At the Left Hand of God soldiers on after a tough couple of years

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When you walk into the Drunken Worm and see David Herron and Brett Carter on their stools, you could mistake them for brothers. They share a medium build and an average height, and when they speak to you, what comes out is an identical Missouri drawl. On this quiet Wednesday night at the 39th Street bar, Herron and Carter are even dressed alike: backward-turned baseball caps, T-shirts, jeans, sneakers. They watch the baseball game on one of the place’s TVs, laugh together at the commercials and drink their margaritas. You figure they’re among the folks who miss “Friends in Low Places” as the seventh-inning-stretch song at the K.

But Herron, 27, and Carter, 28, would rather hear Metallica than Garth Brooks — or just about any other act. They’re not brothers, but their heavy-metal fandom is their first fraternal bond. It has been this way since they were teenagers, and you can hear it in their band, At the Left Hand of God, a longtime local metal favorite. Herron has been the band’s bassist since 2008, a year after it formed, and Carter has been the group’s lead screamer since 2012.

The founding members of the band — guitarist and principal songwriter Dave Thompson, guitarist Chris Joslen and drummer Scott Eggleson — are tied up elsewhere this evening. Thompson is the farthest away; he’s going to school in Madison, Wisconsin. Herron says this has the band feeling a little disjointed.

“It’s kind of been a long-distance relationship recently,” Herron says, smiling. “We’ve been working on music over the Internet, working on new stuff that way, and he’s been coming in for shows. That’s the beauty of modern technology, though — we can still write music and still be in a band, even when we’re scattered.”

Then again, the need for a few Skype dates here and there seems like a cakewalk compared with some of the more turbulent episodes in the band’s history. Herron recounts the band’s losses: In 2009, its van broke down in Georgia, and the troupe barely made it home; in 2011, its trailer was stolen, though it was fortunately empty; in 2012, a second van failed in Wichita, leading to an expensive tow ride home. The latest setback came in March, when $10,000 worth of band gear was stolen from Herron’s home.

“That was the most traumatic thing,” Herron says. “Vans and trailers, those are replaceable, but when our equipment got stolen, it was really a buzzkill. All kinds of great bands did a benefit show for us months ago and raised some money, so since then, we’ve been able to get some new equipment. We’ve replaced some stuff, but a lot of that equipment, we had had for 10-plus years, you know?”

“There was sentimental value to those pieces,” Carter adds. “When you take guys like all of us, who work for a living before we’re a band — we’re all blue-collar guys and musicians. It’s not like we’re the first band that’s ever had something stolen, and we’re working our way through it. We’re not at our highest point right now, but we know that our fanbase is strong, and we have the support of people behind us.”

Given the list of woes that Herron and Carter have just dropped, it’s a bit surprising that At the Left Hand of God has been able to sustain itself, let alone remain positive. But the two men beside me sum up these events with matching affable shrugs and stir their drinks.

“Needless to say, we’re ready to tear it up and get out some aggression at Hammerween,” Herron tells me. He laughs, but he’s not joking. He’s referring to the band’s next gig at the metal fest at the Uptown Theater Saturday, October 18.

Herron and Carter have played every Hammerween since it began, in 2009, and they are effusive in their praise of the local metal acts who share the bill. The support of the community, they agree, is what has allowed their band to play on stages like those at the Uptown Theater and the Midland — venues that Herron and Carter never took for granted.

“It’ll probably be a fairly emotional show,” Carter says. But leave the tissues at home. The feelings that At the Left Hand of God generates are not the weepy kind.

“I’ve played a lot of different genres of music, and nothing compares to metal,” Herron says, after a round of Fireball shots mysteriously appears in front of us. We’ve been discussing the technical expertise required to play metal songs — “More than three chords and a haircut,” Herron quips good-naturedly at one point — and I ask him if his devotion to the genre stems from the desire to be challenged by what he’s playing. I’m surprised when he shakes his head.

“Actually, that’s the one drawback, that it’s so hard to play sometimes,” Herron says. “No, what I love about metal is the energy that you feel onstage, when the crowd is going crazy and moshing. Being able to let out your demons onstage like that — there’s nothing like it.”