"I’ve gone to shows and watched bands like Racetraitor captivate crowds with their lyrics and knew that it’s exactly what i wanted to do lyrically with Violated Right," guitarist Chris Perez tells me. I reached out to Chris — who also played in the band Gutcheck — after stumbling upon Violated Right's recent The Heat of Injustice EP, the Miami band's debut release. "I’ve always had a love for hardcore/metalcore since I was younger. A lot of my inspiration comes from the United States current epidemic with mass incarceration of people of color, conditions of my friends and family in Puerto Rico, my own struggle with self identity from my upbringing, and in our last song on the EP ["Purification"] we touched on veganism," says vocalist Gabby Ortiz.
Violated Right's sound is metallic hardcore, through and through. The guitar is filtered through a razor-sharp tone and incorporate metal licks, while the vocals are shouty and harsh but still have enough clarity in them to make out the lyrics. Chris gives me a quick 101 on the group's origins. "We pretty much formed at the beginning of the year because I used to play drums in a metalcore band but I've always wanted to play guitar in a band since that was my first instrument. Around November of last year I got to writing and eventually finished writing all the instrumentals for Heat of Injustice. So, later on — I think it was at FYA in January — I found out Gabby wanted to do vocals in a band and I was definitely down with that. Then I hit up Jacob to play bass cause I liked what he did in his old bands: Tusk and Ringu. I got Michael to play drums (he was also in Ringu before they split up) and that was essentially how we formed."
She touched on it earlier, but I ask Gabby about the themes Violated Right are tackling on the EP. I mean, even the band name feels vital. "The people in Puerto Rico are suffering in unexplainable ways. They’re relying on the United States government and they have failed them tremendously. Even outside of the political standstill they’re at right now, there are many people who are still without electricity and proper living conditions. Suicide rates have risen 29% after Maria hit. As you can imagine, it was very easy for me to turn how I feel about this into words.
"It’s also no denying that there is an epidemic here in the United States with police brutality. Black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by the police. Despite being a small percentage of the population over 25% of reported police killings are black people. Black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of anyone else."
"I can only hope that our music has a small impact and makes people listening or seeing us live take the time to understand what I’m saying, really retain it, and best case scenario go home and do research. It was very easy for me to talk about these things I’m just grateful to have a somewhat public platform to do so," Gabby says.
Violated Right is just one of the many newer bands killing it down in the South Florida hardcore scene as of late. Chris doesn't disagree: "It seems like every show just gets more packed than the one before and new bands are popping up all the time, which is sick. Some of our personal favorites and friends are Way of Life, Be All End All, Annex, Charred, A Needle Under the Nail, Envision, and Seed of Pain. There’s also been a lot of new faces recently that just comes to show that SFLHC is really making waves and constantly growing."
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Check out Violated Right on Bandcamp.
Tagged: new artist focus, violated right
