Once upon a time, some kids on America's two coastlines got sick enough of rock's cliches, posturing, excess and popularity contests to do something about it. They started their own bands, smelting metal's aggression to punk's misanthropy and, more often than not, an utter lack of expertise, which was part of the point. It was a visceral, rudimentary and joyfully subversive noise, and somebody called it hardcore. Yeah, yeah, I know, there's more to it than that — a lot more, actually — but here, the broad strokes will do: resourceful young people taking matters into their own hands, whose only apparent interest in popular culture at large was as fodder for criticism, frustration and disdain.Over the next 20 years, two key factors wreaked havoc on hardcore's primal scream, and for all intents and purposes, both of them were inevitable. First, the players got better, and second, they started displaying an interest in all kinds of music outside the realm of punk. As the scene grew, it enveloped new fans and musicians influenced by everything from reggae to jazz, who adopted the spirit but applied it to new sounds. And now, albeit to the dismay of older purists and those loyal to the original strain, bands plying styles from sparse pop to groove-metal to impenetrable math-noise lay claim to elements of hardcore's prideful outsiderism and do-it-yourself aesthetic.
"We've been raised on everything from Maiden to '80s poppy music, The Smiths, Morrisey," says Jeremy Adam Shiflet, vocalist for Lakeland/Tampa thrashers Blood Spilled in Vain. "There's such a broad range of music kids are listening to. It's not like the Minor Threat days, when they were building a genre. We have a lot of metal in our stuff, just because we're '80s kids."
Blood Spilled in Vain is exactly the kind of band that, if described to some regimented old-schooler who thinks true hardcore died the day Black Flag released My War, would elicit a rant on the subject of the genre's dilution and/or demise. Like the New York outfits that pioneered the jagged, violent metalcore crossover more than a decade ago, BSiV wears its weighty influences on its collective sleeve. Intricate dynamics, crushing half-time grooves and a palpable sense of menace are all integral to the band's identity.
But so are an undeniably DIY modus operandi and scene affiliation, along with a nakedly cathartic, edge-of-chaos live set. These are things that scream an allegiance to the essence of hardcore. The five members are also enthusiastic about their metal influences. For Shiflet, occasionally being labeled a metal band is far less off-putting than getting tagged with that other description often laid on the more manic hardcore acts.
"The only thing that's ever offensive to our style of music is when you have the melodic side, and [people] refer to you as emo," he says. "I think all music is emo, really — if it wasn't emotional, it would all be cookie-cutter pop, when you get some 40-year-old guy in his room writing a song, and then somebody else sings it with no emotion whatsoever."
Shiflet's no stranger to the emo assignation. He and BSiV bassist Russ Jovin's last band, Sadiya, was an up-and-coming outfit on the Florida indie scene with just enough melody to get them saddled with the tag on a distressingly regular basis. Despite the group's potential and rising profile, several members decided to call it quits after a drunk driver plowed into their van and trailer as they sat on the highway shoulder just outside Lakeland, broken down just a few miles from home after the last show of a tour. It was the last straw for those who found an underground band's existence just too frustrating.
"We had broken down on another tour before that, too," says Shiflet, who still occasionally has to seek rehab for his back because of the accident. "We just had the worst luck when we were on the road."
He and Jovin were far from beaten, though, and eventually hooked up with guitarist Troi Benjamin, formerly of ska-core outfit Soulness. Rounded out by guitarist Shawn Zinn and drummer Chad Brown, the new quintet began without a distinct direction in mind, but soon, a brutal, screamy style heavier and less overtly hooky than that of Sadiya began to take shape.
"We didn't really want to keep the poppy, melodic side of Sadiya," Shiflet confirms. "We wanted to get away from the kind of lyrics we wrote, also. It's more like getting anger out. Sadiya was about relationships, love and heartbreak, where this is more the end of the relationship."
Blood Spilled in Vain's dark and sometimes murderous lyrical ventage dovetails perfectly with the kind of sweaty, psychotic expectoration they display onstage. There are bands that work an overwrought personal angst, and there are bands that deliver malevolent metallic pummel, but very few successfully combine the all-ages group therapy session with a furious groovecore edge. BSiV are well on their way to getting it down to a science; hopefully, though, they'll never get there, because that volatile sense of losing one's self in the moment, of living the set rather than just playing one, is perhaps hardcore's most important and enduring facet. It's a sentiment with which Shiflet readily agrees.
"We're definitely not real big on trying to play it perfectly every time. It's more about what we feel when we're up there," he says, before adding, "Of course, alcohol doesn't help, either."
Music critic Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2003.