I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye – Will Hardcore Become The New Grunge?

I came here to brag on the new Haywire release, I Don’t Want to Say Goodbye, and got completely sidetracked… And I know why.

As I write this, the timing feels appropriate. Turnstile just took the Saturday Night Live stage, bringing their particular brand of shoegazey hardcore into the mainstream. I remember watching something similar happen in real time with Nirvana and Green Day—watching an obscure, unknown, non-household-riffraff genre suddenly get shoved into the living rooms of every kid in America.

And yes, I was one of those suburban kids.

Punk had been alive and coveted in sweaty underground circles for more than two decades, and suddenly it was on every magazine cover and every mall clothing rack. The similarities, thirty years apart, are eerie.

Back then, you had the old-head gatekeepers screaming, “That’s not punk!”

I’ve watched the rise and increasing mainstream acceptance of hardcore over the past few years, and honestly, I saw it coming. But I vowed I would never become one of those “Well, I was at that show in 1998” guys.

We just lived through twenty-plus years of terrible, soulless mainstream music. The last shred of radio integrity was dead by 2002. Deftones’ White Pony felt like the final flare before that era disappeared. We didn’t know how good we had it with the 90s mainstream. From rock to hip hop to country!

So when I started seeing kids pick guitars back up instead of sitting behind a computer regurgitating auto-tuned slop, I was elated.

And whenever I hear someone trying to “cool guy” Knocked Loose or Turnstile, I always chime in: They paid their dues for over a decade. Would you rather hear them on the radio—or Imagine Dragons?

Be happy for them!

These bands spent their young adulthoods living in vans, sleeping on floors and starving. If they can finally pay their bills and breathe a little, good. They earned it.

What you have to understand is that hardcore exists outside of conventional norms. There’s no fancy production. There’s no glamour. And, most importantly, there’s very little division between the audience and the band.

“This is OUR show.” – Not the band’s.

The microphone gets passed around to an able body. There are no barricades. Security is minimal, if it exists at all. And in true Scott Vogel fashion: “More stage dives. Everyone on stage, Move NOW!”

If hardcore is truly for you, it grabs you immediately. You don’t know exactly what you’re feeling, but you know.

And once it sinks its teeth into you, you’re a lifer. Part of that is because there really is nothing else like it. Punk comes close—but it’s not quite the same thing.

For me, it was seeing Snapcase and Converge in the same month. I was around twelve years old and had absolutely no idea what I was witnessing.

Unlike today, you had to seek this stuff out. There was no YouTube. No TikTok. No algorithm feeding you a 30-second clip of some kid doing a karate kick in a circle. You had to find out where the show was, get yourself there and witness the chaos in real time.

And hardcore was never just music. It is a lifestyle.

That lifestyle helped give birth to—and popularize—things like veganism and straight edge. Today, both are abundantly adopted everywhere from Williamsburg-esque neighborhoods to soccer-mom minivans. But back then, the veggie thing wasn’t cool, convenient or particularly easy.

I was vegan/vegetarian for ten years, including some time while touring. There was constant heckling. And, at times, legitimate malnourishment.

Today, most restaurants proudly display their vegetarian options alongside the meat entrées. Back then, Taco Bell beans substituted for beef were sometimes my only saving grace.

But back to hardcore.

Yes, there are egos. Yes, there are bad apples. There are assholes in every scene. But hardcore as a whole is remarkably tight and unified. Strangers become lifelong friends through the shared bond of dodging karate kicks and airborne bodies. People look out for one another. They take care of each other.

The subculture has been fiercely protective of itself for more than thirty years.

One of my favorite things now is seeing those same “hardcore kids” become amazing parents. Blurring, fading, full sleeves. Grey beards. Closed-up ear holes. Decent careers. Kids of their own. They never really left.

In closing, the lifers are going to have to buckle up and withstand some cringe-worthy marketing, watered-down aesthetics and more than a few subpar bands trying to cash in.

But that’s okay. Hardcore can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.

Oh, Haywire. Right – This was supposed to be about you.

I’m genuinely glad to see Haywire—and plenty of other bands—making a spectacle out of releasing records again. I was happy to walk into my local record store and purchase a physical album. A big, beautiful package accompanied by free posters and promo items. And yes, the first thing I did when I got home was read ALL the liner notes and credits.

There’s something about that.

Signing with Roadrunner has helped give them the opportunity to do things like this and continue building their careers. Good on them. They earned every bit of it. They deserve this.

This is what happens when a band gets the chance to grow without losing the reason people cared in the first place.

So, My friends: Stick tight and keep the faith! – You are the true believers.