Ten Years Of Mortified Live: A Metal Band, Marriages & A Lot Of Awkward Teenage Angst

Ten Years Of Mortified Live: A Metal Band, Marriages & A Lot Of Awkward Teenage AngstPhotos: Todd Hartman/Mortified
Pooja Bhatt
Published on November 28, 2015

Each new generation of adults is embarrassed by things they did as kids. And as Mortified Live's Bay Area chapter has discovered over the last decade, each new generation wants to have a group confessional about their younger selves.

“To me, it feels a little emotional, it feels like really a community that has been built up," says Scott Lifton, the local producer of the show today, about its 10-year Bay Area anniversary this coming Friday at DNA Lounge.

Mortified is a recurring stage show running in cities around the world, that features "adults sharing their most embarrassing childhood artifacts (journals, letters, poems, lyrics, plays, home movies, art) with others, in order to reveal stories about their lives."


It began in 2002 when a writer named David Nadelberg got inspired by a ridiculous love letter he had written in high school. Mortified has since morphed beyond the stage into other media, including a book, and a Sundance series featuring confessions from stars. 

"It’s a celebration of something that I didn’t think would last so long and be so successful," adds Lifton. "It’s a very near and dear thing to me.” 

In 2005, he and his co-producer and wife, Heather Van Atta, began organizing shows for crowds of 165 to 200 people a night at the Make-Out Room in The Mission.

Even then, it was nearly impossible for people to make their way through the packed venue for a drink or a bathroom break. Today, Mortified Live Bay Area boasts shows in both San Francisco and Oakland, for crowds of up to 600 and 400 people respectively — making it the most popular chapter of the organization nationally.


Part of the reason, Lifton says, is that the atmosphere of acceptance Mortified Live fosters also echoes the reputation of the San Francisco Bay Area as a community that opens its arms to outsiders and outcasts. “A city like this really loves to root for the underdog.”

Over the years, countless numbers of everyday people have taken the Mortified Live Bay Area stages to find catharsis — and share more than a few belly laughs — by confronting their younger selves in front of roomfuls of strangers. And a good deal of those people have gotten more than they bargained for from the experience.

One performer (and now one of Lifton’s closest friends), Laurent Martini, submitted the lyrics to several of the 120 songs he wrote as a teenager for a heavy metal band that never existed: Live Evil.

Lifton and Van Atta loved the entries immediately, and did Martini one better than just putting him on the roster to perform.


“I said I’ll tell you what, I know some people who are musicians. What if I got them to be this band, they would play your songs and it’s like the vision that you had of yourself as a teenager performing them onstage,” Lifton recalls. “We made some Live Evil t-shirts, with a fog machine, and they performed it as Live Evil.”

Because of the show, the group ended up forming a real local band, playing the songs Martini wrote as a teenager. They also produced a rock opera, Heavy Metal Playground, which won the Best of Fringe award at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2008. 

Beyond making childhood dreams a reality, Mortified Bay Area has also played matchmaker a time or two. After a show a few years ago, performer Mark Schwartz returned home to find a Facebook message in his inbox (in diary entry format, of course) from an admirer who had seen him onstage that night. They began dating, and, according to Lifton, got married about six months ago.

Live Evil on stage in March of this year. Photo: Live Evil/Facebook

Mortified co-founder Neil Katcher also met his wife through Mortified Bay Area, in Lifton’s words; through reading “awful poetry.” Lifton officiated the wedding and the couple’s parents read their kids’ old diary entries aloud at the ceremony as well.

It’s precisely all of this uplifting and unconventional history that the Mortified Bay Area 10th anniversary show on Dec. 4 is meant to celebrate. The night will feature readings from unique performers, such as a girl who kept a spreadsheet of all the boys she kissed, complete with numerical ratings, after the age of 17. Also featured will be a “Worst Teen Poetry Slam” competition, performances from local San Francisco freestyle rap and comedy group The Freeze and an appearance by Nadleberg himself.

Photo: Mortified Bay Area

Given the demand, there will be a 7 pm early show and a 10 pm late show, with an 80s/90s themed dance party at the DNA Lounge following the late show (ticket holders for the 10 p.m. show will be granted free admission to the dance party). 

For Lifton, the 10th anniversary signifies how much the Mortified movement does to bring people from all walks of life together and free them from the constraints of their own past embarrassment.

“I really celebrate the idea of standing up and having this cathartic experience, that we’re all awkward and no matter what our race or gender or sexual preference nobody knew what they were doing. And being able to stand up there and laugh at it and stand by that is a really great feeling.”