For one rabid St. Louis music fan, there’s a certain memory that takes him back to how and why he began attending concerts in the full, face-painted, horn-wearing guise of the devil.
Mike Seavert was at home, listening to The Urge. It was the ’90s, when the group was signed to Epic/Immortal Records, and the group released the track “Straight to Hell” on a compilation dedicated to The Clash. When Seavert heard it, something clicked in his brain.
Get a guide to the region’s booming music scene
Subscribe to the St. Louis Music newsletter to discover upcoming concerts, local artists to watch, and more across an eclectic playlist of genres.
“At that moment,” he recalls, “I decided to start dressing for shows. I went as the devil for Halloween that year, and I’ve been going to every Urge show like this ever since.” Seavert (who goes by Dennis Miller on social media) isn’t just in the audience; he takes part in shows as a costumed character, “Major Ruckus The Magic Devil” (or “Ruckus” for short). Of late he’s added to his basic gear by creating a large helmet with URGE painted on it (“which I can see out of if I tilt my head back”). He’s also built an eyeball helmet based on the ones worn by noise/rock weirdos The Residents, this one made “just for fun.”
Seavert pulls his costume together in “only 20 minutes.” Adhesive gum and latex keep the horns in place, and he uses a washable face paint. The kicker is a pair of specialty contact lenses. Because most of his prep is done at home, any stops he makes on the way to the concert venue come with a lot of attention and requests for photos. The picture-taking is “nonstop,” he says. “Usually people are friendly, since the whole thing is about having fun.”
On the night we meet, Seavert’s in costume, taking part in the Midwest Avengers’ 25th-anniversary show at The Ready Room. As he walks into next-door beer pub Gezellig, folks turn and point. Moments later, he’s posing with the bar’s DJ, who’s selling vials of ghost/scorpion pepper hot sauce. Naturally, Seavert poses for a photo with the sauce and is given a bottle.
Asked whether there’s something deeper to the costume or the whole thing is just a way to make folks smile, Seavert (whose day job is “a carpenter, like Jesus”) says it’s the latter. “The whole meaning is to just have a good time and look cool at the shows,” he says. “People always get a charge out of it, no matter where I am.”
Where to spot Major Ruckus:
Seavert sometimes appears onstage with other groups, including the three below, and he’s available for gigs: “You just have to ask.” (To see what show Major Ruckus is headed to this week, you can also go to facebook.com/RuckusTheMagicDevil.)
- Ulcer, Inc: An offshoot of The Urge, this hard-rock band has created big-stage spectacles with a workers’ dystopia as the basic premise. Seavert torments the cast of worker “drones.”
- Village Idiot: A St. Louis version of Tenacious D, Village Idiot plays just a handful of shows each year. Joe Baker and Mark Rolf’s set is accompanied by the S2Ws, a mock security force with an inexplicable member: the devil. (In the interests of disclosure, this writer’s taken part in VI shows.)
- Ghost: St. Louis is a regular stop for this Scandinavian metal band, whose members wear robes and masks that hark back to the Middle Ages, and its cathedral-esque backdrop. Naturally, Seavert fits right in.
