As a former member of Evergreen Terrace, etc. and a current member of Stick To Your Guns and Eighteen Visions, straight edge guitarist/vocalist Josh James has enjoyed a long tenure awash in metalcore/hardcore culture. Amid those decades of service though, at least one trend within the scene didn’t exactly sit well with him.
During a recent appearance on the ‘BREWtally Speaking Podcast‘, James spoke of what he saw as an influx of musicians who eschewed the traditional ideals of the metalcore/hardcore movement after the scene’s early 2000s explosion into the mainstream.
After reminiscing on playing the earlier incarnations of ‘Furnace Fest‘, James offered:
“I would say that the change that I’ve seen over the last couple of decades, is that a lot of people exchanged the football for the guitar. You know, I’ve gone on tour with a lot of people, and I end up having a conversation with them—newer bands or whatever. And they don’t last for that long because it’s just, they’re someone that’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna be in a band because…’, like, they don’t know anything about like the core ideas of what hardcore and punk and all of that is.
And they just look at… instead of them being a jock, they were just like, yeah, I’m gonna be in a… I watched ‘MTV Made‘. And I’m gonna be a fucking metalcore guy and I can go ‘Yooooow’, and I’m gonna scream or whatever. And I’m gonna get chicks and I’m gonna get fucked up on drugs. I’m gonna drink. I’m gonna be a fucking rock god.
And you see that, you know, there, there are certain bands that you’ve seen, where they started off in metalcore or hardcore—and whatever people change, and I understand that—but you also see people’s intentions.
And there you have seen people that have successfully done it to where they are like, I’m this d-level rock star. And I think that that shit’s fucking whack. And I, you know, I think that like that praise of the ego is a weird thing to do.”
You may recall that Attila vocalist Chris Fronzak appeared on MTV‘s reality show ‘Made‘ back in 2006, while he was a member of a then fledgling Attila. James‘ mention of that particular show has led to some speculation on whether or not he was referencing Fronzak with his comments, or perhaps even those just influenced by him.
Notably, Fronzak also at one point purchased the Eulogy Recordings catalog, which included several Evergreen Terrace releases.
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