The lights are low, the crowd gathers, and the feedback from electric guitars echoes through the room. 

“WE ARE MORBIDITY!” The frontman growls out. The crowd cheers in response.

He looks like he was taken straight from the cover of Kerrang! magazine. But behind the big hair, under the patched up vest, beyond the barricade, he’s former Moraine Valley student Jacob Atut.

Atut grew up in the Oak Lawn neighborhood north of 99th Street and attended Oak Lawn Community High School. More recently, he was a student in the 399 program at Moraine Valley, a course that prepares students to work in the union as stationary engineers.

But when he isn’t learning how to service HVAC and mechanical systems, he’s in his room riffing out a new track for his death metal band, Morbidity—or he’s on the stage at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago.

Music has always been an integral part of Atut’s life. Both of his parents are metalheads, so they raised him on bands like Metallica and Pantera. His girlfriend, Michelle Gonzalez, describes him as “an old soul.” In high school, he always said he was born in the wrong generation; he loves everything about the ’80s–the music, the fashion and the media. 

While some teens rebel against their parents’ generation of music by getting into the dark and heavy stuff, Atut’s situation was exactly the opposite.

“I grew up with a lot of different metal genres, but as I got older I experienced more ‘80s stuff. One of my favorite groups is Journey,” Atut says. “I know that’s surprising coming from someone like me, but I love Journey a lot.”

One of Atut’s biggest heroes is Cliff Burton, the late bassist of Metallica. Burton passed away in a bus accident during the band’s 1986 Damage, Inc. tour— almost 20 years before Atut was born. But the legacy Burton left behind of heavy bass lines, jean jackets and long unruly hair ignited something in Atut’s spirit.

“I saw his bass playing and I was like, ‘I gotta do this. I gotta pick up an instrument,’” Atut said.

For three years, Atut was a student in the guitar studio program at Oak Lawn. The delicate, nylon-stringed instruments the class was structured around are leagues different from the Flying Vs that his heroes tend to play. But he took the class to have fun and to integrate his passion for music into his boring, dreadful school schedule.

He’s always been drawn to the stage. In high school, Atut played covers of his favorite death metal songs at every talent show. At Moraine Valley, he and his band, Morbidity, competed in the Battle of the Bands. Although they didn’t win the final round, they had fun sharing their music with their peers and the rest of the community.

“We’re pretty influenced by the ‘90s underground wave of death metal,” said Hector Santos, Atut’s good friend and the other guitarist of Morbidity.

The names of bands that inspire their sound–Death, Pestilence, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Autopsy, Morbid Angel—all sound like words picked straight out of a medical textbook or mortuary handbook. 

You can never catch Atut not repping a band on his T-shirt. He’s often sporting images involving blood and guts, maggots, worms, bugs or pentagrams. But he’s not some sort of crazy satanist; in his mind, they just look cool. 

“He’s super nice,” Gonzalez said. “I feel like maybe people see his longer hair and think he’s probably mean or something, but he’s not.”

Besides being a student and a musician, Atut works mornings at a local grocery store as a cart collector. Everyone in the store knows him. He chops it up with the security guards in the front. He makes jokes with the store managers. He even stops to hold a conversation with the regulars or help an elderly woman pack her groceries into her car. 

Before Morbidity took off, Atut could come off as awkward or shy. He often stayed silent or opted to say only a few words at a time, but with practice from the shows he’s played, he’s become a much more social person. Now, Atut will always be the first to greet you when you cross paths.

“I met Jake in a Walmart,” Santos said, laughing. “I was wearing an Obituary shirt and he was like, ‘Nice shirt!’ I saw him walk past and I was like, ‘Oh wow. I should’ve talked to that guy, he knows his stuff.’”

Atut laughed as he reminisced on the day: “Like 20 minutes after I got home, I was scrolling through Instagram stories and I saw his and I was like, ‘Oh crap, that’s the dude I just walked past in Walmart! I gotta text this guy.”

That’s just the kind of guy he is: Without fail, he always finds a way to bond over music or tie it into the conversation. Whether it’s scoping out a band shirt to compliment, talking about the anniversary of one of his favorite albums or mentioning the new single his band dropped, he makes it known that he’s serious about music. It’s his biggest passion.

It all pays off, though. In early February, Morbidity played two special shows in Florida. Thousands of artists had shared the same legendary stage that they played on, in a venue called The Brass Mug. One of the most inspirational was Death in 1987—often credited to being the very first death metal band. 

Despite being a small band from Chicago, Morbidity got a great response from the Florida crowd, Atut and Santos said. Fans even came to their table afterwards to congratulate them, comparing the music they played to the music of legacy bands in the death metal scene.

“It was kind of crazy,” Santos said. “You know, ’cause we’re all the way in Chicago. That was a pretty cool moment–like wow, all the way in Florida people are listening to us.”

Atut added, “It’s kind of a shocker. I didn’t think that we would reach far.”

Although their fanbase is small, Atut is always excited to meet the people who are the reason he and his band can play shows in Florida and continue to book shows at Reggie’s Rock Club.

“They just started out, but he’s always more than willing to take a flick and stuff,” Gonzalez said. “He doesn’t care about signing anything. It makes him happy to think people like him and his passion.”

Atut mentioned time and again how lucky he feels to be able to do what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter that he’s in a little suburb outside of the big city of Chicago—the work he’s putting in to share what he loves with the rest of the world is what pays off. His passion for music is what’s driving him, not money or fame.

Currently, Atut and the band are working week after week writing songs, practicing, blocking out studio time and reaching out to distribution labels so that later this year they can release their debut album. It was originally going to be an EP, but Gonzalez helped to convince them to put out a full-length album instead. 

They hope to complete the album by the end of the summer. To save time and energy for recording, they won’t be focusing on playing shows in the coming months, but they can be seen live on May 19 at Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State St., opening for Witch Vomit, Torture Rack, and Organ Failure.

From a glance, Jacob Atut might seem menacing. He might seem scary, off-putting, or maybe even deranged—but he’s the exact opposite. He loves to joke around, and he cares about other people. He could be the guy in your class, the guy that works at your grocery store, or even the guy cheering next to you at a local show. But he’s a guy with big plans.