At Welcome to Rockville, industrial trio Health set to unleash dystopian soundtrack – Daytona Beach News-Journal

Editor’s note: The Welcome to Rockville music fest returns to Daytona Beach May 15-18. News-Journal reporter Jim Abbott chatted with several of the acts scheduled to play.
When Los Angeles-based industrial trio Health takes the stage at Welcome to Rockville to deliver dark, dystopian songs from its latest album, “Rat Wars,” it could be a fitting soundtrack for these times of global uncertainty and unrest.
That timing wasn’t by design, according to vocalist and guitarist Jake Duzsik.
“That’s a topic that has come up a number of times recently, but it’s just by happenstance,” Duzsik said by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “We’ve always had this aesthetic of sort of soundtracking a dystopian landscape, a future primitive technological apocalypse kind of thing. That was in the mood board when we first started making music.
“Unfortunately, it seems like the world kind of caught up to that and there’s now some resonance with how people view it.”
At Welcome to Rockville, Health’s opening-day set on Thursday, May 15, will be part of a lineup of more than 150 bands on five stages over four days at Daytona International Speedway, a lineup that includes headliners Shinedown, Green Day, Linkin Park and Korn.
Formed in 2005 out of L.A.’s underground experimental music scene, the origins of the intense sonic assault created by Duzsik, drummer B.J. Miller and bassist-producer John Famiglietti long pre-dated any current events.
“For me, there’s no way to deny that it has always been part of my ability to process the stresses and unknowns and terrifying aspects of life, to get it out in some form lyrically and musically,” Duzsik said.
“It’s such a strange time, in that we’re theoretically more connected than we’ve ever been, but people feel so isolated and alone. It doesn’t matter what side you pick, everyone is awash in negativity. It’s so pervasive that our music been able to connect with more people because everybody is sort of experiencing that. For me, it’s been indispensable, honestly.”
The band’s singular, seemingly generic name, evoked the influence of the scene that informed the band’s formation, Duzsik said.
“In the first incarnation of the band, we were part of a very underground downtown L.A. noise scene. Zero commercial potential. Warehouses, galleries. The music I listened to a lot had connection to post-punk and no-wave and noise, where you had bands that would use very common everyday words in an abstract, sterile sense.
“Health is a word you see constantly all the time. It reminded me of the band (alternative punk pioneers) Television. It’s not trying really hard to be a really cool band name, but the mundane nature of it made it really cool.
“We initially wanted to be Medicine, but somebody already had it.”
For Health, the genesis of “Rat Wars” unfolded during another era of uncertainty, when the band was enduring the potential career-derailing lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the same time, Health also began a series of file-sharing collaborations with an array of acts that included Nine Inch Nails, Lamb of God and others. Those tracks eventually would surface on “DISCO4,” a double album released in two installments in 2020 and 2022.
Those collaborations pushed the band beyond previous boundaries in making its own music, Duzsik said.
“When you start working with other bands, that’s the greatest virtue, that they invariably do something you wouldn’t think to do and you end up creating something that feels novel,” he said. “It reduced stress about having preconceived notions about what you’re creating.
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“You can’t have a set of guidelines. ‘Today I’m going to write a single,’ or ‘Today I’m going to write a banger.’ That carried over into ‘Rat Wars.’ Our goal was to do the best of what we do when we’re writing, to be less in our own heads about it.”
For Duzsik, playing a rock festival at Daytona International Speedway will be a special occasion steeped in family memories.
“I grew up with a car junkie dad, who was always buying and restoring cheap cars my whole life,” he said. “He used to take me to sprint car races and some NASCAR events, so I grew up on race culture being around him. When we heard that we were booked, that was the first thing I told him.”

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