Band: Violent Form
From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Their formation story:
(Justin Kraus, vocals): "Back around the 2010s, Sean Steinmetz (guitar), Josh Ireson (drums) and myself used to all tour in a band together called With Life In Mind. Since then, we all moved into careers, started families and naturally became busy with our lives, but always maintained our friendships throughout the years.
"We recently met up to all reconnect as we hadn’t seen each other in years. We caught up on our lives and spoke about how we all missed having the creative outlet of playing music. Shortly after, it snowballed into Sean sending us some riffs he’d been working on and myself sending over some lyrics I’d been working on. It immediately clicked with us, like we hadn’t skipped a beat in 10 years.
"At the same time we knew we needed to round out the band and asked our longtime homie Matt Howard if he’d been interested in joining the creative process, who was equally as excited on the project.
"Soon after, we met up to go over ideas and get the ball rolling. We jammed and collaborated on what we all collectively wanted to do with the project. Violent Form was born from that."
Their sound in their own words:
"Leading up to this, we were listening to a lot of noisier surf/garage/punk rock type bands (Teen Mortgage, Wavves, Mannequin Pussy) that helped shape the direction we wanted to take a lot of the riffs. We also wanted to lean into our roots of growing up in the '00s hardcore scene.
"We've taken influence from labels like Deathwish and Bridge Nine and bands like The Hope Conspiracy, Blacklisted, American Nightmare, and Trap Them."
Latest release info:
"The EP is called Drag. It’s the first 3 songs we wrote as a band. The songs are about society, the relationships we have and the world around us; constantly being trampled by negativity, yet trying to find a positive light through it all.
"Musically, we wanted to combine our early influences from growing up in the Philly hardcore scene while showcasing a lot of the more recent garage/surf rock sound we’ve been listening to.
"It started by sending each other ideas back and forth and locking down what sound we wanted to go for. Then, we focused on each song individually, getting them to exactly how we wanted them to sound, with multiple rounds of recording the tracks until we felt 100% about of them. We recorded & mix/mastered the EP ourselves."
Future plans:
"As of now, the plan is to keep writing and be able to put out a proper release. Continue to evolve the sound and play some shows in the area. Our biggest concern is to continue having it be a creative outlet for all of us."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"Big shout out to our homies in Sunstroke, Career Killer, Zachary West & The Good Grief, and Alert The Sky. All awesome bands putting out great music."
Violent Form on social media: Instagram
Tagged: violent form
