Rock Group

How one Wantagh vocalist and his rock band went viral

By Kate Nalepinski

In early May, South Shore-based rock band Adam and the Metal Hawks covered AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll),” and posted the video to social media platform TikTok. At the time, the band had one main goal: to have actor and musician Jack Black — who covered the track in the fi lm “School of Rock” — post a video reply on the app. “We tried to incorporate either songs that he had covered or his songs,” lead singer Adam Ezegelian, of Wantagh, said, “and we worked them into different formats for our TikToks.” Soon enough, a “public pressure campaign” was created on the app, as drummer Alex Hertler described it. The band’s social media following urged Black, the vocalist for Tenacious D, to post a video reply to it. “We went onto his most recent [TikTok] video, and every other comment was like, ‘duet@amhband right now,’” Hertler recalled with a laugh. Adam and the Metal Hawks’ sixth video attempt at a response from Black, posted May 27, was a mash-up of TikTok viral track “Dick,” by Doja Cat and StarBoi3, and the Tenacious D song “Kickapoo.” Two days later, a video response from Black appeared on bassist/vocalist Ryan Daversa’s TikTok “For You Page,” a curated, algorithm-set series of videos on the platform. Black’s video reply went viral — in late August, it had over 65 million views, 14 million likes and 83,000 comments. It also boosted Adam and the Metal Hawks’ TikTok profi le. But the group had already gained widespread popularity on social media, even before Black was involved. They’ve attracted over 3 million followers on the app since they established the account in January 2021. They’ve garnered over 31 million video likes. Ezegelian is known to some as a fi nalist on “American Idol.” In 2015, at age 20, he made it to the Top 16 of Season 14. Prior to Ezegelian’s joining the group in 2015, Daversa, Hertler and guitarist John Barry were the Metal Hawks. “We were defi nitely more on the metal side on the rock spectrum,” Hertler said. “When Adam came in, he kind of has that punky kind of voice, which is very rhythmic. So we shifted more toward hard rock.” While the coronavirus pandemic has been full of tragedy, Daversa said, it gave the band the opportunity to expand on social media. “I’m not going to sit here and glorify a pandemic, but if it wasn’t for Covid, I don’t think we would’ve hopped on TikTok when we did,” he said. “I don’t think we would’ve had the original songs coming out as soon as we did, and we would’ve grown at the rate we have.”

Photos courtesy Daniel Stanton Top left photo: Actor and musician Jack Black’s video reply to local rock band Adam and the Metal Hawks’ performance went viral and has collected over 65 million views on TikTok.

Top right photo: Adam and the Metal Hawks comprises guitarist John Barry, left, bassist/vocalist Ryan Daversa, center top, vocalist Adam Ezegelian of Wantagh, center bottom, and drummer Alex Hertler.