My friend W turned me on to Hatebreed… little did he know it would literally save my life.

🤘 Metal! 🤘

My default music genre is heavy metal. My happy music is hair metal – give me a good Winger song any day (Reb Beach is a monster and you know it). And to be consistently of-the-80s, I also love thrash metal: Metallica, Slayer, Overkill, Anthrax, Sepultura, Dark Angel – the band I went to Milwaukee Metal Fest 2023 for – more recent bands like Havok, Lazarus A.D., Municipal Waste, and Angelus Apatrida (who I first learned of at MMF23). Heavy Metal Parking Lot was my teenage reality.

A related genre always interesting to me was punk and hardcore. I grew up in the 1980s in the Washington D.C. area. I remember a punk kid in high school with his sky-high mohawk and “Marginal Man” leather jacket. I recall learning about the Bad Brains overhearing a couple dudes talking at the Tower Records over in Tysons Corner. Dischord Records. Minor Threat. I never got deeply into the DC scene at that young age, but I was aware, curious, and influenced.

College radio naturally exposed me to many things. Got see Suicidal Tendencies live a few times. Being Metal Director at WXJM in the early 1990s I got exposed to albums by bands like Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags, and getting “on the list” to see live shows like the New Titans On the Block tour which exposed me to Sick of It All.

Then one day in the early 2000s, my friend W turned me on to Hatebreed and that was it.

NYHC (New York Hardcore)

While Hatebreed isn’t from New York (they’re from Connecticut) it’s that New York Hardcore sound and foundation. That raw brutal anger from and of the city streets – not just any city, but New York City. Biohazard’s Wrong Side of the Tracks presents the city’s ethos at a mid-way break where Evan shouts: “…and when you’re in fuckin’ Brooklyn, you best watch your back!”. This ain’t L.A., baby.

I was exposed to this music and scene through working metal radio in the early 1990s. Biohazard’s Urban Discipline was released in 1992 and I was drawn to it. The rawness, the anger, the aggression. And there was something more: a morality.

I liked Biohazard (Punishment) and again the Bad Brains (Soul Craft). (Fun fact: Bad Brains got “Banned in DC“, moved to NYC, and heavily influenced the burgeoning music scene that fed into NYHC). Hatebreed is the one that really did it for me. I think it was the heavy crunch of the guitars and “chugga” rhythm – that mixing of punk and metal – Jamey’s aggressive vocal delivery, and the particular direction of the lyrics. 

These days I’ve found myself rediscovering the Cro-Mags (No One’s Victim). Yeah, original band members John and Harley have issues; those are their issues, not mine. I like them both: Harley’s music sings to me, and John’s writings speak to me (I’m reading his book The PMA Effect). It’s about that PMA (Positive Mental Attitude).

And you see, that’s the thing. There’s a dichotomy between the music and the message. The music is brutal, but so is life. And the message is about life, about survival, rage, persevering, growing stronger. Some of the NYHC dudes were Hare Krishna, Bad Brains are Rasta, and that came through in their music.

And that’s the difference…

It is positive

The aggression of the music: the loud guitars, the barking vocals singing how you should “destroy everything“, which sounds bad on the surface. However, upon looking deeper one discovers it’s directing ourselves to “obliterate what makes us weak” – it’s very inward. That is a song to (re)build strength by.

Bad Brains would go from manic 30 second songs to stoney reggae numbers like I Luv I Jah, a song about being “cool that way” and how “I gotta keep my PMA”. In fact, the notion of “Positive Mental Attitude” originates in Bad Brains’ song Attitude:

Don’t care what you may say,

We got that attitude!

Don’t care what you may do,

We got that attitude!

Hey! We got that PMA!

Hey! We got that PMA!

Bad Brains – Attitude

Legend has it when H.R. was a teenager his father gave him a copy of Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. “It was saying, if you do it in your mind, if you get your mind right, you can do anything.” H.R. spread that message through his music.

Back to the Cro-Mags. Drag You Under: 

Sometimes life is a real motherfucker. 

Sometimes it feels like life is going to drag you under.

But you just can’t quit.

Cro-Mags – Drag You Under

Couple that with the juggernaut chugga of the song lead by Harley’s aggressive delivery. It injected me with something. “You just can’t quit” sticks in my head… a lot. A drum beat. A mantra. A drill sergeant (in the best possible way). An external voice always in my ear. In No One’s Victim Harley snarls:

You can’t let your circumstances define who you are.

Cuz only death is certain – everything else optional.

Your happiness depends on no one else but you.

Cuz no one else can live your life or fill your grave but you.

Cro-Mags – No One’s Victim

Very memento mori. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” – Epictetus

Hardcore-adjacent would be Suicidal Tendencies. You’d think with a name like that their songs wouldn’t be about life and living, but they are – they are about the struggle (How Will I Laugh Tomorrow) but also the triumph (The Feeling’s Back). Behold the epic outro rant by Mike Muir on You Can’t Bring Me Down:

Just cuz you don’t understand what’s going on don’t mean it don’t make no sense.

And just cuz you don’t like it don’t mean it ain’t no good.

And lemme tell you something

Before you go takin’ a walk in my world, you better take a look at the real world; cuz this ain’t no Mr. Rogers neighborhood!

Can you say “Feel like shit?” Yeah maybe sometimes I do feel like shit. I ain’t happy about it but I’d rather feel like shit than be full of shit.

And if I offended you? Oh I’m sorry but maybe you need to be offended! Well here’s my apology and one more thing… FUCK YOU!

Suicidal Tendencies – You Can’t Bring Me Down

That sermon – especially the opening lines – has been a plank in my personal philosophy since 18-year-old John first heard the song. And lately, the whole “rather feel like shit than be full of shit” has held true.

Hatebreed brings it the most for me. The entire Perseverance album, each song and the album vibe as a whole. That’s the voice in my head. The title song:

You can’t accept what you’ve been told. Anchored in sin you must reverse your descent.

Declare the weight of the world has yet to claim you, and admit that your faults will not restrain you.

Glimpses of fate bring light to your despair; realize hope isn’t short of your grasp!

Resurrect every dream that you’ve buried alive – and never succumb to the war that you fight in your heart!

Your world is coming apart? Remain steadfast!

Perseverance!

Against all opposition!

Crushing all limitations!

Pure strength through solitude!

Discipline and determination!

Hatebreed – Perseverance

Because we must persevere. That song is a sonic reminder – the music becoming a functional ear-worm, constantly beating important words into my head. That drill sergeant telling me to: “Keep. Showing. Up.”

Recently I found myself drawn to the title track from Hatebreed’s eighth studio album Weight of the False Self:

If you want to make a difference in the world (it means) you have to be different from the world (you see).

No victim mindset, raise your standard. Your true self calls and you must answer!

Lift the weight of the false self crushing you

Lift yourself up from malevolence

Lift the curse of the fatalist haunting you

Lift yourself out from the death grip

Lift the burden upon your shoulders

There’s a challenge that’s begging to be risen to! There’s a voice and it’s your true self calling you. End the cycle, kill all willful self-abuse. Never justify another excuse!

…

Lift the weight of the false self and you will be set free

Hatebreed – The Weight of the False Self

I wasn’t deeply familiar with the concepts of “true self” and “false self”, so I started reading about them, learning more. So THIS is where my imposter syndrome comes from! Learning about the notion of false self has given me much to consider. I’ve found myself doing a lot of inward examination, seeing how I have been living my false self. It’s been sobering… it’s been ego-crushing to learn how I have been living my false self; in fact, I’ve been living a number of false selfs. And while hard to accept that ego-crushing pain, I know it’s good for the false self to be crushed so I can bring my true self forward. It’s like a phoenix: “rebuild and start again, obliterate what makes us weak”.

Saving myself

I am human. I am an imperfect and flawed creature. I am just trying to get through this life (in my own way). I need ways to let off steam. I need ways to draw strength. I find both through hardcore music.

The obvious aggression of the music is motivating and fueling. As you might expect, my gym playlist has numerous songs by hardcore bands, especially Hatebreed. Loud music cranked in my AirPods while I crank out reps with heavy-ass weight? A zone of happy. 😄 Or simply just cranking loud music and air guitaring around the house! There’s motivation, but there’s also release. The music fuels a release of that energy! As a table once said, “I want my anger to be healthy.“

The lyrical content provides another angle. It provokes me to examine myself, finding where I am weak, pushing me to build myself into something stronger. The lyrics provide me with oft-needed reminders, especially as life’s journey has taken me through dark roads. I wanted to quit – really quit – a number of times. I’ve battled depression since I was a teenager. I kept telling myself to just keep showing up. All storms pass.

I hear Harley barking in my ear: “…but you just can’t quit“.

Truly. Hardcore music saved my life.