Volume 016

7/30/2025

THE TIME HAS COME for the debut LP “BURN AFTER LISTENING” from Scarab to be unleashed into the world.As I’ve said before when Lennon first sent me the demos of the first songs the band did I was immediately a superfan and it was everything I was looking for in a hardcore band.The LP lives up to any hype or standards you built up in your head so go to rebirthrecords.bigcartel.com and grab a copy or 3. Revelation Records and Northern Unrest also have copies, so go listen and here’s some words from the mad scientists themselves about the record

SCARAB has always had different influences than a lot of current hardcore bands, what were you guys pulling from for the new lp?

Lennon: Some of these things may seem like they don't make sense together on paper, but when you listen to the record with all these in mind you'll definitely hear it: Haymaker, Disrupt, Skitsystem, Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, Terror, Citizen's Arrest, Left for Dead, Despise You, Think I Care, Integrity, Mehkago N.T., Youth of Today, Blacklisted, Confront... We take all this shit and put it together in a blender and the ugly ass fucked up result is Scarab.

How was the recording process compared to other times you've done it,how are you feeling about the record as a whole?

Lennon: This one was pretty grueling. A lot of stuff was done over and over again until we got it perfect. We wanted to make sure nothing was left on the table, so we took our time and everything was calculated and meticulous. I am really happy with how the final product turned out. I've played in a lot of bands over the years and done a lot of records, this is probably my favorite one I've ever been a part of. I feel like this is me, Mully, John, Zac and Breza's baby.

The lyrics to me are what sets the band apart from a lot of the vague general stuff most bands talk about now,is it hard to balance writing things specific to you but also have people be able to relate to what you’re saying? What bands influenced your writing style?

Mully: it’s not hard to write how I feel, but it can be hard serving a song, a lot of great vulnerable lyrics will get trashed in the making because they don’t fit a flow. To a listener It’s obviously subjective, take what you want from it. I was just feeling a certain way one day for each of those songs. Bands like judge, grimlock, disrupt to Elliott Smith. Things like anger and sadness make it easier to sit into and write.

What song would you show someone from the record to sum it up for them?

Lennon: I think it's impossible to pick one song to sum up the record. The whole thing is greater than the sum of its parts, ya know? When we wrote this I feel like the intention was to make it one flowing, cohesive release, as opposed to just a bunch of songs sharing a 12" together. It's also only 13 minutes long... sit down and listen to the whole fuckin thing start to finish!

Tell us about getting the trinity of hardcore legends on some tracks

Lennon: I think we really only wanted to get guest spots if they were like REALLY worth getting. I think all 3 that we got came out awesome, and they were like our "shoot for the stars" type ones. I can let Mully talk more about them individually if he'd like, I know that those guys have all influenced him big time one way or another as a singer/lyricist.

Mully: yeh, obviously what Lennon said, they are the 3 dudes that come to mind that match the style of scarab. They’re a big influence on me growing up in hardcore from the 2000’s, just pissed off and lyrically like minded. Great dudes. I love how it came out. Shoutout to George, Justin and Todd

The art is the most Scarab shit i’ve ever seen, what went into that?

Mully: this was very last minute, I went through a few ideas with the guys but it wasn’t hitting, but then one day I posted a painting I did on Instagram and John was like “what if we used this?”.

The painting I did one day when I was bored after work, I think I was having a bad day. I must of painted it in under 30 minutes, it extracted something very troubled from within. I sold it very quickly before we even decided to use it. Lennon printed it out, then we ripped/ taped/ burnt and stomped it out and scanned it.

The back photo was taken in San Jose while we were out there for RBS fest, I saw this massive Virgin Mary statue in the distance off the highway and I was like “we need that”! An old lady was nice enough to take the picture in the angle of how I told her how to do it.

You’ve only existed for about 2 years now and have done 2 7 inches and now an lp, what keeps the band moving and constantly pumping stuff out?

Lennon: I think we're all just fucking nuts. We always always always always always bitch and moan and gripe about how busy we are with music and how we don't have any free time and we got too much shit goin on, but I know damn well that the second we stopped if we ever did we'd be miserable. For me, it sounds corny, but just creating music, especially hardcore, it's just who I am and something I just feel this weird calling that I just have to do it, it's been that way for legitimately more than half of my life at this point.

Any places you’re trying to hit with the new record out?

Lennon: We've got some west coast stuff in the works, I'm really siked to get out to Cali and play some smaller more intimate shows, since the only stuff we've done out that way is big fest type stuff, which has been awesome, so I'm sure the small shows will be nuts. We've gotten asked alot about Texas as well as Canada, and we're scheming to get to both of those places as well. Personally, I am really into what they got goin on right now in Minneapolis, Everybody Takes One is one of my favorite new bands and I would love to go play out there with them. Japan is also always somewhere im striving to go. Bucket list spot that has been discussed: Hawaii. We'll see where we end up.

Give me one sentence to describe these songs

CLOSURE - Pedal all the way down right out of the gate.

ANIMAL IN PAIN - Working Title was "Evil Youth Crew". An anxiety ballad

EVERYBODY IN THE WAY - Mully's greatest enemy on this earth is i-95 Traffic.

UGLY - Scarab's take on an early AF song.

TEN FOOT SHADOW - "Bring It The Fuck On".

WITHDRAWN - First SCARAB song Idea I ever had, never was able to finish it until now. A misanthropic atomic bomb of a track.

NAIL GUN - Dis-Scarab.

INTRO/THE BUG - When the Alien walks across the screen on the news.

Anything else you guys wanna add?

Thank you for putting out the record and asking us these questions. I love everyone in the band very, very much and getting to finally see all the work we put into this come to fruition means a whole lot to me. I appreciate everybody who's supported the band since day one, we know who you are and will never forget. PHILA-DELAWARE STRAIGHT EDGE.

The other new release comes to you straight from the bay, ELIMINATORS have put out a 4 song 7 inch of hardcore straight edge glory. I love these tracks and am siked after knowing Ace for probably over 15 years at this point to be teaming up and getting to put out such a sick record. Yet again go to the Rebirth store and scoop one, the rare color has been out for a minute but there’s some copies of the press left for when you eventually stumble upon a copy of the white vinyl one day to complete the set.

Can you give some backstory on how ELIMINATORS came about?

First off, huge shout out to Rebirth for 1. putting out our 7" and 2. Creating a hub for actual hardcore punk in the current era. Eliminators came about in kind of a series of events. I moved to The Bay at the end of 2021 and there wasn't really straight forward hardcore happening. Solid bands were/are running like Sunami, Big Boy, Extinguish, etc, but the more straight forward stuff like Fentanyl, Urban Sprawl, and other bands of such a nature felt a bit sequestered to their own world. Also, despite Field of Flames and No Right being bands it also felt like straight edge wasn't much of a thing here either (kind of in hardcore as a whole at that time to be honest). What changed my mind about this was doing a show for Magnitude in San Francisco with No Right and Field of Flames. A ton of kids came Xed up and there were a lot of people there. I started thinking that doing a straight edge band was a viable option. Then bands like Stand Tall started and Opposing Force and they were having good sets. I became closer with some of the skinheads in the are as well and thought "What if we did a band that touched all these corners? straight edge music, straight forward hardcore music, punk music, skinhead leaning stuff", I had become closer to Otto from him doing sound at shows myself and Danny were doing and his tastes started to lean more classic. It all kinda coalesced and we put together the Eliminators demo in Fall of 2024 and released it earlier this year (2025).

How has the response been since the band started?

I can't lie, we've been fortunate. I would say of the like 7 gigs we've played 5 of them have been really great for us. We've played San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, and Sacramento so far. As of the time I'm writing this we will be doing our first shows in Southern California this upcoming weekend with Firestarter. Rebirth all starts The Difference and Start Today are going to be on some of the shows too.

You’ve done a ton of bands over the years(including RENEGADES and MOB ASSAULT for those who aren’t familiar) what keeps you motivated and making new music of different styles?

Whoa deep cuts! Renegades I think maybe played 3 or 4 shows at most and Mob Assault did like one haha. I love trying stuff out and doing different things. To put it in a philosophical space, I'm always trying to climb new mountains. I get over one hill and I'm asking myself "what's the next one to climb?" Eliminators is legitimately the band I've always wanted to do, I just didn't have the infrastructure in one way or another to do; now I do and it feels really natural and cool.

I sadly haven’t been to the bay in around 8 years or so but from my perspective i love everything going on there-what’s your feelings on it and give some info on how things are going in the scene there

By all means come through man, you can stay at my place/ Often times we have weekends with shows from thursday to sunday so you can really make it worth your time. I love it here. Like I referenced earlier when I first moved here stuff felt like it was really leaning into the heavy lane of HC, what's cool right now is those bands exist still and they still thrive, but there's also a whole other lane that's thriving too. For example, last weekend we did a Big Boy, Combust, Start Today, Stand Tall, Eliminators show at Gilman that was sold out and super fun. That's a regular hardcore show, Big Boy is sort of sonically the outlier, but I think they are pretty universal. The next day we did a show with Extinguish, Natural Human Instinct, and Impurity and it was also sold out. Completely different energy, but the kids are still there. It's awesome. There's something for everyone in regards to hardcore here.

5 band gig you’d want ELIMINATORS to play if you could make a lineup of anything current

Love this question. Ok I don't want to headline, but I want a good middle spot. I was gonna put Impalers on here (where I got the idea for the name from, but I'll go hyper current instead)

Rixe

Hard Stripes

Eliminators

Fentanyl

Our Fight

Wow I got fired up even typing that out.

You’ve been doing the excellent FORUM OF PASSION podcast for awhile now,how’s that going and do you still feel like you have more you wanna do with that?

Thank you! I feel like I've reached the zenith with what that can do, but I always want to learn more about the people in the great macro that is the scene. I love stories and the "why" of what people do. My plan is to keep going with that honestly until people stop listening haha. Started that in 2019 and have consistently done 2 regular episodes a month and 1 patreon episode a month. Keeping the schedule and running that until the wheels fall off.

What’s up with RBS fest,how did you feel about how it went this year and any plans on running it back next year?

We are going to make it annual thing, so it's coming back for 2026. We are going to do it the weekend of April 10th for those reading this. Actual planning starts in August, so I'm going to text the guys here soon to get the first official meeting going for next year. We've already had some bands reach out about playing that are super solid. My personal goal with that is to give the kids an arena for D1 mosh activity. When I was helping do United Blood the thing I was always proud about was how hard the dancing was, for me with RBS I wanted that to be part of the spirit and the bands playing to be the conduit of that. Really can't wait to start the engine on getting that set up for next year.

Any last shout outs/things you wanna talk about?

Shout out to you Bob! Shout out to Start Today/The Difference, Shout out to Fentanyl, Shout out Our Fight, Shout out Lose Sight, Shout out Stand Tall, Shout out to Adam and Convulse records, Shout out Speed Plans, Shout out Spy, Shout out Danny Coggins, Shout out B.A.S.E., Shout out San Francisco, Shout out RBS.

As mentioned in the last post, the MADMAN demo dropped and is also up. Ripping hardcore out of Pittsburgh,love these songs and hope to see the band soon in Philly

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TERMINATOR tests have come in, so those and the BULLS SHITT records should both be in soon.Some copies of both still up if you haven’t ordered one yet. Catch Terminator at one of their upcoming show

SUICIDE EYES has been tearing it up in the northeast lately, every set keeps getting better and I think they’re coming into their own and making a name for themselves.They started writing for an LP that’ll hopefully be out next year, last night they played with HAYWIRE at an outdoor show here and it was by far their best one yet

Chicago bad boys CONTEMPT are one step closer to having the record ready to go…s/o the legend RUBY for this instant classic she drew for the cover

FLIP THE SWITCH first show is this Friday, i’m predicting an all timer with tons of style on the dance floor.

START TODAY made it back to Cali after a successful full US tour,truly love them and THE DIFFERENCE and was so siked to see it go well. Endless respect to the STAND TALL squad(featuring the new From Within comp coverboy) got to hang with the bands at the Philly show and was refreshing to actually talk some core with the youth for once. All 3 bands are integral to the growth of the scene in 2025 and doing incredible things

I got to fulfill some younger me dreams and book YOT and BOLD at my favorite current venue last weekend, all time show and best BOLD set i’ve seen. Face The Pain opened up and crushed it,kids singing along and dancing immediately. SPEEDWAY first ever Philly show was sick and they covered the best hardcore song ever* according to 185 miles south(blind justice/last warning) , was good to see MAGNITUDE come back strong with a great set and overall a show i’ll always remember.

As with seemingly every other kid in the scene Ozzy was a gateway that was imprinted on me as a youth from both my parents loving him and Black Sabbath.When I was 5 or 6 the NO MORE TEARS video was insane to me, I ended up buying a live bootleg from a local farmers market around then of the Randy Rhodes era and was obsessed with it.For some godforsaken reason my dad would bring my sister who didn’t care about those bands to ozzfest with him every year and i’d be left with a t shirt he brought me back that I would get in trouble in school for wearing because it would be a cartoon ozzy covered in blood with an upside down cross or something.

Also the thought of my dad and uncle taking the lyrics to Sweet Leaf and Snowblind way too seriously but getting to see things like earth crisis biohazard and VOD before me is a cruel joke.All that to say I could have seen him/Black Sabbath at an early age and I didn’t and somehow never saw either because of bad timing/being broke.The solo records as my good friend Rob Goodspeed pointed out have the highest ceiling but the lowest floors, but hes truly the G.O.A.T.

things I’ve been listening to

THE SURVIVORS-WHERE DID WE GO WRONG

DOWN IN FLAMES-DOWN IN FLAMES

STEP FORWARD FIRST EP

EXIT LIFE DEMO

NISEMONO WHATEVER THE NEW RECORDS CALLED

NEW CLIPSE

ITS THE LIMIT NEW EP

NEGATIVE CHARGE NEW RECORD

BLACK SABBATH ALL

OZZY ALL

That’s it for now…this is a hardcore newsletter so i’ll leave out the life changing event the OASIS REUNION was but the feeling I got watching them do a combo of AQUIESCE into WHAT’S THE STORY… gave me the feeling of hearing the drums start on It’s The Limit. S/o SCARAB,ELIMINATORS,MADMAN,and anything else I’ve been able to put out so far in 2025.