How California became a hotbed for vital new hardcore bands

“When people come to Santa Cruz, they tell us, ‘You guys sound like what this town looks like’,” Drain vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro tells NME of his hometown in the Bay Area of California.

A 40 minute drive from the larger hub of San Jose, with San Francisco another hour up the road, the coastal town sees redwood forests bleed into sandy beaches, and has become an unlikely hub of hardcore music in California, with Drain at its heart. “It just has a certain kind of energy,” Ciaramitaro says of the place. “That salty ocean air just infects your brain, and that chaotic energy breeds people like us and music like ours.”

Drain are one of a host of bands from the Golden State that are pushing hardcore forwards in 2023, both musically and socially. With a rabid and growing online following and fiercely dedicated DIY communities, it’s considered by many as one of the last true subcultures.

Pivotal in developing the Santa Cruz scene were Gulch, who broke up in a blaze of glory in the summer of 2022 and for whom Ciaramitaro played the drums. Scowl, a fierce and energetic four-piece who have recently toured with Limp Bizkit, also stand out in the town’s scene. Fronted by the enigmatic presence of Kat Moss and having already played Madison Square Garden, the quartet are breaking boundaries and making global waves. “It’s been a collective force of people showing up for one another, powerful support amongst peers, and determination to continue throwing DIY shows for every band that wants to participate,” Moss tells NME of her hometown, speaking at the tail end of a full US tour in support of Show Me The Body.

“There’s an unspoken support that feels infectious, I noticed it as soon as I started coming to shows and participating,” she adds. “Whether it was taking photos of bands, volunteering to run the door, or starting my own band — I felt supported by my friends and scene to be there and be creative. I think we are simply lucky that people outside of our scene have caught on to what’s going on and are now paying attention!”

Joining them on the Show Me The Body tour are ZULU, a powerviolence five-piece from six hours down the West Coast in Los Angeles. On debut album ‘A New Tomorrow’, released in early 2023, they mix pulverising riffs and noise with interludes that pay homage to their Black forebears, featuring samples of old soul, jazz and reggae tracks.

For their frontman Anaiah Lei, who calls NME from a tour stop in Albany, New York, the Los Angeles scene is a multi-faceted beast that features many pockets of individual scenes, with no overarching sound between them. “I don’t think we’re a part of any of them though,” he says, considering ZULU to stand apart partly out of design but also from circumstance.

Despite not sharing some of the same sonic hallmarks as other bands in the scene, ZULU still possess the same exciting, disruptive DNA that is spreading across California currently. “As the band started to progress, it became more apparent that that’s what it was,” Lei adds of his band’s unique nature and sound. “I was very happy that that was the case, because it meant that we were able to grow and expand. That’s the most fun part about making music to me – not staying put.”

Also making waves are Militarie Gun, the LA-based brainchild of Ian Shelton. Formed during the pandemic, the band is forged from a history in hardcore (Shelton also plays in the brutal Regional Justice Center), and incorporate his love of ‘90s indie rock staples Modest Mouse and Built To Spill. A debut album is set to arrive this year, following the EPs ‘My Life Is Over’ and ‘All Roads Lead To The Gun’.

“I’m a very angry person, and grew up in a less than ideal situation,” Shelton, who was raised by family members struggling with addiction, tells NME. “When I showed up [to the hardcore scene], and there was people jumping off of things and hitting each other, I was like, ‘Oh, I feel at home in this chaos.’”

All four bands that spoke to NME for this piece also played Manchester’s Outbreak Festival last June, a UK mecca for hardcore music. “It was some of these bands’ first ever UK shows and I think the reaction says a lot for where they are going and how important they are right now,” the festival’s organisers tell NME over email. “These bands to us really represent the diversity and variety that exists within punk and hardcore music. You really can’t put a finger on exactly what the California sound is, and I think that’s why it’s such a special thing.”

The headliner of Outbreak 2022 was Turnstile, who played the festival the day before they slayed the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury. In the 18 months since the release of their third album ‘GLOW ON’, the Baltimore quartet have toured with My Chemical Romance and been nominated for three Grammys. Their success has served as the main catalyst for the increase in exposure of DIY hardcore scenes across the United States, with the band themselves not losing sight of their beginnings or ethics as they head towards arenas.  “I think Turnstile are really opening hardcore punk music up to people who would have never come across it otherwise and that’s an amazing thing,” Outbreak, who have hosted the band multiple times across their decade-long rise, say.

“I see people being grumpy online about it, and talking about people being tourists,” Shelton says of hardcore’s increasing visibility, citing a “really hardened DIY mentality” within the scene that shuns outside exposure and wider mainstream recognition. “Not every band is going to grab every person, and hardcore is a genre somewhat founded on being challenging and not palatable,” he adds.

Moss feels similarly, telling NME: “In my opinion, hardcore is not a space for competition. I always say, ‘If I eat, everybody eats’. There’s a lot of talk about a rising tide — to me that means that with each individual band’s success there will inevitably be success among the rest. It’s a beautiful thing and I’m just grateful to have a scene to call home.”

When Shelton first started getting involved in hardcore in the early 2010s, the band of the moment were Trash Talk, a boundary-breaking tour de force that collaborated with Odd Future and brought the brutal sound of the scene to mainstream festivals and wider public consciousness. “People absolutely lost their mind at their shows,” Shelton remembers fondly. “That was something that they fed on. They showed people that that’s what you do at these shows, then people go, ‘Oh, this band’s sets are crazy!’ It was a self fulfilling prophecy from there.” Bringing this energy through to the next generation, Trash Talk bassist Spencer Pollard was an early member of ZULU.

Elsewhere in the US today, the East Coast sound is being defined by the modern, boundary-pushing ideas of New Jersey’s Gel, the radical politics and intoxicating energy of Philadelphia’s Soul Glo, and the melodic punch of One Step Closer from Pennsylvania. Larger scale success has been found by Turnstile along with Drug Church (from Albany, NY), Knocked Loose (Kentucky) and Jesus Piece (Philadelphia).

For outsiders, the scene is documented extensively on YouTube via the hate5six channel, the project of fan Sunny Singh, which currently hosts over 6,000 videos from hardcore’s biggest and most vital gigs across the last decade and more. Any important moment in the scene – Turnstile’s hometown ‘GLOW ON’ release show in Baltimore; Gel’s 2022 gig in a New Jersey car park; ZULU’s brutal assault of noise on Baltimore this January – is likely to be documented there in full, with as much of the real-life energy and intensity transmitted as possible, while still letting you know that, as Turnstile said in their song ‘No Surprise’, “you really gotta see it live to get it”.

Shelton says: “The proliferation of hardcore is due to so many elements, and I think hate5six makes people who are on the fringes see that and go, ‘Oh wow, this is something really cool and fun and positive, but also interesting and dangerous.’”

With Drain’s new album coming this summer, Scowl’s new EP ‘Psychic Dance Routine’ landing this week (April 7), Militarie Gun following UK gigs with a debut LP and ZULU returning to the UK for Outbreak, 2023 looks set to be a(nother) breakout year for Californian hardcore. Come the new year though, don’t expect it to sound the same as it does right now.

“A lot of bands are taking the original intention of hardcore, which is founded upon catchiness as well as aggression, and bringing that back,” Shelton says of the current moment in California hardcore. “This current era is very devoted to the concept of making something new.”

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