so happens to be a band.”
The band continues to be a family affair with Doug Engel’s 16-year-old son, Sam Engel, on bass and his friend Gavin Martin on drums. The two joined in 2023 and also play in Aragon, their own cover band.
Performing with Torchlight has let them arrange and perform their own songs, Martin said.
“You're playing your actual music,” Martin said. “That’s something you can be proud of.”
Sam Engel said he felt a sense of accomplishment after arranging the music for “Morticians Never Cry,” a song off “Children of the Night.” The experience helped him understand how to write heavy metal music instead of the grunge inspired records he and Martin perform with Aragon.
“You get the guitar, but then when the drums come in, it's like, OK, now I see what's happening,” Sam Engel said. “It's not heavy metal without drums, right?”
Keyboardist and vocalist Teddy "ZigZag" Andreadis can also be heard through Torchlight Parade’s music. Over a long career, he’s performed with Guns N' Roses, Alice Cooper, Chuck Berry and Carole King.
Andreadis was captivated by the band’s aesthetic, theatrical stage presence, flair and funeral home origins, Doug Engel said. When performing, the band wears gothic costumes and are joined by monsters like Frankenstein and Michael Myers while elaborate props, including coffins, and a large LED screen stand behind them.
Although that camp is deliberate, the band hopes the music goes beyond its stage presence. The group’s second album, “Never Laugh when a Hearse Rolls By,” is a concept album about a funeral and includes the ballad “She’s Gone.” Doug Engel heard from someone who had listened to the song after his wife died. “He was in tears when he heard it,” Doug said. “It meant something to him.”
Songs on the group’s latest album touch on the seriousness of death. “I’m Not Dead Yet,” while triumphant, is a song Matt Engel wrote about blues guitarist and friend Walter Trout, who almost died of liver failure.
“I was imagining him laying on his deathbed and struggling,” Matt Engel said. “Telling you the story is one thing, but when you're hearing it from [Trout] and there's tears in his eyes … it left an impression on me.”
The records are reminders that because of the brothers’ professional lives, they have a special perspective on death. And while everyone else might be scared of dying, Matt Engel and the band aren’t.
Because for them, life and death imitates art.
“Everybody's running from it, and we're walking toward it,” he said.
