Classical and metal are not the first two genres of music one would choose to connect or combine. But a trio of musicians who call themselves Judgement Day have done such a thing. Anton Patzner, Lewis Patzner and Jon Bush make up the band which hails from the Bay Area.

Judgement Day will be playing today at noon in the University Union’s Redwood Room.

Judgement Day’s creation is due in large part to the members’ interest in a band that hails from Finland.

“There’s this band called Apocalyptica and (it has) four cellos that did a lot of Metallica covers,” cellist Lewis Patzner said. “Apocalyptica ended up writing their own music which I was really into. I actually had my own Apocalyptica cover band with some friends. Then Anton and I just started playing music on the street.”

They grew up playing classical music, but also listened to rock music.

“We thought metal fit well with our instruments,” said Anton Patzner, violinist.

One of the most interesting things the band does is get guitar-like distortion out of its violin and cello.

“We use a combination of distortion pedals and amps,” said Anton, describing the process of how the band gets the music to sound more metal. “We have pickups on the instruments so we can plug them into pedals and amps.”

However, the first thing many will notice about Judgement Day’s music is that the band lacks a vocalist. It’s purely instrumental, which nowadays is not always popular or commonplace. Anton said he isn’t worried.

“I think it’s maybe a different audience,” he said. “It’s way easier to connect with people live. I think that’s one reason why I’m really interested in making videos for us because I feel like our music goes really well with something visual, and so that kind of makes up for not having vocals.”

Anton and Lewis also stressed the weaknesses or restraints that can be placed on a band by having vocals and a vocalist.

“I think that having vocals kind of limits you to the genre and you know if we got vocals then we’d have to decide what kind of singer we’d want,” Lewis said. “So if we want somebody that screams or something then we’re a metal band or a hardcore band. Or if we have somebody who sings, then we’re not as heavy as we could be.”

Judgement Day isn’t worried about breaking through to mainstream music.

“We’re not shooting for the mainstream radio with this project, we’re going for more of an underground audience I think,” Anton said. “I think that there are plenty ( of people) that listen to instrumental music and if some people like us that’s good enough for me.”

One of the band’s aforementioned videos can be found on its MySpace page. The video is for the song “Out of the Abyss,” which features a host of bloodthirsty zombies, something the band members are fans of.

More videos can be found at their website, http://stringmetal.wordpress.com. Here, there are several videos of acoustic sets and other performances as well as their blogs. The videos give a good idea of how intense and passionate the band is with music.

Lewis and Anton view the music landscape these days as one that is changing and evolving. They said they probably won’t want to be signed by a big label to release more albums.

“The music business is crazy right now, all the major labels are going out of business,” Anton said. “We’re either interested in putting out a record ourselves again or finding someone that’s really innovative and ahead of the times with the music industry. They need to be forward thinking right now because the old model is not working anymore.”

When asked about where they would be 10 years from now, if they would still be a band, Lewis had no doubt that music would always play a major role in their lives.

“I have no idea. I feel like it’s possible, especially since we’re brothers, it’s definitely possible that we’ll be playing music together for a while,” he said. “I don’t know if it’ll be in this band or not, but I feel like we’re definitely still going to be doing music. I have no plans on doing anything else. We’ll be writing more music and having other projects, but it’s definitely a possibility that the band will still go.”

Anton said that they have other jobs and interests as well.

“I think we’re hoping to figure out and mature and make records as Judgement Day and possibly also do things like more films or put music in video games,” he said. “Having Judgement Day be featured on more records like we were on the Taking Back Sunday record is definitely a possibility.”

But for now the band is definitely still together. The drummer is currently in Israel.

“Later on I feel like I might not want to play rock music anymore and I might just settle down and play classical music and teach,” Lewis said.

Luke Soin can be reached at [email protected]