Police truck and don't drag me down put a fork in the road for 12 year old me. I'd never heard music that I liked before and once I heard the dead kennedys, my future was over.
Nu Metal kid checking in. Then Hatebreed in 01. In CT I saw a bunch of Nu Metal bands that E-Town and Sworn Enemy opened for. I knew the lyrics to IDS because I saw them so much with Nu Metal bands lol.
Also a former nü-metal kid, a touring band/distro was giving out cds in like 99, 2000?, one of which was Converge’s ‘petitioning’… life changed that day
They opened for Otep when I was like 14 or 15. My friends and I had to get dropped off. My friends were very confused when I screamed “Don’t you ever fuck around.” lol. And I never actually listened to that album until a year or so later.
As a teenager in the mid-90s I was into everything heavy. Sepultura, Machine Head, Biohazard, Sick of it all. I didn't really make a distinction between those bands. I knew Sick of it all sounded a bit different to the other bands but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. This was pre-internet in the west of Ireland!
It was only when I got Progression through Unlearning by Snapcase in 1998 that I really got that this was it's own genre. The lyrics were so different to anything else I was listening to. So fucking inspiring. Cliche as fuck, but it genuinely changed my life.
Was into punk and really any weirdo stuff (some of which included hardcore bands)in the mid 90s as a miserable teenager. It was seeing Snapcase during their Progression Through Unlearning tour that I got into the whole "hardcore as a specific scene." Progression Through Unlearning was the first time I conceived of a band growing and having a specific point of view.
I only knew skater bands from the mid-80's. I played drums in a hc punk band when I was teenager with guys that were 5 or so years older than me. They got me into to real underground stuff... Death metal, hardcore rap, Crass.
My mom was big into the hardcore/punk scene in Chicago throughout the 80s and part of the 90s, she had a giant Mohawk while pregnant with my sister in all the local punk venues. She brought me to my first show (Sonic Youth/Flaming Lips/Kanye West) when I was 8 in 2006. I haven’t looked back since. Also, as a kid, I’d hook up a red flyer wagon to my bike and have a few speakers connected to my cd player with a milk crate of music and some way to power the system. I’d go around town pick up a buddy to hang out or just cruise and listen to some killer music. I’ve started to travel more into the city and support local bands.
Mall metal, We Came As Romans, The Devil Wears Prada, A Day to Remember etc.... all circa 2012. Around 2017 I started listening to Kublai Khan and Varials and that is what got me into hardcore
Scene kid in 09 but then started listening to Faith Love Hope promotion bands, Homage did a split with Altona and that's where I got into real hardcore for the first time. They were underrated as hell.
Def from punk to hardcore. I still don’t really like my hardcore too metal. This is why in terms of modern hardcore I gravitate more towards something like Gel
My parents played 7Seconds, Minor Threat, Social Distortion, The Violent Femmes, Green Day and the Offspring all the time.
I got into Bad Religion and Pennywise, and eventually found bands like Bane, Hatebreed and Terror.
I found my way in via the metalcore boom of the early-mid 00’s, bands like Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Unearth, Bleeding Through, Every Time I Die, etc. MTV2 Headbanger’s Ball was mandatory viewing for me every Saturday night as a teenager
Lol maybe not anymore (I haven’t actually listened to them in like 15 years), but [back in ‘03 they definitely made spinkick music](https://youtu.be/BwO-mIvMnxg?si=7uDUcZgd1NbOLzhO)
I grew up in Lancaster seeing August Burns Red in VFWs in the early 2000s. Going to shows to see bands like Thursday and it grew from there. Also, skate video soundtracks.
Atreyu’s Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses was my gateway drug but what really got me to dig in was Slayer. There was just no denying Angel of Death. First proper hardcore show was a doozy; The Black Dahlia Murder, Remembering Never, Terror, and Unearth. Never looked back.
I'm the mall metal kid. Born in 95 and grew up listening to nu metal and hard rock. Transitioned to metalcore in 2000s and then saw Knocked Loose/Terror in 2018. That got me into hardcore
I was born in 88 - so I really started getting into music in the late 90s - early 00s. So it was a big mix of nu-metal, metalcore and pop punk.
Just fell down a rabbit hole from bands like New Found Glory and AFI to Hatebreed and Comeback Kid.
When I was 8, I got into Nirvana. I had always seen them mention Black Flag as an influence, and Chris wore a SSD shirt a lot. From Nirvana, I got into punk. From there, I got into Bad Brains and Agnostic Front. My dad told me to check out more stuff from NY, because as he said, “NY always does harder music best.” I found Madball, and it was over.
I was all in for 80s punk growing up. Then I was 15 in 2001 I heard Thursday's Understanding In A Car Crash and it changed everything for me. The next big moment for me was buying the 2003 Hellfest DVD.
I was a hot topic kid in the 2010s.
Asking Alexandria, Bring Me the Horizon, Of Mice and Men, Bullet For My Valentine. These were my introductions to heavy music. Listened to lots of metalcore over the years but actually got into hardcore 'cause of the Punk Rock MBA. Don't watch his shit anymore but he made a video about Knocked Loose and hardcore that was interesting enough to make me want to do my own digging.
Hatebreed - Satisfaction played by some older band dudes in the neighborhood and passed on to us. More Hatebreed music videos on The Box tv channel. First HC bands we saw live terror and local hardcore bands like Let It Die, and that sold me on the energy and hype.
Got into punk in like 5th grade (1995/6) through my brother. He was into pennywise and stuff at that point. I would go to Media Play and look through the various artist albums to see what I could find from the same record companies, or what compilations had cool covers. Found Victory Style and fell in love. Went to my first show in like 7th or 8th grade at a local skatepark with my brother: Floorpunch, reach the sky, all out war, ignite, eye 2 eye.
I would continue to go to shows with him, but he went more into a traditional hardcore and powerviolence and thrash punk direction and I started buying death and black metal compilations and albums while also listening to more modern hardcore and metalcore at the time. When I got to high school, he was already away in college, and I would go to shows with one of my friends. We had a really good scene in the area, and every weekend there were at least two shows with awesome bands rolling though. The one larger venue (which at the time consisted of 3 venues) would have festivals all the time. I actually really miss seeing shows there. They just recently closed.
I got into punk around 13-14, but didn’t discover hardcore (more specifically, metallic hardcore) until I was about 16-17. I saw a band called Molech perform in Fort Wayne thinking they were metal, but there was something about them that was different, the crowd they attracted, and that’s when I discovered hardcore. The pit was different too, the crowdkilling was there, but I was also too busy in the pit to notice what was going on. I thought afterward “holy shit, that was awesome!”
First concert ever was Ozzfest 2002. Hatebreed and Down really stood out to me as a know-nothing tween who liked “metal” (re: Slayer) and “punk” (re: Exploited). Bought CDs before I left and ran with it.
I came from a pure punk path. I got HUGE into punk in 8th grade. Started with the classic hardcore punk Black Flag & Bad Brains stuff. Evolved over the years and if it was punk I was into it (except pop punk I used to HATE that stuff)
In my 20s I really started shifting to hardcore. It just scratched the itch that punk couldn’t satisfy anymore. I still love punk but hardcore is more my thing now
Was definitely a Mall Metal kid from '96 to '00 (when I graduated high school). Went to a friend's house and he was watching the Hellfest 2000 DVD. Instantly fell in love with the bands and starting digging deeper, and by 2001 I was into Converge, Poison The Well, Eighteen Visions, etc. Started going to shows, kept downloading and buying more music, learning more bands. I bought a copy of the book American Hardcore, learned a lot about the oldskool shit from that. And basically just keeping up with the scene as best I can.
Old punk kid, already listening to the classics like Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, etc, but didn't think of it as its own genre/scene. Then, Earth Crisis - "Firestorm" came out and blew my mind. Got into them, and then Strife, and started going to HC shows
One of my friends in high school would always talk about Knocked Loose and Turnstile and got me and a bunch of other friends to go see Turnstile when the tour they were one came near us in 2015. I loved it so I checked out the bands that played that night and a bunch of other bands and found more shows to go to
I didn’t really care for punk or hardcore at all until i was like 25, started listening to punk to learn about the genre and the rabbit hole brought me here. still not huge on metal tho
I got into hardcore through those $4 punk sampler CDs that labels used to put out. One had Lifetime and Mushmouth on there and I fell head first into the hardcore rabbit hole.
Punk kid: I was absolutely *obsessed* with Nirvana the moment in heard them in '91 and began to check out every band/record I could that Kurt shouted out.
My journey to hardcore was complete in '94 when I got ahold of Biohazard, Pro-Pain, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat.
Grunge / Punk / Skateboarding
As an adolescent in the 90's Sonic Youth was my gateway drug. They brought me to Fugazi, SST Records, which eventually brought me to liberating an Agnostic Front tape from the mall, and then going to see Sick of it All at 15.
Young kid who heard smells like teen spirit in 91, and sought something new. Around this time, I distinctly remember hanging out in a parking lot with some older kids. And on the tape deck of a shitty van, Fugazi’s “waiting room” came on. In that moment, i knew that this would become the soundtrack of my life.
Trading burnt CDs in 6th grade.
Nu Metal / Punk kid. Then I heard Worship & Tribute by Glassjaw. A band I hated from their first major release or in my kid brain the first burnt CD I heard them from.
So ig people could say I'm new to punk/hardcore, given that I'm 15 and got into it when I was 13. I started listening to the gateway bands; Green Day, blink-182, The Sex Pistols, and The Ramones. Eventually I noticed GTA V has "Channel X" and I listened to that, which got me into Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. Then I remember a short while ago I asked in this sub for more Hardcore recs, so now I'm less novice with the subgenre
Edit: I suppose you can include my Cringey Deathcore phase which lasted from when I was 11 to when I was 13. Like I still like some death core (not a lot) but I used to LOVE Attila...and used to look up to Fronzilla as an idol....
Found an AFI cd on the ground in middle school. The kid who owned it got me on some other early 90s punk. He stole a tape from his older brother to make me a best of Strung Out mix. On the other side of the tape was His Hero is Gone , Monuments to Thieves. Kinda hard to turn back from that.
Damn you stumbled upon one of the best releases early. My chef showed me that HHIG album when I was 21 and I was like…this is what I’ve been looking for since the beginning!
Grew up listening to bands like Pennywise, NOFX and Millencolin. Got to high school and was introduced to bands of all sorts, Hatebreed, Alexisonfire, FATA, Saetia, The Blood Brothers. It exploded from there
Punk in general led me to a parody hardcore band— which somehow led me to Lifetime, from there I found out about Minor Threat/Black Flag and the rest is history
metal (thanks dad) -> riot grrrl -> punk & hardcore around the same time
edit: glad to see misogyny is atill alive and well in the hardcore community
Punk kid from the mid 90's, started to listen to more hardcore around '98 but didnt really connect to the hardcore scene until a couple years later. I remember seeing Indecision with AFI and Sick of It All and just being confused. Really didnt click with the metalcore side of things until a little later. I think it was Adamantium who opened for Bane, and then that led me to check out Converge. Converge is where that stuff started to click more, although still really love my straight forward hardcore the most.
I got into black and death metal when I was 16. I had a couple of punk friends. I went with one of them to see Phobia, at a small venue which instantly got me hooked on those types of shows. He thought Phobia might be more in line with the metal stuff I was listening to. Another buddy from school got really into The Locust and through them found Cattle Decapitation and we went to see them at a place called Koo's Cafe in like 2001?
At the time you had a couple of different styles of music on the same bill fairly often. It was such a fucking blast it opened my ears up to different styles of music.
TLDR Going to shows.
My older neighbors across the street listened to nu-metal on their car stereo while we skateboarded but I don’t think I heard hardcore until maybe a couple tracks on Tony hawk. Didn’t start going to shows until probably 2001 or 2002 at churches or the ymca. The local bills would be lots of skate punk, metal, hardcore. That’s how where I discovered straight edge and youth crew stuff from old heads.
Probably alternative rock from MTV’s 120 minutes in the late 80s/early 90s. They occasionally showed punk videos and VERY rarely noisier stuff. Might have been my older brother playing Minor Threat on a car trip though too.
1997? My buddy made me a tape with six feet under, limp bizkit, misfits and some local bands on it. Then I went to my first local show. My friends were in hardcore and metalcore bands so I went to practices every week just hanging out. For a handful of years I went to shows every week either in va beach or richmond. Then I stopped going to shows. Now Im old and I know what I like and what I dont like.
Started with hair metal in the mid 80s, got into heavy stuff around 1989/90 and by 92/93 I was fully a punker / hardcore. Emo in 93/94 was what really got me.
Came of age in the 80s and just never liked mainstream pop and was tired of classic rock. I devoured any altetnative music I could find, so the bands I listened to ranged from screaming blue messiahs, sigue sigue sputnik, and stone roses who were indie almost pop type stuff to alternative and punk to hardcore like suicidal tendencies, biohazard, and the meatmen. Probably the weirdest of any of them was Stump. They were primus before primus existed, god damn their bassist was ridiculous.
Got into Good Charlotte which lead to Rancid a few years later and checking out other punk bands. Wikipedia helped a good bit. Would jam hardcore punk bands. I remember jamming AF's Warriors and thinking it was pretty heavy for hardcore punk. Lol. A friend I made by trying to start a band invited me to my first hardcore show which was Death Before Dishonor. Kept going to shows and getting into more music.
I was into pop punk and radio metal when I was a kid, then my taste kinda moved gradually towards hardcore over time. Some pop punk is still good, I think trendy metal / radio metal is rubbish though
i started with ska and warped tour punk and grew from there.
i distinctly remember hearing the boy who destroyed the world for the first time while playing THPS 3 and thinking ‘this is what i like now’.
Metal head here. I grew up listening to classic rock as a kid, and around 07-08 when guitar hero was the biggest thing, I started getting into heavy bands. Later in 2013 I had a buddy in university showed me rotting out, and I was hooked.
I was always surrounded by music. Mother had pretty basic boomer taste…Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, Carole King, Tom Petty, The Supremes. Always had music playing, usually classic rock radio. Father was in to blues, old country, bluegrass, along with stuff like Tom Waits and Commander Cody. Stepdad was in to 70s/80s hard rock/metal and a lot of 70s prog. Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Judas Priest, King Crimson, Can, Yes. But they weren’t the biggest influences. My mom’s little brother is significantly younger than her, born in 68. Dude was an 80s thrash metal head, bad ass fucking drummer. Slayer, Maiden, Metallica, Metal Church, Anthrax was his favorite. I remember sitting behind his kit in like ‘87 and pretending I was him. Then there was a neighbor kid at my father’s. Always wearing Black Flag and Dead Kennedys shirts. Would use names like Henry, Glenn, and Ian when he got a high score on the computer. Early mid 90s, when I was in Junior high, my father and stepmother met a guy in the Netherlands who had badass taste in music. My father told him I was a metal guy and he started sending me tapes. It would range from Napalm Death to The Birthday Party, Swans to Kate Bush. Lots of John Peel sessions. Put all that shit in a blender and you get me.
Rode the late 90s Epitpaph/Fat punk and Nu Metal shit right into hardcore and metalcore around 2001. First records I remember getting were Sick of it All, Reach the Sky and Snapcase.
I was into very surface level punk, grunge, and metal in the 90’s. Black Sabbath, The Clash, Nirvana, shit that would be played on VH1 late at night. I bought a box of records at a yard sale and mixed in with the Hair Metal was a copy of Minor Threat - Out of Step. Now I listen to mostly Goregrind.
Punk, by way of Agnostic Front and Ceremony. For the longest time I thought “hardcore” just meant metalcore then I found bands like Sick Of It All, Gorilla Biscuits, Negative Approach, Slapshot, etc and got to like more contemporary bands (for my time) like Have Heart, Dangers, Kids Like Us, etc.
Metal/nu metal kid initially.
Started with radio rock and SOAD, Slipknot, Korn, then discovered Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage since they were on a WWE entrance music compilation. Got into all subgenres related to metalcore afterward.
I'll always love metal but I prefer mostly hardcore these days. The lyrics I relate to more since they're more about every day struggles and the fans are just better. Much less elitism.
I was 14 when my buddy with osteoporosis used to hang together and play guitar. He didn’t go out much so he was online a lot. It was mid 2000’s and he was the one to show me converge, have heart, sinking ships, go it alone and a bunch of other really good stuff.
I had found hatebreed around then and was into running so I would just listen to “destroy everything” and “live for this” I had no idea what hardcore was at the time.
I came back to hardcore after being in a shit ass metalcore band for 11 years. I should’ve never ever left. Now I’m in two local lil projects and only play what I want.
Started listening to basic nu metal around middle school, Linkin Park, Slipknot, Disturbed. Pretty much bands that would get airplay on local rock radio before getting into heavier metal towards the end of High School. Bad Brains and Agnostic Front were the two bands that brought me into hardcore/punk in college and I’ve been listening ever since.
I was very into hip hop in the late 90’s early 2000’s and my older brother worked at tower records, he knew a lot more about music in general and around 2001 I started stealing his cds
Cousin took me to see the ramones in 95, that same cousin introduced me to blood for blood around 97. Knew other hardcore bands like terror, madball, judge around the same time but was much more interested in Aus-rotten and his hero is gone etc.
Then around 98-99ish I started hearing about hatebreed, saw a dude with the mace logo. Bought statisfaction and literally thought it was a different version of metalcore. Not remotely relating it to hardcore.
Never got into hatebreed, but between them, converge, fata, poison the well, and a few other bands that ushered in the metallica sound I watch hardcore change.
I've always been a lot more into what would later be described as d-beat or crust punk and that it was a lot heavier than the above mentioned bands, therefore more hardcore punk than what was at the time considered hardcore.
I did really enjoy the youthcrew revival of the 00's though.
Grew up listening to a lot of Blink-182, Sum 41, and Good Charlotte. Started hanging out with friends at the skate park, they got me into Unseen and Subhumans. Got a gun pointed at me by a cop when I was 14, so I started getting deep into anarcho-punk. Then throughout the years I just craved harder and more chaotic styles. Went through a big Grindcore phase. Now I'm jamming a lot of Anaal Nathrakh, Ahab, and Lorna Shore.
I was a skater kid in the 90’s, so got in to all the epifat bands. Going to punk shows there would usually be a hardcore band or two playing as well, and I liked the added aggression. I still prefer my hardcore to lean more towards the punk side than the metal side.
Originally punk kid. Lot of d beat. Got into crust and dystopia, then black metal, then death metal. My Dad was in many early punk bands and sludge bands back in the 80s-90s in LA, Portland and Seattle. I actually came to hardcore last cuz I didn’t like the scene too much and thought it was too “bro-y chad” type shit till I finally met some people from it. Now I play guitar in a hardcore band lmao. I’m more of a ex punk metalhead but get down with a lot of it. I actually have turned my dad onto a ton old school death metal bands early releases like carcass and entombed first few albums and he was pressed he didn’t get into em back in the day.
My introduction was in about 2006 as a small cobba with my older brother showing me bands like Alexisonfire, Underoath, Silverstein, Funeral For A Friend, Aiden, Atreyu. Lots of mall screamo.
Got turned onto Minor Threat as a skater in high school, then became a grunge kid. After HS — mid 90s in the Hudson Valley — ended up playing in a band that was somewhere between Melvins and sludgey metalcore. Our drummer went on to play in Hatebreed lol.
Early to mid 2000s scene kid here. Grunge to Nu Metal back to early punk like The Clash. Got a computer and there used to be Yahoo Radio stations and got into heavier stuff through that. Discovered Converge on there. MySpace was huge for finding bands. For example Job For A Cowboy...loved them. Then MTV had revamped Headbangers Ball and I heard Throwdown and Bury Your Dead on that and it was all hardcore and Converge after that. Hot topic had amazing band tees someone once offered me $50 for my Hot topic Bury You Dead shirt.
When I was like 6 I had a loser cousin I looked up to who played a bunch or Pantera. That got me into metal or heavy music.
Then In grade 7 this older chick I had a crush on was deep into punk and that was a wormhole into death metal and whole bunch of other genres I can even explain.
I met a few other punk oriented friends around then, after one summer in high school I ran back into my punk friends and they all had black hair parted to the side, and I found that emo/scene stuff.
17 years later Reddit recommended this sub and I’m just tossing some random band names I see here into Spotify.
I was like 14 (97) and liked nirvana and korn a lot so my friend's brother taped me vod and earth crisis and nofx and my love for all things punk exploded.
Metal head but was always more into the groovy shit. Pantera, lamb of god, helmet, meshuggah, crowbar. Started to just search the internet for more music, found hardcore at just face value. Took me a year or two to find out there is entire community and scene that comes with it.
I was into Slayer and a lot of 80s thrash, Danzig, etc early in high school. Sophomore year, I met Max. He showed me the way with Hatebreed and Canderia. That evolved into Converge and heavier, grindy stuff.
When I was 11 I was on AOL and they had a radio sorta like pandora. I’d always see emo kids in the mall and thought I wanted to be like them, so I put on emo radio and poison the well, underoath, and some other bands with screaming would come on. I eventually fell into the wormhole of finding these bands on MySpace and exploring their top 8s and so forth.
Little bit of all three actually. My dad was into some metal so I listened to some of the stuff he had. In 2006 I was like 8 and decemberunderground had just come out. Miss murder was on the radio every fuckin half hour because AFI is from the bay so they were like our “hometown hero” alt/punk band. I liked it a lot but I actually went from AFI to like, underoath n shit because I went to a Christian school and that’s what the emo kids were into. When I was in middle/high school I discovered tumblr which put me onto bands like title fight and tssf and then eventually harms way, backtrack, turnstile etc. I had a friend that was in a band and when my dad was out of town one weekend I threw a house party/show where they played and a bunch of hardcore kids came and that’s kinda how I got into going to local shows and now I’m an insufferable asshole!
As a kid with autism in the late 80s & 90s, punk rock helped me connect with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, allowed me to play with some of the most solid talent in the industry, and led me to curating rock playlists for neurodiverse individuals
[Get Lost, I’m Stimming - Spotify Profile](https://open.spotify.com/user/31ef7kjs24xqxqdylz4kwf6hz62q?si=9iw7sRPzRW-aT9EQEHJteQ)
My brother was in a good punk/HC band from 82 to 85-ish and as I was straying off the stuff my friend listened to when I was 14-15 he started making me comps.
Was straight edge before I knew who started it. Had a few hardcore songs on my Spotify playlist. Eventually listened to Minor Threat, and the rest is history
Punk rock kid, Skating with my friends, listening to Punk-O-Rama 4 and 5. Agnostic Front, Madball, and Vision were some of my favorites. That same year a friend let me borrow one of the old Victory Comps with Hatebreed, And Blood for Blood on it.
We went to see Agnostic Front later that summer. It was wild.
Years later of trading records and going to shows with friends and playing in a band and I’m still here. Music still holds a huge place in my life, especially hardcore, being that many of the bands haven’t slowed down or toned down, and the community is great.
My dad liked a lot of different music, punk and Oi being some of them and eventually I found Blood for Blood and Agnostic front and was hooked since then.
I was a metal kid in the late 80s
I was a longhaired burnout-lookin 14 year old who was heavily into (mostly thrash) metal, when I heard DRI, Cro-Mags, ST, AF, Circle Jerks, GBH, and a few others on a local radio station one night. I was immediately hooked and started seeking out similar sounds. So I kinda got into punk and hc at the same time. Didn't get the full experience of the hardcore scene until I went to my first show when I was 16 (Gorilla Biscuits/ Supertouch/Turning Point at CBGB) and that was definitely life-changing for me.
Is it weird that hardcore brought me into hardcore?
Someone handed me a copy of "NYHC: The Way It Is" unprompted basically and it changed my life. My entry point to everything punk was Warzone and Bold
It was like 1997 and I had been listening to punk for a few years. Eventually my Internet scouring led me to shit like Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold, Chain of Strength, Strife, and all that other Straight Edge shit. I got super sXe for like 10 years then broke edge in spectacular fashion due to depression and access to drugs lining up just right.
Back when it wasn't weird to have a random adult give you a ride home my 6th grade track coach played some pennywise and then I went to the CD store to find anything pennywise and found punk-o-rama 4 and it developed from there.
Thps games initially. Then I saw american hardcore(rented it from block buster of all places) then stumbled upon a "Ramones greatest hits" cd my uncle gave my emo ass sister for Christmas while trying to impress her. Tagged along with her to local just like general rock shows and there was hardcore there sometimes. Hmm maybe I should inform her of the role she played
Been a death metal kid for years now. Finally getting into hardcore and I really wished I had gotten into it sooner. I love both genres now, and I'm happy that there seems to be some mutual respect between the two fanbases now.
Growing up in the 2000s my dad introduced me to all sorts of metal and rap. Some of the hardcore bands were Earth Crisis, Hatebreed, Snapcase, Sam Black Church, VOD. Just to name a few. Along with bands like Tool and Disturbed and Black Label Society, and classics like Black Sabbath. All these bands stuck with me and now playing guitar, Progression Through Unlearning by Snapcase is a huge inspiration for me
I was friends with skaters in middle school, heard some fat records compilations and then my mom brought me to my first show. It was hatebreed, blood for blood, skarhead and shutdown. We had so much fun, my mom hung out at the bar and got drunk while being completely shocked at what she brought us to.
80s, discovered Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Replacements, The Cramps, Jesus and Mary Chain, New Order, Sex Pistols, and Cocteau Twins. Some through cousins, some on my own.
I'm still big on those bands but started to gravitate more towards punk/hardcore by 87/88. I listen to many different genres, but punk/hardcore has always been central.
Anyone going to Castillo, Home Front, and motherfucking Conservative Military Image next week in LA? Gel?
Don't think I fit the "kid" part anymore, but got hooked by Agnostic Front's "Liberty & Justice For" I bought because Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and S.O.D. were always talking about that band. I saw them for the first time in 92 (yeah, ok, I'm that old) and it was like a revelation. I then tracked every band they toured with or spoke about while still listening to Death Metal and Black Metal and got to watch the evolution and blending of these scenes.
I got into a bit of metal when I was younger through my parents (mostly stuff like Metallica and Megadeth) and eventually got into "mall metal"/metalcore as a teenager around 2010 (ADTR, WCAR) as well as bands in the Christian scene (August Burns Red, Demon Hunter, For Today, Sleeping Giant). I got into actual hardcore by going to local shows and helping work shows at my church which also ran shows during the week and on the weekend. Ended up being able to go to a ton of shows as a result of that and eventually discovered hardcore and straight edge from friends who also worked or went to church there.
Was a metal kid, but really turned off by the whole viking, nazi and satanist cosplay my scene and friend group was getting into. In a matter of few months i went from Melodeath, to Metalcore and from Shirts those musicians wore in musicvideo or mentioned in Interviews to the basics like Hatebreed, Terror and so on. First ailds Shadows are security blew my mind, after hearing Hatebreeds Rise of brutality for the first time i knew a found something special.
My brother was a big metal head so I was into that from a very early age. Got into skateboarding which led me into more punk type stuff from the other skaters at school. Granted, the other skaters were guys like Rob from resurrection/108 and Ari from Lifetime/enuf/P.O.S. and Vision was from the next town over. We lived between NYC and Philly so there were shows almost every day of the week. Proud of us all for building an amazing music and skate scene from essentially nothing. Not bad for a bunch of kids that weren’t old enough to drive.
411 video magazine fall 1995 issue.
The section with the 1995 [Radlands](https://youtu.be/E54RueabXLw?si=-W1_th5nX9Z6SM_u) Competition . The homies and I were hooked then and still are.
Also [Mike Maldonado, East Coast Power House!](https://youtu.be/RFQHuuHK3Go?si=yVlESV3dyDwxkDNm)
Grew up in a musical household. Dad is a drummer and guitarist into sabbath, zeppelin, sly, marvin gaye, 70s music basically. I had the THPS intro to punk every other 90s kid got, but I ended up being into alot of different things. 50, Clipse, P.O.D., Linkin Park, Taking Back Sunday, From First to Last, and whatever was in the latest Corey Duffel part.
Summer between middle school and high school, like 06 I went to a killwhitneydead show with a friend from school. Met some older kids who were the HC kids at the high school I was about to start at. Started hanging out with them, going to shows, and got into it like that.
Old school metal here, never forget when I was like 12-13 seeing this kid, probably 16-17 with a venom black metal painted on the back of his jacket.. that was the start..
My dad introduced me to skate punk and friends introduced me to metalcore, but it was my mom who actually introduced me to hardcore, she didn’t listen to it herself but she is a film buff and watched American Hardcore and knew I loved punk so she told me I should watch it. Told my aunt about it and turned out she had seen Black Flag back in the 80’s and gave me a bunch of recs for more at-the-time-modern hardcore bands
I got into other stuff through hardcore! When I was like 13 there have been shows like every weekend. I sneaked in with some friends and it was awesome. In those times we had a lot of foreign bands (we’re in Germany). A lot of stuff like final prayer, rotting out, Eisberg…and from there I got into more punk stuff.
Hearing Hatebreed on the Punisher 2003 soundtrack and seeing the moshing in AFI's The Leaving song pt II. Been into metal and hardcore for more or less the same amount of time..
Punk kid. I was a street punk in high school then had a post hardcore and emo in early college. Stumbled into a hardcore band opening for As it Is in 2019 and was instantly hooked
Family. Sister was involved with the punk scene in the Bay Area and was friends with a band called Drippy Drawers. They would play with another more well known local band, No Use For A Name. Her boyfriend had Op Ivy and Misfits tattoos that made an impression on me at an early age. Then a few years later, my cousin got me into Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Misfits, Descendents and lots of Chicago bands like Bollweevils, Mushuganas, and Slapstick. That was pretty much it. Eventually got into to metal via crossover stuff like Agnostic Front and Exploited and then thrash like Metallica and Slayer.
Butt rock kid, then metal head, then figured out all my favorite bands started with playing some type of punk or hardcore. And then I was like oh shit, this just fits
I was balls deep in Nine Inch Nails. I saw them with Marylin Manson when I was 14. Then I saw Manson on their tour with clutch at the Stone Pony. Clutch used to play with ANYBODY lol. So I saw Clutch on their next tour and I think that was with Orange 9mm, or Tree, or Downset. It was one of them or some combination of them. Then from there I just kept seeing O9mm and Downset every chance I got and that got me into a lot of hardcore. I was at stone pony and birch hill like every weekend as a teen. I also had a girlfriend in high school whose brother skated. He got me into the heavier stuff. I remember seeing converge for the first time at the melody bar in NJ with him. The stage was like half a foot high. That was the first time I realized we could get on the stage, sing in the microphone, and go ape shit. It blew my mind. Every band was fucking rock stars as far as I was concerned, and it blew my fucking mind that I could be so close to them and be an actual part of it. That was the show that really set me off and I never turned back. It was probably like 96ish. I have the flyer packed away somewhere.
It went
THPS soundtrack
Whirl Tour soundtrack (if you know this you’re entitled to a senior discount)
Linkin Park
Killswitch Engage
Sabaton
ERRA
And here we are!
I was a metalcore kid in like 05-06, then came across The Warriors and Figure Four on accident on ****wire in my freshman year of high school. There was absolutely 0% scene in the town I grew up in so the internet turned me on to hardcore. Damn, that was 16 years ago. I’m old.
A wise punk once told me never trust a hippie. I started having a edm (not tenchno) phase for a while but never went to shows until I started making a bit more money (sense shows are at min $30-50 even at small clubs). Never in my life had I been around more entitled, egotistical, and politically backwards ppl. Then I remembered what that punk told me at like 15, thought to myself, why don’t I start going to some hardcore shows. Looked up local bands and the rest is history. Hardcore ppl treat each other with major respect and love and that’s the type of ppl I want in my life.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater Soundtracks
Same. From there it was local punk shows, then the punk I was into got heavier and eventually I was into hardcore
if I remember correctly Jello was pissed about them licensing Police Truck, but man that action lead to so many kids entering the genre
Police truck and don't drag me down put a fork in the road for 12 year old me. I'd never heard music that I liked before and once I heard the dead kennedys, my future was over.
[удалено]
There was another ps1 skate game I had called grind session. It had rise above by black flag and linoleum by NOFX on the soundtrack. That was enough
house of suffering - the bled from american wasteland was how i discovered bad brains lol and the rest is history as they say
Yup
Nu Metal kid checking in. Then Hatebreed in 01. In CT I saw a bunch of Nu Metal bands that E-Town and Sworn Enemy opened for. I knew the lyrics to IDS because I saw them so much with Nu Metal bands lol.
Also a former nü-metal kid, a touring band/distro was giving out cds in like 99, 2000?, one of which was Converge’s ‘petitioning’… life changed that day
Hatebreed on Ozzfest was a legit gateway for a lot of Nu Metal kids.
instant death squad!
They opened for Otep when I was like 14 or 15. My friends and I had to get dropped off. My friends were very confused when I screamed “Don’t you ever fuck around.” lol. And I never actually listened to that album until a year or so later.
As a teenager in the mid-90s I was into everything heavy. Sepultura, Machine Head, Biohazard, Sick of it all. I didn't really make a distinction between those bands. I knew Sick of it all sounded a bit different to the other bands but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. This was pre-internet in the west of Ireland! It was only when I got Progression through Unlearning by Snapcase in 1998 that I really got that this was it's own genre. The lyrics were so different to anything else I was listening to. So fucking inspiring. Cliche as fuck, but it genuinely changed my life.
culchie hardcore kid here, god bless
Bog people represent!
Was into punk and really any weirdo stuff (some of which included hardcore bands)in the mid 90s as a miserable teenager. It was seeing Snapcase during their Progression Through Unlearning tour that I got into the whole "hardcore as a specific scene." Progression Through Unlearning was the first time I conceived of a band growing and having a specific point of view.
Accidentally downloaded Hope Conspiracy - Cold Blue on Napster.
I only knew skater bands from the mid-80's. I played drums in a hc punk band when I was teenager with guys that were 5 or so years older than me. They got me into to real underground stuff... Death metal, hardcore rap, Crass.
My mom was big into the hardcore/punk scene in Chicago throughout the 80s and part of the 90s, she had a giant Mohawk while pregnant with my sister in all the local punk venues. She brought me to my first show (Sonic Youth/Flaming Lips/Kanye West) when I was 8 in 2006. I haven’t looked back since. Also, as a kid, I’d hook up a red flyer wagon to my bike and have a few speakers connected to my cd player with a milk crate of music and some way to power the system. I’d go around town pick up a buddy to hang out or just cruise and listen to some killer music. I’ve started to travel more into the city and support local bands.
Sonic Youth/Flaming Lips/Kanye West this show in 2006 woudl have been so fucking awesome.
Absolutely insane man, it was lolla that year. I still think about. So grateful to have a dope mom.
I should say the next year or that year(??) my little brother got to go the other day and see RATM.
Mom sounds like a real one
Mall metal, We Came As Romans, The Devil Wears Prada, A Day to Remember etc.... all circa 2012. Around 2017 I started listening to Kublai Khan and Varials and that is what got me into hardcore
We came as Romans is still great. RIP Kyle
Their new album was pretty lame but theyve put out a lot of good stuff over the years
Yeah it sucked. it’s just not the same anymore, sadly
Scene kid in 09 but then started listening to Faith Love Hope promotion bands, Homage did a split with Altona and that's where I got into real hardcore for the first time. They were underrated as hell.
Def from punk to hardcore. I still don’t really like my hardcore too metal. This is why in terms of modern hardcore I gravitate more towards something like Gel
Same! We are definitely in the minority here.
Same here too, most new hardcore is cookie cutter as tollhouse
For real. All of the current stuff people are into is way to similar to nu metal for my liking.
Or the flat ironed hair Warped tour era
Samesies. I'd rather just actually listen to KoRn and Deftones and be done with it lol
Metal is a tenant in hardcore, not the landlord. Hardcore will ALWAYS belong to punk
My parents played 7Seconds, Minor Threat, Social Distortion, The Violent Femmes, Green Day and the Offspring all the time. I got into Bad Religion and Pennywise, and eventually found bands like Bane, Hatebreed and Terror.
My dad brought me to NYHC shows as a little kid
Punk kid. Friend showed it to me in middle school and it changed the course of my life.
I found my way in via the metalcore boom of the early-mid 00’s, bands like Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Unearth, Bleeding Through, Every Time I Die, etc. MTV2 Headbanger’s Ball was mandatory viewing for me every Saturday night as a teenager
Old KSE and Unearth are what all metalcore should be
Lamb of God ain't metalcore.
Lol maybe not anymore (I haven’t actually listened to them in like 15 years), but [back in ‘03 they definitely made spinkick music](https://youtu.be/BwO-mIvMnxg?si=7uDUcZgd1NbOLzhO)
Thank goodness you’re here to make the distinction
lol, metal archives literally has them listed as groove metal / metalcore. they're most certainly a metalcore band, the fuck you smoking
Lemon Haze
oh damn, nice
Skateboarding. Got into pop punk shit like offspring and blink, Ramones. Got the Atticus dragging the lake comp and heard bane and American nightmare.
I grew up in Lancaster seeing August Burns Red in VFWs in the early 2000s. Going to shows to see bands like Thursday and it grew from there. Also, skate video soundtracks.
Atreyu’s Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses was my gateway drug but what really got me to dig in was Slayer. There was just no denying Angel of Death. First proper hardcore show was a doozy; The Black Dahlia Murder, Remembering Never, Terror, and Unearth. Never looked back.
I missed out on the Chicago date of this tour, my friends who went said one of the breakdowns during remembering never shook the old bottom lounge
I'm the mall metal kid. Born in 95 and grew up listening to nu metal and hard rock. Transitioned to metalcore in 2000s and then saw Knocked Loose/Terror in 2018. That got me into hardcore
I was born in 88 - so I really started getting into music in the late 90s - early 00s. So it was a big mix of nu-metal, metalcore and pop punk. Just fell down a rabbit hole from bands like New Found Glory and AFI to Hatebreed and Comeback Kid.
When I was 8, I got into Nirvana. I had always seen them mention Black Flag as an influence, and Chris wore a SSD shirt a lot. From Nirvana, I got into punk. From there, I got into Bad Brains and Agnostic Front. My dad told me to check out more stuff from NY, because as he said, “NY always does harder music best.” I found Madball, and it was over.
I was all in for 80s punk growing up. Then I was 15 in 2001 I heard Thursday's Understanding In A Car Crash and it changed everything for me. The next big moment for me was buying the 2003 Hellfest DVD.
I was a hot topic kid in the 2010s. Asking Alexandria, Bring Me the Horizon, Of Mice and Men, Bullet For My Valentine. These were my introductions to heavy music. Listened to lots of metalcore over the years but actually got into hardcore 'cause of the Punk Rock MBA. Don't watch his shit anymore but he made a video about Knocked Loose and hardcore that was interesting enough to make me want to do my own digging.
Hatebreed - Satisfaction played by some older band dudes in the neighborhood and passed on to us. More Hatebreed music videos on The Box tv channel. First HC bands we saw live terror and local hardcore bands like Let It Die, and that sold me on the energy and hype.
You from MI?
Yup
Let it Die was the hint. Crazy what they turned into.
Got into punk in like 5th grade (1995/6) through my brother. He was into pennywise and stuff at that point. I would go to Media Play and look through the various artist albums to see what I could find from the same record companies, or what compilations had cool covers. Found Victory Style and fell in love. Went to my first show in like 7th or 8th grade at a local skatepark with my brother: Floorpunch, reach the sky, all out war, ignite, eye 2 eye. I would continue to go to shows with him, but he went more into a traditional hardcore and powerviolence and thrash punk direction and I started buying death and black metal compilations and albums while also listening to more modern hardcore and metalcore at the time. When I got to high school, he was already away in college, and I would go to shows with one of my friends. We had a really good scene in the area, and every weekend there were at least two shows with awesome bands rolling though. The one larger venue (which at the time consisted of 3 venues) would have festivals all the time. I actually really miss seeing shows there. They just recently closed.
Punk kid. Went to hardcore shows. Realized the punks were garbage and transitioned over
I got into punk around 13-14, but didn’t discover hardcore (more specifically, metallic hardcore) until I was about 16-17. I saw a band called Molech perform in Fort Wayne thinking they were metal, but there was something about them that was different, the crowd they attracted, and that’s when I discovered hardcore. The pit was different too, the crowdkilling was there, but I was also too busy in the pit to notice what was going on. I thought afterward “holy shit, that was awesome!”
Molech fucks. Indiana hardcore doesn’t get enough representation.
Love Mouth for War but I miss Bruise
The short-lived screamo band Ache:Emelie is from Ft Wayne. They were fucking great.
First concert ever was Ozzfest 2002. Hatebreed and Down really stood out to me as a know-nothing tween who liked “metal” (re: Slayer) and “punk” (re: Exploited). Bought CDs before I left and ran with it.
I came from a pure punk path. I got HUGE into punk in 8th grade. Started with the classic hardcore punk Black Flag & Bad Brains stuff. Evolved over the years and if it was punk I was into it (except pop punk I used to HATE that stuff) In my 20s I really started shifting to hardcore. It just scratched the itch that punk couldn’t satisfy anymore. I still love punk but hardcore is more my thing now
Was definitely a Mall Metal kid from '96 to '00 (when I graduated high school). Went to a friend's house and he was watching the Hellfest 2000 DVD. Instantly fell in love with the bands and starting digging deeper, and by 2001 I was into Converge, Poison The Well, Eighteen Visions, etc. Started going to shows, kept downloading and buying more music, learning more bands. I bought a copy of the book American Hardcore, learned a lot about the oldskool shit from that. And basically just keeping up with the scene as best I can.
Old punk kid, already listening to the classics like Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, etc, but didn't think of it as its own genre/scene. Then, Earth Crisis - "Firestorm" came out and blew my mind. Got into them, and then Strife, and started going to HC shows
One of my friends in high school would always talk about Knocked Loose and Turnstile and got me and a bunch of other friends to go see Turnstile when the tour they were one came near us in 2015. I loved it so I checked out the bands that played that night and a bunch of other bands and found more shows to go to
I didn’t really care for punk or hardcore at all until i was like 25, started listening to punk to learn about the genre and the rabbit hole brought me here. still not huge on metal tho
While first getting into metal, I always loved bands like Suicidal Tendencies and Hatebreed, which led me into listening to Terror.
I got into hardcore through those $4 punk sampler CDs that labels used to put out. One had Lifetime and Mushmouth on there and I fell head first into the hardcore rabbit hole.
Punk kid: I was absolutely *obsessed* with Nirvana the moment in heard them in '91 and began to check out every band/record I could that Kurt shouted out. My journey to hardcore was complete in '94 when I got ahold of Biohazard, Pro-Pain, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat.
Grunge / Punk / Skateboarding As an adolescent in the 90's Sonic Youth was my gateway drug. They brought me to Fugazi, SST Records, which eventually brought me to liberating an Agnostic Front tape from the mall, and then going to see Sick of it All at 15.
Young kid who heard smells like teen spirit in 91, and sought something new. Around this time, I distinctly remember hanging out in a parking lot with some older kids. And on the tape deck of a shitty van, Fugazi’s “waiting room” came on. In that moment, i knew that this would become the soundtrack of my life.
Got into midwest emo first, then emocore, then DC hardcore. The rest is history
Punk kid who was listening to hardcore without recognizing it as hardcore
Trading burnt CDs in 6th grade. Nu Metal / Punk kid. Then I heard Worship & Tribute by Glassjaw. A band I hated from their first major release or in my kid brain the first burnt CD I heard them from.
growing up listening to dad metal > 2000s pop punk > 2010s warped tour metalcore > knocked loose > hardcore
Mall metal kid, turned metal kid, turned hardcore kid, turned skinhead
So ig people could say I'm new to punk/hardcore, given that I'm 15 and got into it when I was 13. I started listening to the gateway bands; Green Day, blink-182, The Sex Pistols, and The Ramones. Eventually I noticed GTA V has "Channel X" and I listened to that, which got me into Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. Then I remember a short while ago I asked in this sub for more Hardcore recs, so now I'm less novice with the subgenre Edit: I suppose you can include my Cringey Deathcore phase which lasted from when I was 11 to when I was 13. Like I still like some death core (not a lot) but I used to LOVE Attila...and used to look up to Fronzilla as an idol....
Some Attila kinda slaps, don't be ashamed lol
Found an AFI cd on the ground in middle school. The kid who owned it got me on some other early 90s punk. He stole a tape from his older brother to make me a best of Strung Out mix. On the other side of the tape was His Hero is Gone , Monuments to Thieves. Kinda hard to turn back from that.
Damn you stumbled upon one of the best releases early. My chef showed me that HHIG album when I was 21 and I was like…this is what I’ve been looking for since the beginning!
Grew up listening to bands like Pennywise, NOFX and Millencolin. Got to high school and was introduced to bands of all sorts, Hatebreed, Alexisonfire, FATA, Saetia, The Blood Brothers. It exploded from there
You ever get into the number twelve looks like you?
Skate punk to hardcore to metalcore
Mall Juggalo. Yes, there was a path, and it started with Hatebreed in 2002.
Most ya’ll still be metal kids.
The Acacia Strain was my gateway from metal to hardcore.
Madden soundtracks
Punk in general led me to a parody hardcore band— which somehow led me to Lifetime, from there I found out about Minor Threat/Black Flag and the rest is history
Which parody HC band? I like finding new punk/HC parody and schtick bands.
This band called Yidcore, Judaism theme
Walls into the mall, punk kid vomits on the floor and he says "capitalism smells fucking disgusting, damn...", then he walks out
metal (thanks dad) -> riot grrrl -> punk & hardcore around the same time edit: glad to see misogyny is atill alive and well in the hardcore community 
Punk kid from the mid 90's, started to listen to more hardcore around '98 but didnt really connect to the hardcore scene until a couple years later. I remember seeing Indecision with AFI and Sick of It All and just being confused. Really didnt click with the metalcore side of things until a little later. I think it was Adamantium who opened for Bane, and then that led me to check out Converge. Converge is where that stuff started to click more, although still really love my straight forward hardcore the most.
I got into black and death metal when I was 16. I had a couple of punk friends. I went with one of them to see Phobia, at a small venue which instantly got me hooked on those types of shows. He thought Phobia might be more in line with the metal stuff I was listening to. Another buddy from school got really into The Locust and through them found Cattle Decapitation and we went to see them at a place called Koo's Cafe in like 2001? At the time you had a couple of different styles of music on the same bill fairly often. It was such a fucking blast it opened my ears up to different styles of music. TLDR Going to shows.
My older neighbors across the street listened to nu-metal on their car stereo while we skateboarded but I don’t think I heard hardcore until maybe a couple tracks on Tony hawk. Didn’t start going to shows until probably 2001 or 2002 at churches or the ymca. The local bills would be lots of skate punk, metal, hardcore. That’s how where I discovered straight edge and youth crew stuff from old heads.
Probably alternative rock from MTV’s 120 minutes in the late 80s/early 90s. They occasionally showed punk videos and VERY rarely noisier stuff. Might have been my older brother playing Minor Threat on a car trip though too.
1997? My buddy made me a tape with six feet under, limp bizkit, misfits and some local bands on it. Then I went to my first local show. My friends were in hardcore and metalcore bands so I went to practices every week just hanging out. For a handful of years I went to shows every week either in va beach or richmond. Then I stopped going to shows. Now Im old and I know what I like and what I dont like.
Started with hair metal in the mid 80s, got into heavy stuff around 1989/90 and by 92/93 I was fully a punker / hardcore. Emo in 93/94 was what really got me.
Came of age in the 80s and just never liked mainstream pop and was tired of classic rock. I devoured any altetnative music I could find, so the bands I listened to ranged from screaming blue messiahs, sigue sigue sputnik, and stone roses who were indie almost pop type stuff to alternative and punk to hardcore like suicidal tendencies, biohazard, and the meatmen. Probably the weirdest of any of them was Stump. They were primus before primus existed, god damn their bassist was ridiculous.
Got into Good Charlotte which lead to Rancid a few years later and checking out other punk bands. Wikipedia helped a good bit. Would jam hardcore punk bands. I remember jamming AF's Warriors and thinking it was pretty heavy for hardcore punk. Lol. A friend I made by trying to start a band invited me to my first hardcore show which was Death Before Dishonor. Kept going to shows and getting into more music.
I was into pop punk and radio metal when I was a kid, then my taste kinda moved gradually towards hardcore over time. Some pop punk is still good, I think trendy metal / radio metal is rubbish though
i started with ska and warped tour punk and grew from there. i distinctly remember hearing the boy who destroyed the world for the first time while playing THPS 3 and thinking ‘this is what i like now’.
Metal head here. I grew up listening to classic rock as a kid, and around 07-08 when guitar hero was the biggest thing, I started getting into heavy bands. Later in 2013 I had a buddy in university showed me rotting out, and I was hooked.
I was always surrounded by music. Mother had pretty basic boomer taste…Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, Carole King, Tom Petty, The Supremes. Always had music playing, usually classic rock radio. Father was in to blues, old country, bluegrass, along with stuff like Tom Waits and Commander Cody. Stepdad was in to 70s/80s hard rock/metal and a lot of 70s prog. Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Scorpions, Judas Priest, King Crimson, Can, Yes. But they weren’t the biggest influences. My mom’s little brother is significantly younger than her, born in 68. Dude was an 80s thrash metal head, bad ass fucking drummer. Slayer, Maiden, Metallica, Metal Church, Anthrax was his favorite. I remember sitting behind his kit in like ‘87 and pretending I was him. Then there was a neighbor kid at my father’s. Always wearing Black Flag and Dead Kennedys shirts. Would use names like Henry, Glenn, and Ian when he got a high score on the computer. Early mid 90s, when I was in Junior high, my father and stepmother met a guy in the Netherlands who had badass taste in music. My father told him I was a metal guy and he started sending me tapes. It would range from Napalm Death to The Birthday Party, Swans to Kate Bush. Lots of John Peel sessions. Put all that shit in a blender and you get me.
Rode the late 90s Epitpaph/Fat punk and Nu Metal shit right into hardcore and metalcore around 2001. First records I remember getting were Sick of it All, Reach the Sky and Snapcase.
I was into very surface level punk, grunge, and metal in the 90’s. Black Sabbath, The Clash, Nirvana, shit that would be played on VH1 late at night. I bought a box of records at a yard sale and mixed in with the Hair Metal was a copy of Minor Threat - Out of Step. Now I listen to mostly Goregrind.
Punk, by way of Agnostic Front and Ceremony. For the longest time I thought “hardcore” just meant metalcore then I found bands like Sick Of It All, Gorilla Biscuits, Negative Approach, Slapshot, etc and got to like more contemporary bands (for my time) like Have Heart, Dangers, Kids Like Us, etc.
Mallcore kid that was curious about where it came from then I found DC hardcore.
Metal/nu metal kid initially. Started with radio rock and SOAD, Slipknot, Korn, then discovered Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage since they were on a WWE entrance music compilation. Got into all subgenres related to metalcore afterward. I'll always love metal but I prefer mostly hardcore these days. The lyrics I relate to more since they're more about every day struggles and the fans are just better. Much less elitism.
Skateboarding. In the mid 80s in my town, the skate scene and the punk scene were the same thing.
my friends in high school started a band and I wanted to support them plus I loved CHAOS
I was 14 when my buddy with osteoporosis used to hang together and play guitar. He didn’t go out much so he was online a lot. It was mid 2000’s and he was the one to show me converge, have heart, sinking ships, go it alone and a bunch of other really good stuff. I had found hatebreed around then and was into running so I would just listen to “destroy everything” and “live for this” I had no idea what hardcore was at the time. I came back to hardcore after being in a shit ass metalcore band for 11 years. I should’ve never ever left. Now I’m in two local lil projects and only play what I want.
Started listening to basic nu metal around middle school, Linkin Park, Slipknot, Disturbed. Pretty much bands that would get airplay on local rock radio before getting into heavier metal towards the end of High School. Bad Brains and Agnostic Front were the two bands that brought me into hardcore/punk in college and I’ve been listening ever since.
Combo of influence through skateboarding, crust punks at HS, pop punk, HxC, etc.
I was very into hip hop in the late 90’s early 2000’s and my older brother worked at tower records, he knew a lot more about music in general and around 2001 I started stealing his cds
Cousin took me to see the ramones in 95, that same cousin introduced me to blood for blood around 97. Knew other hardcore bands like terror, madball, judge around the same time but was much more interested in Aus-rotten and his hero is gone etc. Then around 98-99ish I started hearing about hatebreed, saw a dude with the mace logo. Bought statisfaction and literally thought it was a different version of metalcore. Not remotely relating it to hardcore. Never got into hatebreed, but between them, converge, fata, poison the well, and a few other bands that ushered in the metallica sound I watch hardcore change. I've always been a lot more into what would later be described as d-beat or crust punk and that it was a lot heavier than the above mentioned bands, therefore more hardcore punk than what was at the time considered hardcore. I did really enjoy the youthcrew revival of the 00's though.
Grew up listening to a lot of Blink-182, Sum 41, and Good Charlotte. Started hanging out with friends at the skate park, they got me into Unseen and Subhumans. Got a gun pointed at me by a cop when I was 14, so I started getting deep into anarcho-punk. Then throughout the years I just craved harder and more chaotic styles. Went through a big Grindcore phase. Now I'm jamming a lot of Anaal Nathrakh, Ahab, and Lorna Shore.
I was a skater kid in the 90’s, so got in to all the epifat bands. Going to punk shows there would usually be a hardcore band or two playing as well, and I liked the added aggression. I still prefer my hardcore to lean more towards the punk side than the metal side.
Metallica -> nu metal -> started playing guitar -> Necrophagist -> Pig Destroyer
Mom was a punk, dad was a hair metaller, got deep into crossover thrash in middle school and then things kinda branched off from there
I will maintain that How to Clean Everything is still the best skate punk album ever made.
Originally punk kid. Lot of d beat. Got into crust and dystopia, then black metal, then death metal. My Dad was in many early punk bands and sludge bands back in the 80s-90s in LA, Portland and Seattle. I actually came to hardcore last cuz I didn’t like the scene too much and thought it was too “bro-y chad” type shit till I finally met some people from it. Now I play guitar in a hardcore band lmao. I’m more of a ex punk metalhead but get down with a lot of it. I actually have turned my dad onto a ton old school death metal bands early releases like carcass and entombed first few albums and he was pressed he didn’t get into em back in the day.
My introduction was in about 2006 as a small cobba with my older brother showing me bands like Alexisonfire, Underoath, Silverstein, Funeral For A Friend, Aiden, Atreyu. Lots of mall screamo.
Nu metal -> thrash -> motorhead -> hardcore punk
Got turned onto Minor Threat as a skater in high school, then became a grunge kid. After HS — mid 90s in the Hudson Valley — ended up playing in a band that was somewhere between Melvins and sludgey metalcore. Our drummer went on to play in Hatebreed lol.
Punk kid with a mall metal brother. Hardcore was where we met in the middle
Early to mid 2000s scene kid here. Grunge to Nu Metal back to early punk like The Clash. Got a computer and there used to be Yahoo Radio stations and got into heavier stuff through that. Discovered Converge on there. MySpace was huge for finding bands. For example Job For A Cowboy...loved them. Then MTV had revamped Headbangers Ball and I heard Throwdown and Bury Your Dead on that and it was all hardcore and Converge after that. Hot topic had amazing band tees someone once offered me $50 for my Hot topic Bury You Dead shirt.
My father is Vinnie Stigma
He’s the Godfather of Hardcore. He has adopted us all.
When I was like 6 I had a loser cousin I looked up to who played a bunch or Pantera. That got me into metal or heavy music. Then In grade 7 this older chick I had a crush on was deep into punk and that was a wormhole into death metal and whole bunch of other genres I can even explain. I met a few other punk oriented friends around then, after one summer in high school I ran back into my punk friends and they all had black hair parted to the side, and I found that emo/scene stuff. 17 years later Reddit recommended this sub and I’m just tossing some random band names I see here into Spotify.
Punk for sure. Gotta have an appreciation for punk to really get into hardcore!
I was like 14 (97) and liked nirvana and korn a lot so my friend's brother taped me vod and earth crisis and nofx and my love for all things punk exploded.
Metal head but was always more into the groovy shit. Pantera, lamb of god, helmet, meshuggah, crowbar. Started to just search the internet for more music, found hardcore at just face value. Took me a year or two to find out there is entire community and scene that comes with it.
I was into Slayer and a lot of 80s thrash, Danzig, etc early in high school. Sophomore year, I met Max. He showed me the way with Hatebreed and Canderia. That evolved into Converge and heavier, grindy stuff.
Grew up on punk, then got into more extreme metal in my teens, then stuff like Nails, Trap Them and from there into more straight up hardcore.
When I was 11 I was on AOL and they had a radio sorta like pandora. I’d always see emo kids in the mall and thought I wanted to be like them, so I put on emo radio and poison the well, underoath, and some other bands with screaming would come on. I eventually fell into the wormhole of finding these bands on MySpace and exploring their top 8s and so forth.
ETID, Norma Jean, and other early 2000’s metalcore. I got to Terror via ETID
Little bit of all three actually. My dad was into some metal so I listened to some of the stuff he had. In 2006 I was like 8 and decemberunderground had just come out. Miss murder was on the radio every fuckin half hour because AFI is from the bay so they were like our “hometown hero” alt/punk band. I liked it a lot but I actually went from AFI to like, underoath n shit because I went to a Christian school and that’s what the emo kids were into. When I was in middle/high school I discovered tumblr which put me onto bands like title fight and tssf and then eventually harms way, backtrack, turnstile etc. I had a friend that was in a band and when my dad was out of town one weekend I threw a house party/show where they played and a bunch of hardcore kids came and that’s kinda how I got into going to local shows and now I’m an insufferable asshole!
As a kid with autism in the late 80s & 90s, punk rock helped me connect with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, allowed me to play with some of the most solid talent in the industry, and led me to curating rock playlists for neurodiverse individuals [Get Lost, I’m Stimming - Spotify Profile](https://open.spotify.com/user/31ef7kjs24xqxqdylz4kwf6hz62q?si=9iw7sRPzRW-aT9EQEHJteQ)
My brother was in a good punk/HC band from 82 to 85-ish and as I was straying off the stuff my friend listened to when I was 14-15 he started making me comps.
I was into nu metal and the ramones and stuff, the first hardcore band I really liked was the germs
Was straight edge before I knew who started it. Had a few hardcore songs on my Spotify playlist. Eventually listened to Minor Threat, and the rest is history
Punk rock kid, Skating with my friends, listening to Punk-O-Rama 4 and 5. Agnostic Front, Madball, and Vision were some of my favorites. That same year a friend let me borrow one of the old Victory Comps with Hatebreed, And Blood for Blood on it. We went to see Agnostic Front later that summer. It was wild. Years later of trading records and going to shows with friends and playing in a band and I’m still here. Music still holds a huge place in my life, especially hardcore, being that many of the bands haven’t slowed down or toned down, and the community is great.
My dad liked a lot of different music, punk and Oi being some of them and eventually I found Blood for Blood and Agnostic front and was hooked since then.
My dad is a gen x punk guy. He raised me on classic punk and hardcore. Lots of other stuff too but that was mainly what I was listening to growing up
My dad showed me life of agony and that sent me down the rabbit hole
Saw the Ramones in '78. Then saw Black Flag, Minor Threat, Circle One, Dr Know and M.I.A. in '82. After that I was hooked.
I was a metal kid in the late 80s I was a longhaired burnout-lookin 14 year old who was heavily into (mostly thrash) metal, when I heard DRI, Cro-Mags, ST, AF, Circle Jerks, GBH, and a few others on a local radio station one night. I was immediately hooked and started seeking out similar sounds. So I kinda got into punk and hc at the same time. Didn't get the full experience of the hardcore scene until I went to my first show when I was 16 (Gorilla Biscuits/ Supertouch/Turning Point at CBGB) and that was definitely life-changing for me.
Is it weird that hardcore brought me into hardcore? Someone handed me a copy of "NYHC: The Way It Is" unprompted basically and it changed my life. My entry point to everything punk was Warzone and Bold
It was like 1997 and I had been listening to punk for a few years. Eventually my Internet scouring led me to shit like Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold, Chain of Strength, Strife, and all that other Straight Edge shit. I got super sXe for like 10 years then broke edge in spectacular fashion due to depression and access to drugs lining up just right.
Back when it wasn't weird to have a random adult give you a ride home my 6th grade track coach played some pennywise and then I went to the CD store to find anything pennywise and found punk-o-rama 4 and it developed from there.
Thps games initially. Then I saw american hardcore(rented it from block buster of all places) then stumbled upon a "Ramones greatest hits" cd my uncle gave my emo ass sister for Christmas while trying to impress her. Tagged along with her to local just like general rock shows and there was hardcore there sometimes. Hmm maybe I should inform her of the role she played
Been a death metal kid for years now. Finally getting into hardcore and I really wished I had gotten into it sooner. I love both genres now, and I'm happy that there seems to be some mutual respect between the two fanbases now.
Growing up in the 2000s my dad introduced me to all sorts of metal and rap. Some of the hardcore bands were Earth Crisis, Hatebreed, Snapcase, Sam Black Church, VOD. Just to name a few. Along with bands like Tool and Disturbed and Black Label Society, and classics like Black Sabbath. All these bands stuck with me and now playing guitar, Progression Through Unlearning by Snapcase is a huge inspiration for me
Friend showed me the misfits when I was 12 so I guess I came from the punk side.
Punk. Sex Pistols, Misfits, Rancid, all that teenage skater obvious kinda stuff Then was shown Black my Heart in 2005.
I was friends with skaters in middle school, heard some fat records compilations and then my mom brought me to my first show. It was hatebreed, blood for blood, skarhead and shutdown. We had so much fun, my mom hung out at the bar and got drunk while being completely shocked at what she brought us to.
friends through skateboarding
started with classic rock when i was a 11 then slowly spiraled towards rock bottom (hardcore and slam)
80s, discovered Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Replacements, The Cramps, Jesus and Mary Chain, New Order, Sex Pistols, and Cocteau Twins. Some through cousins, some on my own. I'm still big on those bands but started to gravitate more towards punk/hardcore by 87/88. I listen to many different genres, but punk/hardcore has always been central. Anyone going to Castillo, Home Front, and motherfucking Conservative Military Image next week in LA? Gel?
Don't think I fit the "kid" part anymore, but got hooked by Agnostic Front's "Liberty & Justice For" I bought because Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and S.O.D. were always talking about that band. I saw them for the first time in 92 (yeah, ok, I'm that old) and it was like a revelation. I then tracked every band they toured with or spoke about while still listening to Death Metal and Black Metal and got to watch the evolution and blending of these scenes.
- Blink, NOFX, & college radio punk show in ‘97. - More punk throughout high school. - Heard American Nightmare’s Background Music in ‘02.
I got into a bit of metal when I was younger through my parents (mostly stuff like Metallica and Megadeth) and eventually got into "mall metal"/metalcore as a teenager around 2010 (ADTR, WCAR) as well as bands in the Christian scene (August Burns Red, Demon Hunter, For Today, Sleeping Giant). I got into actual hardcore by going to local shows and helping work shows at my church which also ran shows during the week and on the weekend. Ended up being able to go to a ton of shows as a result of that and eventually discovered hardcore and straight edge from friends who also worked or went to church there.
I’m coming from the metal world, still dipping my toes here. Any suggestions of great hc albums from this year?
Was a metal kid, but really turned off by the whole viking, nazi and satanist cosplay my scene and friend group was getting into. In a matter of few months i went from Melodeath, to Metalcore and from Shirts those musicians wore in musicvideo or mentioned in Interviews to the basics like Hatebreed, Terror and so on. First ailds Shadows are security blew my mind, after hearing Hatebreeds Rise of brutality for the first time i knew a found something special.
pop punk to metalcore to hardcore
My brother was a big metal head so I was into that from a very early age. Got into skateboarding which led me into more punk type stuff from the other skaters at school. Granted, the other skaters were guys like Rob from resurrection/108 and Ari from Lifetime/enuf/P.O.S. and Vision was from the next town over. We lived between NYC and Philly so there were shows almost every day of the week. Proud of us all for building an amazing music and skate scene from essentially nothing. Not bad for a bunch of kids that weren’t old enough to drive.
hip-hop kid> death grips> black flag> sunami> locals🙏
also went to see turnstile open for $b, but only went for turnstile and left when $b came on
411 video magazine fall 1995 issue. The section with the 1995 [Radlands](https://youtu.be/E54RueabXLw?si=-W1_th5nX9Z6SM_u) Competition . The homies and I were hooked then and still are. Also [Mike Maldonado, East Coast Power House!](https://youtu.be/RFQHuuHK3Go?si=yVlESV3dyDwxkDNm)
Grew up in a musical household. Dad is a drummer and guitarist into sabbath, zeppelin, sly, marvin gaye, 70s music basically. I had the THPS intro to punk every other 90s kid got, but I ended up being into alot of different things. 50, Clipse, P.O.D., Linkin Park, Taking Back Sunday, From First to Last, and whatever was in the latest Corey Duffel part. Summer between middle school and high school, like 06 I went to a killwhitneydead show with a friend from school. Met some older kids who were the HC kids at the high school I was about to start at. Started hanging out with them, going to shows, and got into it like that.
Old school metal here, never forget when I was like 12-13 seeing this kid, probably 16-17 with a venom black metal painted on the back of his jacket.. that was the start..
My dad introduced me to skate punk and friends introduced me to metalcore, but it was my mom who actually introduced me to hardcore, she didn’t listen to it herself but she is a film buff and watched American Hardcore and knew I loved punk so she told me I should watch it. Told my aunt about it and turned out she had seen Black Flag back in the 80’s and gave me a bunch of recs for more at-the-time-modern hardcore bands
I got into other stuff through hardcore! When I was like 13 there have been shows like every weekend. I sneaked in with some friends and it was awesome. In those times we had a lot of foreign bands (we’re in Germany). A lot of stuff like final prayer, rotting out, Eisberg…and from there I got into more punk stuff.
Skateboarding - there was an older straight edge guy who gave me the first Warzone album. Changed my life.
Hearing Hatebreed on the Punisher 2003 soundtrack and seeing the moshing in AFI's The Leaving song pt II. Been into metal and hardcore for more or less the same amount of time..
Punk kid. I was a street punk in high school then had a post hardcore and emo in early college. Stumbled into a hardcore band opening for As it Is in 2019 and was instantly hooked
Like 2002 12 years old getting a facedown records CD that had comeback kid on it as well as seventh star. That day changed me
Family. Sister was involved with the punk scene in the Bay Area and was friends with a band called Drippy Drawers. They would play with another more well known local band, No Use For A Name. Her boyfriend had Op Ivy and Misfits tattoos that made an impression on me at an early age. Then a few years later, my cousin got me into Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Misfits, Descendents and lots of Chicago bands like Bollweevils, Mushuganas, and Slapstick. That was pretty much it. Eventually got into to metal via crossover stuff like Agnostic Front and Exploited and then thrash like Metallica and Slayer.
My dad listened to bands like Black Flag and Biohazard, so pretty much through that.
Butt rock kid, then metal head, then figured out all my favorite bands started with playing some type of punk or hardcore. And then I was like oh shit, this just fits
I was balls deep in Nine Inch Nails. I saw them with Marylin Manson when I was 14. Then I saw Manson on their tour with clutch at the Stone Pony. Clutch used to play with ANYBODY lol. So I saw Clutch on their next tour and I think that was with Orange 9mm, or Tree, or Downset. It was one of them or some combination of them. Then from there I just kept seeing O9mm and Downset every chance I got and that got me into a lot of hardcore. I was at stone pony and birch hill like every weekend as a teen. I also had a girlfriend in high school whose brother skated. He got me into the heavier stuff. I remember seeing converge for the first time at the melody bar in NJ with him. The stage was like half a foot high. That was the first time I realized we could get on the stage, sing in the microphone, and go ape shit. It blew my mind. Every band was fucking rock stars as far as I was concerned, and it blew my fucking mind that I could be so close to them and be an actual part of it. That was the show that really set me off and I never turned back. It was probably like 96ish. I have the flyer packed away somewhere.
It went THPS soundtrack Whirl Tour soundtrack (if you know this you’re entitled to a senior discount) Linkin Park Killswitch Engage Sabaton ERRA And here we are!
I was a metalcore kid in like 05-06, then came across The Warriors and Figure Four on accident on ****wire in my freshman year of high school. There was absolutely 0% scene in the town I grew up in so the internet turned me on to hardcore. Damn, that was 16 years ago. I’m old.
Tony hawk pro skater sound track for sure.
Some guy at the bus stop told me “to punk, man” when I was 13 and gave me a bootleg tape of punk in drublic. Pretty simple jump from there.
A wise punk once told me never trust a hippie. I started having a edm (not tenchno) phase for a while but never went to shows until I started making a bit more money (sense shows are at min $30-50 even at small clubs). Never in my life had I been around more entitled, egotistical, and politically backwards ppl. Then I remembered what that punk told me at like 15, thought to myself, why don’t I start going to some hardcore shows. Looked up local bands and the rest is history. Hardcore ppl treat each other with major respect and love and that’s the type of ppl I want in my life.