Direct Generation are a new Bay Area band, but the people behind it have been kicking around hardcore and punk for decades. Featuring current and former members of Complicators, Criminal Outfit, Street, Grosero, Nixed, and Wartribe, the four-piece formed earlier this year with Ditch on vocals, Matt on guitar, Justin on bass, and Max on drums.
The seeds were planted after Ditch's previous band, Criminal Outfit, broke up and he relocated from Long Beach to Oakland. He eventually met former Complicators guitarist Matt at a Claimed Choice show in San Francisco, where they discovered a shared interest in starting something with an Oi! bent. Street drummer Max soon joined them, followed by bassist Justin.
“Once Justin got involved, the momentum picked up pretty quickly,” Ditch tells No Echo. The resulting sound draws equally from Oi! and hardcore. “I think our sound is more or less what you would expect for a bunch of guys in their midlife crisis period who grew up listening to hardcore and Oi!” Ditch says. “Some of our songs lean more towards late ’80s hardcore, while others lean more towards classic Oi! stuff.”
Reference points include Warzone, Blood for Blood, Youth of Today, Blitz, Slapshot, The Business, Sheer Terror, Negative Approach, Cockney Rejects, The Bruisers, Rixe, and Slugger, among many others. “We don't necessarily sit down and say, ‘We are going to write a song that sounds like a mix between Stiff Little Fingers and Uniform Choice,’ but we all would be very likely to have both Screaming for Change and Inflammable Material planted somewhere in our subconscious.”
Direct Generation recently released two demo tracks, “Spin in Circles” and “IYKYK,” taken from an eight-song session the band plans to issue as a 12" mini-album. Justin recorded the material over the summer between the band's practice space and his home.
All four members are now in their forties and came up in different corners of hardcore during the late ’90s, something Ditch believes shapes how they approach the band today. “For all of us, that was a time when young kids were expected to do their homework, studying records from the past and learning about the traditions of subcultures,” he says. “Most people our age didn't necessarily stick around past their teenage years. Those of us who have been around and are still around became anomalies.”
That history also informs Ditch's feelings about people adopting the aesthetics of Oi! without understanding the culture behind them:
“There are musicians putting on Fred Perry shirts and using skinhead imagery without any true connection to the culture that goes back longer than six months,” he says. “We aren't the band that is printing crucified skinheads on T-shirts because we think it will make us more marketable or edgy.”
The band also established some non-negotiable principles from the beginning. “When forming the band, it was important that we all shared some core values, namely being anti-racist, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, and pro-immigrant,” Ditch explains. “Collectively, we were all pretty put off by some of the political leanings or ambiguity that have been becoming more prevalent within Oi! and hardcore in the past two or three years.”
One of the new songs, “The Enemy of My Enemy,” directly addresses those concerns, while much of the remaining material is more personal.
“There is a good amount of trauma dumping in there,” Ditch says. “One song in particular is about struggling with the realization that my father had taken on serious hard drug habits leading up to his death. More of the songs are about challenges of maintaining friendships and personal values as we are all getting older.”
Ditch describes Northern California's hardcore and punk scene as particularly healthy right now, pointing to bands including Eliminators, Powerhouse, Brigata Vendetta, Urban Sprawl, Sunblind, Slugger, Ante, Tonto, Hunting Lions, The Autos, and Blood Compact.
He is especially enthusiastic about Sacramento newcomers Impact. “Their guitarist sent me their recordings recently, and I think they will really blow people's minds,” Ditch says. “It's solid, camo shorts and Sambas hard Oi! with just enough melody.”
Direct Generation's immediate focus is playing more shows and they are also discussing touring in 2027 while working out the details for their eight-song 12".
Ditch leaves us with a few parting thoughts that probably tell you as much about Direct Generation as anything else:
“In America, hardcore and Oi! have always been linked in their histories and should never be separated. Fashion influencers have no place in subcultures. Just like there are no bad dogs, only bad owners, there are no bad cities or scenes, only people who don't take care of their homes."
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Direct Generation on social media: Instagram
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