When heavy metal is your family’s business, you end up having some interesting summers growing up.

Just ask Brandon Self, 20, now drummer for Bend death metal trio Existential Depression, which will play the third annual Central Oregon Metalfest at Third Street Pub on Saturday.

During the summer between Self’s seventh- and eighth-grade years, he got a call from his father’s band at the time, Snap Point, while he was at a diabetic camp. The band’s drummer had just quit, and they needed someone to fill in for the next three months of shows. Self was 13 at the time.

“I had only been drumming not even two years at that point, but I said, ‘Yeah, dude, I’d love to be jamming with my dad,’” Self said. “I’d been listening to them for quite a while at that point. … I filled in with them for the three-month summer break they had.”

The experience playing in bars at age 13 ended up being a formative one for Self, who has played in his own band with his younger brother, Damon, 18, and friend Forest Baer, 19, since 2010.

“It definitely taught me how to be a little more mature around certain groups of people,” he said. “In terms of being in and being out, when it was time for us to play, I’d bring in my drums, play and then tear down the drums, and that was the end of it. … I didn’t really complain that much; I was just excited to be playing shows, doing that whole end of things.”

Brandon’s father, Mike Self, now guitarist for local band Death Agenda and owner of COMA Booking and Promotions, which puts on the Metalfest, couldn’t be prouder of his son.

“Seven Drumworks, the drum company, actually hit us up and gave Brandon — they full-on gave Brandon a drum endorsement,” Mike said.

Along with Existential Depression and Death Agenda, the Metalfest will feature performances from bands across the Northwest, including Vanquish the King, Psithurism, Morbid Fascination, Trojan Swamp Monster, Neuroethic, The Beerslayers, Gravewitch, Grim Ritual, Season of Suffering, Cruciation, Godenied, Spawn and Damage Overdose. Seattle, Washington, death metal group Drawn and Quartered will headline the event.

“(This festival) was an idea that me and a couple buddies had. At first we were thinking local bands, and we reached out to them, and now we have bands from Eugene, Portland and Vancouver, Washington,” Mike said. “This year we have Drawn and Quartered coming all the way down from Seattle to play. It’s been slowly building up as far as the Metalfest goes. The main intent behind doing it is to open the door and have something all the metal bands in town can look forward to.”

The metal bug — actually, the music bug in general — bit Brandon and his brothers early on in life. While he obviously doesn’t remember it, his father was playing metal around the house right after he came home from the hospital.

“My dad told me he’s been feeding me metal since day two of being alive,” Brandon said. “When I was something like two days old, they were able to bring me home, and (my dad said) the first things he popped in were Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death and Sepultura. So I’ve been listening to those three bands right there for 20 years; those were my main three bands as a kid.”

Brandon, Damon and Baer have been playing music together almost from the moment they first picked up instruments as young kids. However, they didn’t get serious about being in a band until about five years ago with a group called Embrace the Fear. Originally, they played with another guitarist and a vocalist; when they quit, the Self brothers and Baer decided to soldier on as a trio.

The band released a self-titled album in August, and is hoping to record a two- to four-song demo after Metalfest. Last year, the band did a 2½-week tour of the Northwest and managed to break even with finances; they’re hoping to go out for longer later this year or early next year.

“The connections we’ve made based off those (shows), we could totally take a month and tour and be cool with it,” Brandon said. “The thing is, these days, it’s not the ’80s anymore. You can’t just take off and be rock stars; you’ve gotta make some money and work for it. We all have full-time jobs, we all work.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com