We’re from North County San Diego, up in the woods around San Marcos and Fallbrook. Very rural area. It’s kind of barren, not much going on out there; definitely gives off this kinda lonely, desolate vibe I can feel in our music. The scene up here is kind of dead. There’s only like three really good bands from North County, being Dead Martyr, Madrugado, and Private Property. The rest are just indie & pop punk bands that aren’t even that special, really. We wanted to do something different from what the North County scene had, wanted to be the heaviest thing to come out of there.
I’ve always been into intense music ever since I was a wee lad. I remember one of the first noise rock bands I got into was Lightning Bolt, then I kind of went through a nu-metal phase; I f*cking love pounding heavy grooves, anything that’ll get me doing the stank face, bobbing my head. I remember when I was around 15, 16 years old, and I discovered Big Black for the first time – that band was what got me on this downward spiral into the depths of noiserock and metal. I discovered grind and powerviolence through being in the scene around 2021; absolutely blew my f*cking mind seeing how you could be so fast and groovy at the same time.
When it comes to art influencing music, honestly, I’m not really much of a visual arts person. I mean, I love the art of Daniel Johnston, or Andres Serrano… He uses his own bodily fluids. It’s really dark and gritty, but other than those, really, I’m not too much of a visual arts person. I love making creepy collages – my dad used to make super surrealist acid trip collages back in the nineties. It’s a little bit of an influence on me, but not too much.
I feel like grind and power violence should be one genre at this point because I love how fast a song can explode and I love how the same track can slow down & get all sludgy… I would also love to see more noise rock get added to the mix. There’s a band from Canada called KEN Mode that I’m super influenced by – I’d love to see more people take to extreme, grinding, heavy noise rock and fuse that with grind/power violence.
-Riley, guitar for Polio.
