Band: Megalomaniacs
From: Arnhem, the Netherlands
Their formation story:
(Jonne, vocals): “Megalomaniacs began forming in my mind in 2013, when our old band New Morality started dying. I had the name. I already had the artwork made, haha. I wanted to do a fast hardcore band, stripped of all bullshit. We had a few rehearsals, wrote some stuff—but that was that. It died out. Life happened.
“Fast forward to 2024. Everyone in this band has been friends for 20+ years, and the only question about doing another band together was ‘when?’. The stars finally aligned, the four of us got together, and within a few rehearsals, we had 14 songs written.”
Their sound in their own words:
“We didn’t really start out with ‘let’s do a band that sounds like xx.’ We just wanted to jam and eventually play out together. I had three words in mind, though: fast, primitive, and negative. I told Joël (our guitarist) to write songs that sound like the bastard child of Violent Minds and Carry On. We sound nothing like those bands, so we didn’t succeed [laughs].
“We just try and do our thing, and I still think we sound generic as fuck—yet authentic, which is the most important ingredient of this genre anyway.”
Latest release info:
“It’s 10 tracks in 13 minutes, for people that like their hardcore served raw.
“We recorded these songs with our good friend De Dikke Uil, and our other good friend Noot released it as a one-sided 12” EP on Light the Fuse Records. We’ve known these dudes for over 20 years as well, so it’s awesome to see that everybody is still involved in this thing of ours.”
Future plans:
“We’ve got a bunch of fun shows coming up, and we’re finishing up some new bangers that we want to record this summer. It’s for an EP that will be called Mind of a Maniac. We’ll probably try to do a short European run in the fall.”
What other bands from their region should we check out?
“Krime just released their debut, which is really, really good. On the more metallic side of hardcore, Abusive Forms is a great band. And if you’re more of a punk rock person, you should check out Beyond Cruelty from Friesland.”
The Megalomaniacs LP is available on vinyl via Light the Fuse Records.
Megalomaniacs on social media: Instagram
Tagged: megalomaniacs
