Although hardcore music may not be for the masses, there is still a demand for the genre. And there is no clearer proof than the Coachella festival performance by Kentucky-based metalcore band, Knocked Loose. During the first weekend of the festival, Knocked Loose showed up and packed out the Sonora tent for one of the hardest sets of the entire weekend. Filled with screeching guitars, constant stage diving and camaraderie for the musical genre, this Knocked Loose set demonstrates that hardcore music is thriving and here to stay.
After a brutally successful performance during weekend one, we had the pleasure to chat with the band during weekend two of Coachella. Sitting on the couches in the media area at the festival for an early day chat, Bryan Garris (lead vocals), Isaac Hale (lead guitar), Kevin Otten (bass), Kevin “Pacsun” Kaine (drums) and Nicko Calderon (rhythm guitar) of Knocked Loose opened up about playing at the iconic festival, their latest source of creative inspiration and hinted at a new project they are working on.
mxdwn: How’s your Coachella experience been so far?
All: It’s been great!
mxdwn: What’s the most exciting thing you’ve seen so far these past two weekends?
Bryan: I got to see Ethel Cain yesterday. That was a very big highlight for me.
Isaac: I’m wearing a cropped t-shirt (laughs).
Pacsun: I think just taking it all in. This is the first festival of this caliber that we’ve done and it’s been cool to see this side of it. We talked about the diversity of the lineup and stuff like that. So I think the whole weekend’s been super cool. We played last weekend as well, of course, and we’re happy to be back.
mxdwn: I was watching some of the livestream last weekend and your set was popping off. Playing a festival like Coachella, does it put a little less pressure on you for weekend two knowing that there’s an audience for hardcore music even at a festival like this?
Pacsun: I would say so. We had zero expectations for weekend one. We were just excited to be here. To have it go so well, I think everyone’s excited to give it a go again.
Bryan: I think, weirdly, there’s some kind of pressure because before there was so little expectations that we were like, “Whatever it is, it’s going to be fun.” But now that it was so sick last weekend, it has to be sick this weekend.
mxdwn: What was the initial reaction when you got asked to do Coachella? Was there some hesitation thinking that audiences wouldn’t show up to your set?
Isaac: Zero hesitation. We’re always down to make shit up. We’ve been doing it for years, cross-genre stuff. So if anything, it was viewed as an opportunity from the very beginning. So we hopped on it, fast. I remember the group chat. We had a couple options of things that we could do and bolted for Coachella.
Pacsun: We ended up saying “no” to something else. I think it was a radius thing, like too close too soon. If we said “yes” to either or, but obviously we picked to be here.
mxdwn: I love that. And it definitely paid out pretty well.
Pacsun: Definitely.
mxdwn: I know that you guys started your set last week with a new song. When you initially start your setlist with a new song, how do you know the audience is feeling it? What kind of reaction do you see from them?
Bryan: I feel like it’s best to play it first because we try to build our set around crowd participation from the songs that we know people are going to react to. So if you start it right off the bat with something they’re not familiar with, they’re kinda just moving around off the adrenaline of the beginning of the show. If you throw it in the middle there, it’s usually like a lull in the set. So we’ve always found it better to just get it out of the way right off the bat.
mxdwn: And with the new song, are you guys working on a new album or project?
Bryan: Not a lot that we can talk about, but we are working very hard on a lot of things. That’s all I’ll say.
mxdwn: Even if you can’t talk too much about that yet, what creative headspace are you currently in with making new music?
Bryan: I think that we’re a band that always gets inspired by the bands that we’re fortunate enough to tour with. I feel like we’ll always go into a writing session, because if we’re not on the road, we’re working on something. We’ll get off the road and we’ll be so stoked off the bands that we were just with and it fires inspiration. Last year, we did a lot of touring nonstop. We did a tour with $uicideboy$ where we were the only band on the tour. We did a tour with Bring Me the Horizon where we were like the scariest band on the tour. So I’m interested to see where that inspiration will take us moving forward. Not that you’re going to expect any like soft singing or rap on the new record, there’s just no way to predict how inspiration will manifest.
mxdwn: Besides music, what other sources of inspiration help you guys with creating music?
Isaac: We kinda take inspiration from everything. A lot of aesthetic stuff we take inspiration from. We’re pretty good at finding the cool parts about other genres that we like, whether it’s aesthetically or musically kinda bringing them in. Sometimes we try and curate a vibe or a look more than we try to curate a sound. We take inspiration from country music and house music and all this different stuff. We’re pretty versatile.
Bryan: I’ve lately been very inspired by the region which we’re from. Which I feel like when we first started as a band, everybody asked, “How does being from Kentucky influence your music?” And now that we’re at a point where we’re rarely at home, I feel like we’re tapping even more into that. We’re just inspired by the scenery and how different it is to grow up there versus somewhere else.
mxdwn: Yeah, definitely your physical location brings a lot out of you creatively.
Bryan: For sure.
mxdwn: With being in a creative headspace, there’s also that chance that you can lose that spark. What helps you keep that creative juice going?
Pacsun: We started to do, a couple years ago, we’ll go and write in different locations. We’ve spent time in Joshua Tree, we did a cabin in Tennessee, we did a house in the upper peninsula of Michigan. And it’s just one of those things where we’re so far from home that we can sit and really focus and kind of find that spark going. And then I guess to the last question too, like outside of other music, it’s these different locations will get the ball rolling too.
mxdwn: What does it typically look like with recording hardcore music? Do you start with laying down drums and guitar, or what’s your initial process?
Isaac: It all depends on who you talk to. Most hardcore bands are going to use the traditional drums first, lay the structure, guitars, bass, then vocals are last. But these days you can do everything, you can vary things. Technology is at a place where you can handle it however you want to handle it. We’ve been pretty classic in how we run our band and write our music all in one room together, jam style. We’ll record it the same way. So it’s all pretty natural to us.
Bryan: I think something with us, I can’t speak for other bands but something that I know that we focus on a lot is the preproduction aspect of things. I would say that we really, really put a magnifying glass on the songs before we ever go into a studio to record them. So that by the time we actually do sit down and record, he (points at Pacsun) knows the song, drum parts like the back of his hand. We can play them a thousand times having had time to sit on them. We just focus more on the quality. Like if we’re in the studio for four weeks, we’ll spend two and a half weeks just doing “prepro” and then they’ll start tracking everything.
mxdwn: Is there a lot of idea clashing in the studio or are you guys pretty fluid with everyone?
Pacsun: I would say no clashing by any means.
Kevin: A lot of stuff thrown at each other, like idea-wise, and you land on something and go with it.
Isaac: Usually if someone has an idea and someone else doesn’t like it, and someone else has a different idea and they don’t like it, we usually just try to find a third thing. We usually try to wait until everyone’s an equal amount of stoked.
Bryan: I think that we’re really good at communicating in that kind of space. Nobody gets too upset about any kind of harsh criticism. And I think that we’ve also been really good at, like if someone wants to pitch something and someone’s not in love with it, we won’t just say “No, that sucks.” We say, “What if we take that and do this to it.” And it opens up to us building off of that original idea where it could have been completely different of a conversation to help you get there.
mxdwn: I have one more for y’all. With Blink-182 being added to the lineup tonight, it represents this ideology of rock music still thriving and still being in the mainstream. So I was wondering what do you think the future of Knocked Loose will look like in 10 or 20 years?
Bryan: I think it’s so hard to say because new doors open. I think with Blink headlining, all these things happening, a lot of mainstream artists putting out punk records and stuff, I think it raises the tide for all bands. So who knows? Like a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have guessed we would have ever played Coachella, but now we’re here and it’s going well. And I believe that every year a hardcore band plays Coachella and it goes well, and it opens doors for other people. The ceiling could be completely different this time next year but we’re just going to keep riding the wave.
To keep up with everything Knocked Loose including the handful of festival appearances they have coming up during the summer, check out their website.
Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi
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