{"id":515287,"date":"2026-06-28T15:51:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515287\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T15:51:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:51:32","slug":"machine-head-awarded-keys-to-the-city-of-albuquerque-by-the-most-metal-mayor-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515287\/","title":{"rendered":"Machine Head awarded keys to the city of Albuquerque by the most metal mayor in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Machine Head<\/a> say they\u2019re \u201cextremely honoured\u201d after being given keys to the city of Albuquerque by Mayor Tim Keller, jokingly claiming that they were keys to the Albuquerque City Jail.<\/p>\n

The Oakland groove metal band passed through the New Mexico city on Monday (June 23) as part of their ongoing North American tour supporting metalcore stars Killswitch Engage<\/a>. The band met Keller, who\u2019s known as the \u2018Metal Mayor\u2019 due to his love for the genre, plus his brother Scott ahead of the concert.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Machine Head wrote in an Instagram post: \u201cWe\u2019re extremely honoured to have been presented with keys to the Albuquerque City Jail yesterday by @mayorkeller and his brother, Scott!\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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Keller, a Democrat, is the 30th mayor of Albuquerque and the first in the city\u2019s history to have served three consecutive terms, after assuming the post in 2017 and being re-elected in 2021 and 2025. His affinity for metal was the focal point of a 2018 New York Times profile<\/a>, which reported that he had been spotted at local Anthrax<\/a> concerts and once introduced Trivium<\/a> onstage at the Sunshine Theater.<\/p>\n

In 2022, US band Soulfly posted a photo of Keller wearing one of the band\u2019s shirt as he went to to vote in the midterm elections. From 2024 to 2025, he gave keys to the city of Albuquerque to Iron Maiden<\/a> frontman Bruce Dickinson, members of Testament, Soulfly\/ex-Sepultura frontman Max Cavalera and members of Judas Priest<\/a>. He\u2019s also officially declared September 19 as Iron Maiden Day.<\/p>\n

During an interview with Riot Fest<\/a> in 2018, Keller called metal music \u201cpart of the background of my daily life\u201d: \u201cI wake up to it (currently my alarm song is I\u2019ve Been Sober by DevilDriver), I drive to it, I work out to it, I read with it, I work on the computer to it long into the night. I probably listen to metal at least four hours every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also revealed that his very open love for the genre hadn\u2019t affected his political career all that much.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve actually always owned my love of metal, even when I got into politics 10 years ago as a state senator,\u201d he said. \u201cThe funny thing is, no one cared or noticed until I became mayor. I get a lot of people who are like, \u2018Not sure about music taste, but I like you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI have had opponents try and use it here and there by saying I\u2019m too \u2018fringe\u2019 or \u2018alternative\u2019 because of metal, but it seemed to make them come off as really stodgy and desperate to be making fun of someone\u2019s music taste instead of debating the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keller is a longtime Machine Head fan, having discovered the band\u2019s 1994 debut album Burn My Eyes through word-of-mouth when he was in school.<\/p>\n

The four-piece\u2019s tour continues tonight (June 25) at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. They\u2019ll headline the Rockfest and Inkcarceration festivals in the US next month before playing another leg of North American Killswitch Engage support shows in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Machine Head say they\u2019re \u201cextremely honoured\u201d after being given keys to the city of Albuquerque by Mayor Tim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-515287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}