The first vinyl release on Rebirth came out about a year and a half ago, and besides some instagram posts I don’t really get to talk about bands on the label/general thoughts on the scene™️so this seems like an easier way to keep people informed on all things REBIRTH.
SUMMER OF SCARAB
Flying the Rebirth banner everywhere from opening for THE HOPE CONSPIRACY at the legendary church in Philly, to Cali for SOUND AND FURY,to being part of the BBB EUROPEAN TAKEOVER tour(they’re staying Rebirth Army, just to squash that rumor- Sam is just the man and loved the band so asked them to be part of it ) and ending this month with back to back weekends in NYC for the INTEGRITY/EXC/and DEADGUY and TIHC supporting COLD AS LIFE.
Tyler Mullen sings and brings a level of intensity to the band rarely seen in todays scene so I picked his brain about how the last year or so has been for him and the band
I remember hanging out in your basement a couple years ago and talking to you about how you had a new band you had in the works, and it was going to be named SCARAB- when you explained the meaning behind it all I could think about was how sick it was -did you think when that convo was happening and all you had was a name that you would have hit the ground running as hard as you have?
Tyler:No I didn’t, never thought that name would see the light of the day out of the list of band names. And it was spelled “scarob” at the time.
The demo did really well, we didn’t expect it too. It was very laid back and recorded pretty quick. Was going through a lot at that time too, which helped fuel it.
How was the Europe tour?
Tyler:Europe tour was great. We scootered the hell out of every city. Italy and Dresden, Germany were prolly my favorite dates. Lots of younger moshers throwing it down in Italy right now. Switzerland was amazing sights too. Swam in 30 degree water. Spent entirely too much money on chocolate. Just a lot of good memories with the guys. And Andrew Cordingley was there.
I always feel like being a singer is the worst job in a touring band, how are you feeling after all these shows fests and tours the last few months? Is there anything you do to keep yourself in the right mindset?
Tyler:Can’t lie, since we got back almost a month ago, I’ve been pretty congested since. I do a lot of damage on purpose and I really don’t care. That’s what I get. Still, I drink a lot of warm/ hot tea and eat a banana to relax my muscles. Just try to be mindful of your body while you’re screaming. All the exercise of playing sets is good for you. Get more exercise doing that than I do at home most of the time.
Oh and sleep. Sleep is crucial out of all those things.
You've gotten to play with bands like Blacklisted/Unbroken/The Hope Conspiracy, what's it like to be able to do that and be respected by legendary bands like them?
Tyler:Yeah I love those bands. Playing with them is a trip, it’s what I grew up on in my teens. Young Ty wouldn’t believe it. To hear those dudes say they like our band is awesome too. Makes me feel like we’re doing something genuine and right cus over the years, they’ve all seen what can be real and what can be fake musically.
is there a part of the set you look forward to the most, a mosh part or lyric that gets you the most hyped ?
Tyler:Probably “All for nothing” during Disposal. Makes me hate everything and bring to life why the reason I wrote it. Or the last day chorus. That was the first song I wrote lyrics too when this band started and it’s how I feel a lot. Just cool to see people relate and feel those lyrics.
anything you want people to know the band has coming up?
Tyler:One song coming out with From Within Records, one scene comp. “Sick Joke”
TERMINATOR came stateside for the first time in June with STIGMATISM/NARCAN/DISGUISED and DEMONSTRATE(might be the best philly edge band ever, not that there’s much competiton besides bands like I Hate You, the one good song on the DAMAGE II record, and not counting bands like CANON who were from the burbs) .The show predictably wasn’t packed because as much as people say they miss “regular hardcore” ….they don’t know what they’re talking about and pose hard. S/o MUNDANE MOSHERS fanzine for making the trek up and putting most the Philly mosh to shame. Demonstrate opened it up with their brand of “would have been sick before No Tolerance at any show in 2012” style hxc, Disguised continues to be my favorite younger kid band with vocals I can only compare to THE AFTERMATH. TERMINATOR impressed everyone I talked to who weren’t aware of them prior and lived up to the hype of anyone else who was anticipating their first show here. It’s great seeing this squad continuing to put out great hardcore 15 or so years since I first met them. Narcan’s first philly show was great and the No Comment influence was way more apparent live,Stigmatism has been in constant rotation since they came out so I was siked to catch them finally, definitely worth the wait.
FALSE SALVATION is a band fronted by Philly Hxc staple Kevin Hare,with my former landlord Marty Williams on guitar. It’s always good seeing someone who puts so much time into other bands pits getting the love back when his own band plays, opening with BIOHAZARD and including an interesting rendition of “Can’t Tell No One” which may or may not have gotten some lyrics confused but as a drunk jackass told me shortly before skating away after paying my band a paltry sum at a skatepark in 2009…”that’s hardcore bro.”
It's been 15 years since you've sang in a band,what made you decide to get back up there and do something new? What bands did FS pull from?
KH:I’ve wanted to sing for a new band for years at this point, but nothing ever came together. Sometimes people would say they’d write me a demo, sometimes others were lukewarm when I brought it up, it just never really worked out at the time. I’d been talking to some people again recently about doing something and was actually in mid-conversation with someone else about something different when Marty texted me and asked to sing for a band he’d been working on, so of course I’d say yes.
As far as what bands we pull from, I think generally the idea is to sound like a pretty straightforward 2000s band with good mosh parts but that isn’t too heavy. The easy comparison is a band like Blacklisted, the greatest Philadelphia band ever, but I think honestly it’s just a reaction against how heavy hardcore is getting these days. There is nothing wrong with being heavy but we just want to find a little bit of a balance. Good driving fast parts plus mosh is all we want. American Nightmare, Horror Show, bands like that were what I got drawn into when I was getting into hardcore, and that kind of vocals are what naturally come out. I don’t think I really sound like they do but I have one speed and one style.
What were you feeling leading up to the demo dropping/the first show? How did you feel when both were done?
KH:My time in the band was pretty brief before the demo was recorded, so I didn’t have too much time to really think about recording ahead of time - I finished the lyrics and recorded the next day. That part was nice because I didn’t feel any pressure. I had ideas in my head and they pretty much all worked. The demo was done for two months before it came out, though, so I was pretty self conscious about it. I played it for as many people as I could and feedback was very positive, so I felt confident but it has been years since I’ve put myself out there for an actual band and not just a dumb sideshow band so I was pretty nervous. When it came out, it just felt like a relief. I couldn’t believe how many people shared and posted it. I figured everyone realized that it was me doing it, but I realized that most people didn’t, so the reaction was natural. That felt good. I wasn’t too nervous about the show other than I knew for sure I would forget lyrics and I did. The show itself was sick, not a dud and feedback was once again good. I kind of forgot that it both is fun to play shows and hard at the same time so it was nice to get the first one out of the way.
Do you have any goals for the band or are you just seeing what happens with no real plan in mind?
KH:No goals, really. Just wanna play cool shows with bands I like and respect wherever we can. We are all old with real jobs so there will never be any “going for it” but we just want to see what happens. There are already new songs being worked on. All I really want is to hold a record of a band I’m in in my hand someday.
You're one of the most dedicated coremen I know-what is it about the scene,specifically Philly,that keeps you caring about new bands/supporting shows as much as you did when we met almost 20 years ago?
KH:Nothing is cooler to me than discovering new music and bands. I always want to find something new. There will always be something out there that is worth finding, no matter what is going on in hardcore. No one loves every band from every new era, but I think it is important to just look for what you like and not try to like everything. There will always be awesome new bands, sometimes you just have to search for them. Hardcore is the coolest thing in the world, it’s completely changed my life and created every single ethic and ideal I have. A complete world builder for me. It will always be a part of me. The Philadelphia scene is my favorite thing in the world. It’s given me most of my friends, most of my memories. There’s no place I’d rather be than in the front room of the Church with my friends.
Favorite philly show you've ever attended/most memorable pit
KH:Hard to pick one so I will give you a few:
-Horror Show Nicky Money return show: absolutely terrifying. This one changed my life. It was scary and wild but I knew I was hooked right then. Almost every scary Philadelphia guy in history was moshing.
-I was going to name a specific Blacklisted set but couldn’t pick one, so I will pick a few that are connected: they were going to break up in 2006. I got a call when I was on the way to see them with 108 and All Else Failed at the Church that July telling me that night was the last Blacklisted Church show and that This is Hardcore would be their last show. They hadn’t announced it, but you could tell some people knew. Joe Hardcore was stagediving the entire set. It just had a crazy/weird vibe. They decided to not break up but still played TIH. They opened with a clip from Get In The Van by Henry Rollins about touring and went right into Eye For An Eye. It was just absolute mayhem. I got punched in the neck so hard I got a concussion. A few months later, they played a cool short lived venue in West Philly called the PhilaFunk live. It was like, a community center on the second floor of a row home type of building. This was the first time they played songs from Peace On Earth, War on Stage. Our jaws just dropped hearing these new songs. No one could process how cool George sounded. The whole room moshed to songs they didn’t know. He also sang Eye For An Eye. If you ever heard the WERS radio set Deathwish released, that was recorded like a week after this show. It is one of my favorite shows ever. A few months after that, the release show for Peace On Earth was also at the same place. They headlined a stacked bill. It was kind of a celebration of the culmination of the last year - from near death to rebirth.
-Cro-Mags on the floor upstairs and Broad Street ministry. This was following maybe the worst week of my life. Nothing better than seeing on of the greatest ever one a floor show at the best venue around at the time with tons of friends.
STEAMROLL is a rare NYC straight edge band with Combust guys and I couldn’t agree to put the demo out fast enough when it was sent over. Stop and Think has quickly become the “FFO 86 Mentality” of 2024 and is bullshit most of the time but the best parts of these songs to me are when it hits that perfectly, dope mosh parts, everything you need. They have some shows coming up in Jersey and NY supporting Trail Of Lies on their record release weekend
STOCKPILE features members of DIMENSION SIX, one of my current “straight up” hardcore bands so I knew i’d be into the tracks. I caught them in Delaware at the beginning of the summer and they ripped through the demo in less than 10 minutes, couldn’t ask for much more out of a band. They’re releasing some new music soon and doing a northeast weekend coming up so if you can make sure you get out and catch a gig.
CRIME 84 put up a new record called “Stolen” on bandcamp last month, more ripping UK82 shit from Jakarta. Gonana try and put it up on other streaming sites for them soon,I doubt they’ll ever make it over to the states but all the live videos are crazy to see and they deserve way more love than they get.
Face The Pain records are running low without ever playing a show yet….which changes August 10th in the greatest city in the world….Philadelphia, with the return of SOUL SEARCH to Philly, NYHC COMBUST,Detroit’s finest NEG and the gods MINDFORCE… supergroup is an understatement for these long time hxc vets, and might have single handedly rescued the words “youth crew” from the depths of hell it’s been buried in for years at this point. The record is much needed in today’s ‘core landscape so hopefully it influences kids to know it’s ok to not just play what’s popular right now and X up/throw on bringin it down and mosh their living room.
What's been missing in classic straight edge hardcore sounding bands for awhile that you wanted to bring back with Face The Pain?
Lennon: I feel like the goal post has moved a little bit for straight edge hardcore. Obviously, sxe ‘core can, and does mean a lot of things, but when you used to hear it things like Judge and YOT were what would immediately come to mind. For a younger/newer audience, I feel like they’re quicker to associate it with heavier/more metallic stuff, which is cool, but I just wanted people to be exposed to a more “classic” Sxe sound in a way that feels fresh and current and relatable and they don’t just see as like weird old out of touch guy music. We’re by no means trying to reinvent straight edge HC, but we’re trying to reinvigorate it.
Your first show is coming up soon and the records been out for a couple months at this point-has it been hard waiting to play the songs live already/any expectations for the set?
Lennon:Yeah, waiting has been tough but it kind of worked out because all of us were so busy with other bands all summer that this was the first show that made sense. I’m glad we waited though because the lineup is perfect. As far as the set goes, I expect that we will play a couple of covers, and I expect (hope) that kids are into them.
Did you feel pressure to put something out people were gonna like with the lineup you put together for the band? Or were you just wanting to put something you fucked with out there and if people liked it they liked it
Lennon:Like I said, we just wanted to put it out there that this type of HC still exists and has a place in the world. Really, we just wanted to make something that we all are nerds about. It seems like the reaction has been way more positive than we expected which is obviously awesome, but at the end of the day even if nobody cared it was still a real fun demo to write and record.
One thing I always notice with bands you do is you put a lot of time and effort into your lyrics-what lyrics on the record would you show someone to let them know what the bands all about
Lennon:I would say picking just one song off the demo is hard, we made it a point to cover different topics throughout. Straight Edge songs, angry songs, self-reflective songs… all the DNA of a classic sxe record is there. What I will say is kids should all put more time and effort into digesting the lyrics in their favorite hardcore records. Whether it’s Straight Ahead or it’s Cold as Life or anything in between, the lyrics are a crucial component of what makes HC what it is, and I feel like alot of kids just fully don’t care about that aspect anymore.
what's the best move in the step down music video?
Lennon:It’s gotta be THE GORILLA. Dude doing that one is going absolutely fucked up crazy hard in the video. Need to see more of that maneuver in the future. Also am partial to PICKIN UP CHANGE and THE WINDMILL which would round out my top 3.
anything else you wanna add?
Lennon: Shout out to Wreckage, Collateral, Utility, Never Ending Game, Magnitude, Demonstration of Power, Mindforce, Burning Lord, Silver, Missing Link, Blow Your Brains Out, Bulls Shitt, Killing Frost and All 4 All.
NUCLAE from the mind of the God A2 has been playing out in Ohio consistently, hope to bring them out to Philly for something sick soon,I truly love the record and hope to see them in person soon.
NO ECHO did a week on 2000s hardcore recently -2000-2004 is still probably my favorite era which makes sense since my first show was fall ‘99 and everything’s the greatest thing on earth when you start getting into it. That being said just wanna throw some love to the best 00s music video…Striking Distance “Fail Me” watch, take notes, punch your friend in the face when his bands playing
A moment of silence for this puzzling since deleted post
REBIRTH SHOWCASE
Been asked about this a few times…got some ideas on how to make this worthwhile so we’ll see what happens
2024 RELEASES
More than halfway through the year so here’s what’s stuck with me so far
Invertebrates- sick to survive
Demonstrate - demo
Burning lord LP
Alienator- time to die
No idols demo
Collateral - we still know
Crush your soul
Stuff I’ve been listening to:
185 Miles South-Jerry A/Paul Bearer crossover episode truly an all timer
Uniform Choice-Once I Cry
Fear Of God-Drift
Clubber Lang-Varsity Violence
AF- One Voice
Supertouch-live at the tune inn ‘93
Direct Control first 7 inch
GG Allin- commit suicide
Thanks for taking the time to check this out, gonna try and make this a regular thing depending on how much there is to talk about with new releases/shows/etc. Respect to the kings of substack SCHEME RECORDS and 185 Miles South