HOW HARDCORE PUNK THRASHED ITS WAY INTO THE MAINSTREAM

Bands like Turnstile and Knocked Loose are giving the scene wide exposure gatekeepers be damned.

- By Brenna Ehrlich

Last November, when the Kentucky band Knocked Loose played Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it looked more like something out of a punk festival such as Riot Fest or Sound and Fury than late-night TV. Frontman Bryan Garris let out a mighty pig squeal as guest vocalist Poppy thrashed and screamed across the stage, dressed like an even more macabre girl from The Ring. Kitted out in black clothing, Knocked Loose unleashed paint-peeling metalcore as a mosh pit surged like an ocean during a storm. It was a rager of a performance that reportedly left some viewers' children in tears - and old-school hardcore bros scratching their heads. Was such a hard band playing on such a big popculture stage good for the scene - or did it signal the death knell of a fiercely underground genre?

Since Southern California's Black Flag helped invent the punk subgenre with their 1979 EP, Nervous Breakdown, hardcore has been protected from the mainstream, a kind of secret club for disaffected youth in the know. "Hardcore was never part of the music business," says Steve Blush, author of the 2001 history American Hardcore. "It was completely underground. There were no industry constructs. It's the most true music ever."

Recently, though, hardcore has found a shocking new level of success outside of the usual confines of the scene. The most notable breakthrough has been the popularity of Maryland band Turnstile, which turned the genre on its head with 2021's Glow On, a mélange of rock & roll, R&B, and psychedelia that opened the doors for further experimentation. Loud, danceable, and unlike anything in rock at the time,