On the Scene With Gerard Gonsalves

Gerard K. Gonsalves grew up in Honolulu listening to “Hawaiian music, Kalapana and C&K,” but when he discovered heavy-metal music after high school, he found his life’s calling. In 1985 Gonsalves joined Aaronsrod, one of Hawaii’s first serious heavy-metal groups. He’s been an apostle of professional-grade heavy metal ever since.

In 2013, Gonsalves founded a heavy-metal record label, Tin Idol Productions. The label’s first release was “Jesus Christ Supernova,” a metal version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Next came recordings with his bands SIN73 and storm.

Gonsalves, 55, then led a successful three-year campaign to persuade the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts to create a separate category for heavy metal in the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards. This is the first year for the category and all five finalists are Tin Idol artists.

JOHN BERGER: What did you think when you learned that all five finalists were on your label?

GERARD GONSALVES: It was kind of surreal, but the thing that makes me the most proud about that is that there were more than five eligible albums and so each of the finalists had to be voted in. It’s not like there were only five eligible releases and so everybody’s automatically a finalist.

JB: HARA added a category for rock in 1998. Alternative rock got its own category in 2015, and now metal has a category. What do you see coming from these new categories?

GG: Other genres of rock could have their own categories if they can show HARA there are enough albums being made in their genre to open another category and then keep it going, but they have to get involved.

I’ve been talking to other metal bands in the community for years who felt that HARA wasn’t interested in metal, and that the Hoku Awards were only for Hawaiian music … . I hope this will inspire more members of the metal community to show HARA that they’re here making recordings, join HARA and start networking at the Hoku Awards.

JB: What are your plans for the rest of 2018?

GG: We finished the sci-fi trilogy by SIN73 in 2017 so we’re starting a new series under the name Ghost Opera, we’re working on another Storm album, there’s another project with most of the members of Storm but with a different guitar player, I’m working on a heavy-metal Partridge Family album, and we’re looking at doing a remix of “Jesus Christ Supernova.”

JB: What is something that might surprise people who see you playing music on stage?

GG: I work for the Honolulu Police Department in the properties and supply department.

Reach John Berger at jberger@staradvertiser.com.