Band: Penalty
From: Little Rock, Arkansas
Their formation story:
(Dalton Rail, guitar/vocals): "Penalty started a long time ago in my head. It was a vision of a band I’ve always wanted to create with the influences from a lot of my favorite bands and genres throughout the years. I finally had gotten a bit of downtime from my main band Terminal Nation where we were slowing down a little from playing shows as much as we have in the past 10 or so years.
"I had riffs, ideas, and visuals in my head and I knew what I wanted out of this project. I reached out to a local drummer (Will Fisher) here in Little Rock who’s drumming style and performance I’ve always admired. In my head, he felt like the perfect fit for what I was looking for. He was very stoked about the project and could see the vision pretty much immediately. He was also in 3 or 4 other bands at the time so it was a bit hectic finding time to write, but we were both vibing off of each other during the writing process so we carved out a lot of time to get it done.
"Once we had a couple of songs written and a good outline for what the band was gonna sound like, he (Will) asked if I would be cool with him reaching out to Keely Reynolds (Bass) who played in one of his other bands (Second Life) to see if she was down to play bass for us, and I thought that was a great idea.
"Soon after Keely joined, I asked another local cat (Jacob Clark, guitar, also plays guitar in Death Rattle) if he was fucking with the vision and he was very down, so we sealed it as a 4 piece. The chemistry between all of us not only as musicians, but as people, is top notch so we genuinely love playing together and writing music."
Their sound in their own words:
"Penalty always reminds me of medieval combat, which is what a lot of our visuals and inside jokes in the band tend to be about [laughs]. It’s tough, it’s fast paced, it’s agonizing, and it’s unapologetic. I took a lot of influence from a lot of metal bands that I listened to growing up as well as newer bands that I kinda looked up to in my formative years finding hardcore.
"I’ve always had an affinity for thrash and playing really fast guitar parts which isn’t exactly what we do in Terminal Nation, so it helped scratch that itch in my brain. I’ve been a longtime fan of Suicidal Tendencies and Biohazard, so I always tend to lean towards the crossover style of hardcore bands."
Latest release info:
"No Punishers lyrically focuses a lot on my internal struggles of day to day life, pain, suffering, the usual suspects. It also speaks on a lot of my personal vendettas and animosities towards abusers and punishers throughout my life. People who have hurt me, people who have hurt those I love, and people that I’ll never forgive for causing endless suffering. Turns out, it gave me a lot of material to work with.
"It wasn’t supposed to be as long as it ended up being, we had all intentions of just doing a demo/EP for the first go. Like I mentioned earlier, the chemistry was just too good and we ended up pumping out 7 songs right at 20 minutes, and for that I am very proud. We went through the full recording (Wolfman Studios), mixing (Ryan Bram at Homewrecker Studios), and mastering process (Brad Boatwright at Audiosiege) and I’m extremely happy with the results."
Future plans:
"We just played a show here in Little Rock at Vino’s with Judiciary, and that was our last scheduled show for the time being. I think as a band, we’re all looking forward to a little down time to be able to get back to writing and working on the next release. We’re aiming for a 3-5 song demo/EP for real this time, but you know how it goes when you’re locked in the zone."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"I’m gonna give a big shoutout to Little Rock hardcore, as well as our sister city in Springfield, Missouri and tell you to check out Death Rattle, First to Burn, Mazenko, Peach Blush, Stressor, Precursor (SPFD MO) and Sangre Demonio (SPFD MO)."
No Punishers is available on CD via Final Expression Records.
Penalty on social media: Instagram
Tagged: penalty arkansas
