Allegiance was a straight edge hardcore band from San Francisco, California that existed from 2002-2008. 2002 was a monster year for hardcore. For perspective, Terror, Killing the Dream, Go It Alone, and tons of others all burst onto the scene that year.
Formed on the heels of the breakups of both Bridge Nine’s Breaker Breaker and Redding, California’s Some Still Believe, Allegiance staked their claim as a force to be reckoned with. The focal point of the burgeoning Northern California hardcore scene was the legendary venue, 924 Gilman, where Allegiance bookended their career with both their first and last shows–as well as many in between.
In their six years as a band, Allegiance made a name for themselves as a pillar of the Rivalry Records sound that is still revered today. Allegiance singer John "Eightclip" Jenkins and guitarist Duane Harris reminisced with me on the group’s existence.
Where are you guys from originally?
John "Eightclip" Jenkins (vocals): I grew up in Oakland and moved to “the Valley” (people let me know it wasn’t the Bay, @unitedblood looking at you) for high school. The Raiders were in Los Angeles in the early '80s so I grew up a 49ers fan and an Oakland A’s fan (poor A’s fans).
I moved to Los Angeles about 15 years ago, shortly after Allegiance called it quits and this is home now. I have two kids here and we bought a house. My parents sold the childhood home, and no longer live there, so this is where I’m from now.
Duane Harris (guitar): I’m originally from San Diego, which is where I was born, and I moved around a ton as a kid: San Diego, to Virginia, to San Diego, to Oregon, to San Diego, back to Oregon, and then finally settled up in Redding, California, which is few hours North of the Bay Area. This is where my formative years were spent, and when I say that, I mean that it’s where I fell in love with skateboarding and punk music.
In some ways, Redding was (and still is) really horrible, but in other ways, it was (and still is) quite amazing. I knew I was never going to stay up there permanently, so I left as soon as I could. I’ve been in San Francisco for essentially my entire adult life and it’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere, so this is where I’m from now.
Oh, and to piggyback on John tying in sports fandom into this answer - anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a huge baseball nerd, and love the San Diego Padres. It’s heartbreaking to say it, but the A’s are now dead to me, but they were my “NorCal” team since I was a little boy. I don’t really follow football, but I do like basketball, and I follow the Warriors pretty closely. So yeah, my sports fandom is like my background: pretty all over the place.
How did you get plugged into the Bay Area hardcore scene?
John: Nirvana and Guns N' Roses got me into music. Operation Ivy and Rancid got me into punk. I played some sports and I remember a teammate saying, “Hey, you don’t drink or do drugs. These guys are like you!” He handed me Minor Threat’s “Straight Edge” on his Walkman (that’s right, I’m an elder millennial).
So, Minor Threat brought me to hardcore. Shortly after, I ended up at 924 Gilman Street seeing Union 13 who was on the Give ‘Em the Boot comp. Then I learned about Sick of It All, Redemption 87, Madball, and H2O.
Duane: Living a few hours North of the Bay Area, Redding felt like it was so close, yet so far away. Bay Area bands would play Redding from time to time, but I mostly learned about Bay Area punk and hardcore like so many other people - through zines like Maximumrocknroll, Lookout! Records, learning about 924 Gilman, and even skateboarding.
Some of my favorite bands of all time came from the old Gilman/Bay Area scene, so yeah, once I got old enough to leave Redding for shows and skate trips, I was always very excited to see the venues and bands in person that I had only read about or listened to.
This goes for Bay Area visiting Bay Area skate spots as well - it was all one and the same for me, and it led to me falling in love with the Bay Area. Next thing I knew, I was playing shows in the Bay with Some Still Believe, and as they say, the rest is history.
READ MORE: The Story of the Making of Terror's Lowest of the Low
That brings up the question, which bands did you guys play in before Allegiance?
John: I played in a lot of bands before Allegiance. My high school bands sounded a bit like if Rage Against the Machine really sucked. There were some kids a year younger than me called Mark My Words who were killing it. I hung around with them a lot and ended up being a lot closer to those kids than kids in my grade.
Kyle Dixon was the singer of Mark My Words. He went on to start First Blood and Alcatraz (who my current band Berthold City just played in Mexico with), and also played in Embrace the End from Sacramento. If you don’t know him, Kyle is a really beautiful musician and artist.
Our friend James Gianello also went to shows and hung out. I got him in touch with an internet buddy so he could find a place to live when he moved to San Luis Obsipo for college. That buddy was Kyle Whitlow. Eventually, James and Kyle played in The Damage Done. When they stopped playing, James went on to play second guitar in Lights Out. I played a couple of shows with Under My Fist and was in bands with other friends and then eventually started Right On with some of my best buds, but nothing really stuck.
I met a number of important people at that time – Duane Harris at a Some Still Believe show in Chico, Spencer (Dano) Biddiscombe and the At Risk guys in Santa Cruz, Ryan Mattos who was from Vacaville and took over second guitar duties in Ceremony for a bulk of their growth, Naoma who was from Berkely and lead most of the booking of shows at 924 Gilman Street (who is one of the main reasons the Bay Area scene grew at that time). We all grew from there. Some we still stay in touch with, some have passed away, and some we just don’t really talk anymore, but that’s life.
Duane: As John mentioned, before Allegiance, I played in SSB (Some Still Believe) up in Redding. We played the Bay a fair amount and made our way up and down the West Coast, We eventually released a 7” on Martyr Records and moved to the Bay, and then sort of morphed into Allegiance.
It was not deliberate, because when I started Allegiance with John, I wanted to distance myself from SSB and Redding, but due to lineup changes early on, the band essentially became John singing for SSB. I felt a little bad for Matt McCall, who is one of my best friends and sang in SSB, as he kind of lost his band to Allegiance, but if we’re being honest, SSB had ran its course.
Also, Matt went on to sing in some incredible bands, such as Right On, Secret People, and Counter, and was a roadie for Allegiance, so it worked out for everyone in the end. Speaking of SSB and Allegiance, I’m still playing music with Ross and Mike all these years later in my current band, Caged View, so I guess some things will never change! If Matt lived in CA, I’d probably be in a band with him too.
Outside of Some Still Believe, I only played in a couple really bad High School bands that never did anything. One being a Lookout! Records-style punk band called The Fun Dips, and a thrashy FYP-type skate band called The Shafts. Both bands each played two shows (together) - a skate jam and a party. I remember people liking both bands at those shows, but they had to be lying. I didn't even know how to properly tune my guitar at that point (laughs).
The Allegiance demo was pressed on 3 formats: cassette, vinyl, and Mini CD! Tell us about the idea for the mini CD. How many did you do? Was this a format that was as easy to pick up as standard sized burned discs back in that time?
John: Yeah, this was weird. I think we were kind of floundering, trying to figure out how to move forward as a band, wondering if someone would put out a record, or a 7-inch or what. So we ended up doing quite a few different demo releases.
The Mini CD was a trip–I just came across one floating loose in my memory box. They were easy to come by for a minute because thumb drives hadn’t really popped yet or become cheap enough to be ubiquitous. They were for trying to find ways to hold small bits of data that were too big for dial-up to transfer. It was weird, so I grabbed some, a San Francisco stamp, and set it up as if it were a handwritten letter.
I’ve always had a fascination with bridging technologies. It’s likely my “elder Millennial” experience where we used rotary phones, dial-up, AOL chat rooms, Blackberries, and now an entire computer in your pocket more powerful than everything that preceded it.
It’s a weird experience, but I constantly want to utilize the beauty of all of these technologies, showcase them in a way in which they mean something special to me, and create a narrative that they all have shaped the kind of person I am today. It's weird, I know.
Duane: The Mini CD was completely John’s idea. It was really cool how he packaged it into an envelope and it was sold as a letter. I didn't really have much input on things like merch and whatnot at that time of the band, as I was focused on the music, but I do remember being in a bad mood once in practice around this time, and criticizing the Mini CD. John threw a bottle of water at me (laughs). I admit that I 100% deserved that!
Speaking of the San Francisco stamp, a little fun fact is that we later repurposed it for a version of the 'Out Of My Blood' 7” for a SoCal weekend we did with Have Heart. I still have the stamp to this day.
Do you refer to the next release as Allegiance or San Francisco Straight Edge? I’ve heard it referred to as both.
John: Allegiance 7-inch. It’s cool you’ve heard it as both. We only ever referred to it as our self-titled release.
Duane: Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to it as anything but the self-titled 7”, but I guess there’s no real wrong answer here.
This release came out on Anchor Records, a label run by Aram Arslanian, before REACT! Records was a thing. How did your partnership with Anchor form? What happened to the label?
John: This was a pretty wild story, and honestly, my recollection of it may be different than others, but as I mentioned, we were floundering not really finding someone to help us release a record or stick their necks out for us. Most of the band were relatively new to San Francisco and we weren’t necessarily the coolest people in the area.
There were other people doing stuff that was more popular at the time. Everything was heavily based on the East Coast. We really were kind of dead in the water. We’d talked to a couple of other people interested in putting out a record, but when Aram [Arslanian] suggested that his label at the time would put out the record, it was a no-brainer.
We didn't have much interest anywhere else. We were kind of stuck, and Aram, a friend from the beginning of both Allegiance (as well as Some Still Believe) came to the rescue. I had toured with Aram’s previous band at the time and was offered a chance to play bass for them full-time, which I declined in favor of trying to get Allegiance going.
Aram’s offer was just one of those “hell yes” and “thank you” moments. Although Aram mentioned he would’ve put out our next record at some point, by the time we were ready, Anchor Records was wrapping up, Aram himself was switching gears (having just started to play in The First Step full-time), and had other obligations. It just seemed to change pace.
Kyle was getting Rivalry Records, aka Rival Records, having released The Physical Challenge (from Portland, Oregon) and Killing the Dream (from Sacramento, California). I was living with Kyle and it was just one of those times where looking back, we needed to take it all in-house and build it ourselves.
Duane: John essentially nailed it. We didn't know what we were gonna do, and I think we were a little defeated at that time, but we also knew that we had some momentum and we were excited about the music we had written.
I don’t remember the exact timeline of when Aram actually proposed doing the record, but I do remember talking to Aram at Gilman and officially agreeing to do it with him. As John said, we all had a history with the Northwest, specifically, Aram and those guys, so really, there was no better choice for us than Anchor.
You released your split with Internal Affairs in 2004. Would you consider this a physical manifestation of a friendship with the guys in that band? It seems like a pretty special release. All of the variants that exist are really cool too.
Duane: That was an idea that I proposed when I played in Internal Affairs. We were on an East Coast tour, and I played the Allegiance S/T EP for the IA guys. At that point, not many people had heard the tracks outside of some close friends and Aram, and we were still months away from it getting released. Long story shirt, Corey [Williams} and the guys liked what they heard, so I threw out the idea of doing a split 7”. Everyone was down with the idea.
By pure coincidence, I met Tru Pray and Linas Garsys from Malfunction Records on that tour. They heard the Allegiance S/T EP tracks as well, and the idea of a split 7” was discussed more. After the tour, Kyle got involved and it became a split 7” for both Allegiance and Internal Affairs, and for Rivalry & Malfunction Records.
In my opinion, this release is one of the cooler things both bands did in their discographies. The bands, the labels involved, and the artwork that Linas created is so rad. A fun fact is that this was originally going to be a Norcal vs SoCal concept and both bands were going to record a cover song of a classic band from each side of the state. We went with Operation Ivy, which actually got recorded.
READ MORE: Corey Williams (Internal Affairs, Carry On, Piece by Piece) On His Life In Hardcore
Why’d that Operation Ivy take so long to see the light of day?
Duane: If memory serves me correctly, Internal Affairs were going to do a Suicidal Tendacies song, but unfortunately, it didnt come together. I guess in the end, that’s totally fine, because there’s no way we would have been able to get all the songs on a 7”. However, it would have been amazing to hear Corey sing a Suicidal song!
Regarding the OpIvy track, it was going to then get used on Sammy the Mick’s Pity the Backseat CD compilation, which was originally going to be all current NorCal bands covering classic NorCal bands. For some reason, that compilation went in a different direction and Sammy did not go with the cover song concept, so we submitted the original version of “Don’t Tell Me,” which was also released on vinyl for the Coastal Flooding Volume 7” compilation.
The Operation Ivy cover got shelved for years and at some point, I threw it on YouTube, but I eventually removed it because that’s lame that a song just exists there. In 2022, I talked to the guys, and we decided to get the song up on streaming platforms. A lot of people thought we had gotten back together and recorded that track, which is funny, but it’s definitely not what happened.
2005 was a big year for you, release wise. By this time you were a part of the Rivalry Records family. That year, they put out the Overlooked LP, a vinyl pressing of the demo, and an expanded CD version of the self-titled record (which included the 7” and demo). What order did these come out in that year?
John: Oh man, the order? Good lord. Kyle would know this better than me, Duane even. They’re both good with the dates. If I were to guess, what we did was The Overlooked LP, then we went back and asked Aram if we could press Self-Titled onto CD, and include it on the Demo.
Aram has a really beautiful version of the CD made using some metallic paper pressed with a metallic plate that years later I got back as a gift from Dave Larson (who helped Aram out with Anchor). He runs a wonderfully fun YouTube channel now called QuarterBash. It’s so fun to watch him do his thing flipping vintage stuff.
The Demo 7-inch Vinyl was a gift for those who preordered the Rivalry version of the self-titled CD, so I’m not sure if that came out in 2005 or not. I can’t remember. Kyle just wanted to have a nice added incentive and get it on to vinyl.
Duane: How I remember it, and I actually have a saved advertisement that backs this up, is that they all came out at once, or at least very close to the same time. Overlooked was our debut LP and that could stand on its own as both Go It Alone and us were dropping debut LPs at the same time and there was some excitement about that.
However, Kyle acquiring the rights to the CD EP from Anchor and re-releasing it was a different thing. If you pre-ordered the CD, you received the 7” of the demo as a bonus, so it incentivized people to order the CD.
Also, I could be wrong on this detail, but I swear that Kyle had the CD remixed or remastered, but you’d have to ask him. Either way, the idea of pre–ordering a CD seems wild nowadays!
How come the expanded version was never pressed on vinyl?
John: We never really felt the need to. Everything was released on 7-inch and never really felt the need to do a 12-inch. In hindsight, it may have been fun to do that for posterity's sake.
Duane: Interesting question. I guess it never came up, and I certainly never thought about that as an option due to the release already existing in different formats for two different labels. Also, CDs were not yet a dead format at that time so it just didn't seem necessary.
Side bar on the “take your fucking shirts off” stamp–Set It Straight (Redding, California hardcore band, which featured Nate, Allegiance’s original drummer) had this thing called “No Shirt Crew." Were these things related?
John: Yeah, this is actually a really funny call-out. As for the connection to Set it Straight, I think that’s just Nate’s propensity to have his shirt off when he played. A much better question for him and I don’t think they’re related.
On Allegiance’s side, this was a very funny moment for our band. We had a lot of personalities in the band and everyone had very strong opinions about everything. Being hardcore kids, we were especially opinionated about music. We did a lot of trips between San Francisco and Seattle. It was our home away from home for much of our band’s life.
We loved it in Seattle. We had a lot of friends, including some that I still see when Berthold City plays up there (Jim, Matt, and Garrett specifically). We had just gotten Isaac (Killing the Dream) to join Allegiance and I think it was one of his first trips with us and we were traveling in a 4-door Jeep up to Seattle. It was not comfortable.
We were debating the quality of Throwdown’s pivot to be a bit more Pantera, for lack of a better term. Some of us liked this, some of us did not, and one of the ways that one of us professed his dislike of the new version of Throwdown was to open the glass door of a convenience store fridge slam it into his head and yell “TAKE YOUR FUCKING SHIRTS OFF!! THROWDOWN!!” Ended up being one of those moments for us that we could never let go of, so it was enshrined on the matrix.
Duane: That’s 100% what happened. And if we want to get more specific, it was Isaac clowning me for liking the “new” Throwdown. It became an inside joke that lasted way too long, and eventually made it onto vinyl matrixes and was shouted too often at inappropriate times. Basically, after that, anytime I’d like a heavier band, Isaac would say this to dismiss my music tastes. I love Isaac to death, but we didn't always see eye to eye when it came to hardcore!
Speaking of our drummer, Nate Corbin, who was also in Set It Straight, Some Still Believe, and Foreign Nature, and is still one of my best friends to this day - the dude lives life with minimal clothing, so I can see where someone may think this originated with him. Hell, there’s even a half-naked photo of him eating a donut on the SSB 7”.
John, you were also playing guitar for Right On around this time. Did both bands have the same or different levels of commitment? Were you writing guitar for Right On or were you more of the show up and have fun guy? Whenever I’m having a bad day at work (which is admittedly not a lot), I love putting on the song "Fuck Work."
John: This is a good question. Right On was fucking rad. I still will put on Right On records and think that it was some of the best music I’ve ever written. Neither really took precedence at the time, though this is a weighted question. When Allegiance formed, it was quite literally Some Still Believe, minus Matt Skones, plus me, which never really felt quite right to me. Quite frankly it sucked in many ways. I didn’t like the feeling that I somehow took Some Still Believe away from Matt.
Matt is a really interesting lyricist. He writes really beautiful songs about things that I wouldn't, or couldn’t write about. He’s really good at crafting really fun and interesting lyrics then putting them to the music in a unique way. He’s a really really great human. That coupled with the fact that we got Phil Lantz to move down to the Bay Area from Sacramento where he was playing in awesome bands like Romance of Crime and Please Please with our buddy Chad.
He ended up living at a house with me, and brought his drums. We got to play like every day. He’d work at Peet’s Coffee and I think I was working at Starbucks. We’d have the afternoons off and just write tunes, it was so fun to be able to craft songs in that way. I got to dig into writing music and do whatever the fuck I wanted with Phil’s collaboration. It was just really really enjoyable and a really fun time. I love those two records.
Duane: The only thing I can say about Right On is that I loved that band and I still love every member. I have some fond memories of short tours with Allegiance and Right On sharing the same van. If you ever see their No Joke 7” or the Reality Vacation 7” for sale, do yourself a favor and pick them up. It’s super catchy hardcore with incredible lyrics, and I’m not just saying that because they're my friends.
Overlooked is a perfect LP, in my book. From the sound clip of BART at the beginning, to the hidden track (a very of the time thing) at the end, this record holds up as being a sincere and honest reflection of a group of people fully committing to a complete collection of songs. Overall, what were you hoping to express with your lyrics in this record and do you relate to those feelings today?
John: This is so kind to say. I think it just worked itself out very well. We had a good idea of what we wanted to do. The BART sound is something I’d been conscious of my entire childhood. It's a unique sound not paralleled anywhere else in the country. I could hear the sound of BART from my grandmother's deck. It just had that deep nostalgia and love of the area.
As far as the lyrical content goes, it’s very hit or miss. I put on Desperation and I’m like “Yup, the same.” I put on Overlooked and I can see how I have progressed–my feelings and attitudes–but the thing that is very nice about Overlooked as a record is that hearing it immediately snaps me back to a time and a place. There’s a beautiful timestamp placed on that record which feels very unique.
Duane: We went into that record bushy tailed and bright eyed. I don’t think there was a specific goal that we set in stone besides writing 10-12 songs and spending time in the studio recording a full length.
It was such an exciting time in our lives, and while I’m proud of what we created, I think we could have done some things differently, such as not re-recording two of the three songs from the split 7” with Internal Affairs. Also, I personally could have spent some more time on a few guitar parts that still bother me to this day. On a side note, I love John’s lyrics on this record. Speaking of, “Exhale” recently came up on my Spotify shuffle and god damn, John you ripped that track!
I will say this about Overlooked, and I think I can speak for John, Ross, Isaac, and our beloved RJ, but I believe that Desperation is a better record, or at least I’m more proud of it. It’s a trip, though, because everyone always wants to talk to us about Overlooked. I guess it’s turned into one of those time and place records.
What was going on with the band between 2005 and 2007, when the band’s last record Desperation was released? Just a lot of touring?
John: Yup, we played a lot. Two US tours and a European tour that was 6 weeks long. At the time, this was very hard for us to do. Ross had a full-time career style job. Some of us were finishing up college classes and trying to figure out what we were going to do next with our lives.
Duane: John nailed it. We played a lot during those years. Sometimes I wonder if we played too much, but then other times I think we didn't play enough. Either way, we put in some serious work with the schedules that we had, and had some of the best times of our lives. We became a well-oiled machine during these years, but like any machine, things start to break down…
Do you have memories from Set It Straight’s last show at the Phoenix Theater? This was the first and only time I got to see Allegiance. That show was so stacked and it was my first out of town show! My memories include watching Broadway Calls in the lobby and starting out up front and things getting so wild that I got pushed out of the opening in the wall.
I watched Sabertooth Zombie come on to the X-Files theme and from the balcony it looked like people were killing each other in the pit to just that intro. I remember being so tired that I had to take a nap during Final Fight’s set (which I now regret) up in the balcony. What a show!
John: I think the beauty of hardcore and these shared experiences is that this show was incredibly important to you. I remember the quarter pipe on the side and seeing people and I remember that we may have potentially covered The Damage Done at that show (I can’t remember if it was the Set it Straight show or one of the Rivalry showcases).
Set it Straight was such a beautifully fun band put together by a bunch of our good friends. My favorite memory of that band specifically is playing a Southern California weekend with them. Nate was always our guy and he would’ve been our drummer forever if he didn’t decide to move home to Redding to follow some other passions. I was just so happy that he put the band together with Curt and Harry. I ended up singing on a Set it Straight song and it was a great honor to be a part of that Redding lore.
Duane: That last SIS show was incredible. So many people attended and it was such a great atmosphere. I don’t have a specific memory from our set, but my main memory from that night was watching SIS’s set with Connor from Lights Out on the balcony and thinking “Holy shit, this is something special.”
It’s always been my opinion that if Set It Straight were from somewhere like Boston, or on a bigger label that could support them, they would have been absolutely huge. I hope people never forget about that band.
Desperation was a shift for the band. You had some member changes and this record was in E flat tuning instead of E standard, right? I can remember older kids in Redding telling me how it sounded so different and because I was so young, I let that impression stick in my mind. In listening to both LPs with today’s ears, it’s really not that different, right? It’s not like Ceremony’s Still Nothing Moves You to Rohnert Park.
John: Yeah, this is a super-interesting take on the difference between Desperation and Overlooked. Not sure if they were picking up on something or maybe Duane had mentioned something to someone. I can say that they are picking up on the fact that we recorded the music at Grizzly Studios–where Look Back and Laugh recorded, where Lights Out recorded.
The whole process of recording Desperation was so much different than Overlooked. We had people come, do their parts, and leave. They didn’t stick around. I did my vocals with little input from anyone else. I was sort of “less than impressed” by the whole experience. I never really spoke publicly about this, but we finished recording and I had a rough mix CD in my hand.
Kyle and I were on the way to a show and he asked me how I liked it. We were fully spent on the budget at the time and my response was like “it’s fine.” He was like “it’s fine?” He pressed me a bit longer and I was like. “I fucking hate the vocals and the whole thing sounds like mush.” Kyle without hesitation said, “We’ll have to fix it.” No mention of cost, just asked me to book time where I wanted to re-record the vocals, which was Castle Ultimate.
We had Zach Ohren (Animosity, Go It Alone, Machine Head) remix the record and get it to a place where I was really, really proud of it, rather than “it’s fine.”
In hindsight, that’s the beauty of this record. We ended up with the very best of both worlds. We got this raw analog sound out of Roger Tschann at Grizzly Studios. We then got the polish and compression of Castle Ultimate. So it moved it away from Castle Ultimates' very clean and calculated sound, but it also didn’t stray far away from what was the standard I had come to expect from our band.
We talk about it often and although it was a cluster fuck. We wouldn’t have it any other way. It came out beautifully in its own way. If I had the raw tracks today, just for shingles, I’d go back in and try again with the voice, just to see what happens, just for fun, but it’s not possible (laughs).
Duane: I was the one that pushed for a grittier sound for this LP. We enjoyed working with Zach Ohren at Castle Ultimate, and that studio had a relationship with Rivalry Records, but I saw where our local contemporaries, Look Back And Laugh and Lights Out recorded at Grizzly and came out with a punker analog sound that I loved.
I pushed for Grizzly and everyone was on board, however, the version we had when we left the studio had some issues, in particular, the bass was really bad, the gang vocals were horrible, and the overall mix left a lot to be desired. As John mentioned, Zach at Castle Ultimate fixed it. Or at least, he made it much better.
The time in the studio did feel weird, as it was lacking the camaraderie that we were previously used to. I was definitely part of that problem, as I wasn't as invested in spending every minute in the studio as I had in the past. Maybe I should have, and that would have prevented some of the issues we had on the final mix we received from Grizzly!
For me personally, this wasn't our first time in the studio, so I just approached it in a more relaxed way. But yeah, John is correct, it seemed like the band was a bit fractured. Maybe that's not the best way to describe it, but overall it was just a different experience than we had in the past.
Oh, and to address the tuning, yes we dropped our tuning. Desperation was actually in D standard, however, we had already dropped a half step down by the time Overlooked was recorded. If Allegiance would have continued as a band, I was fully planning on going drop-D for new songs. I always wanted to finish the band with a final 7”, kind of like how In Control and The First Step did, but we didnt get to that point.
Was the band on the cusp of breaking up when this record was being written? Seems that way from the lyrics of "So This Is It."
John: We knew this would be the last record. We knew that song would be the last song on the record. We were told over and over it wasn’t a closing record song, but it didn't matter. That’s where it was going. It was going to be the last song we recorded as a band and if “we” didn’t know it, I definitely did.
Duane: If you read John’s lyrics to that record, I almost feel as if it’s a concept record, and it’s our goodbye to a very important chapter in our lives. Sometimes, I read John’s lyrics while listening to the record and it gets to me because I know where he was coming from. In my opinion, the lyrics are beautifully angry, and they reflect a lot of our feelings about the band and our experiences in hardcore during that time.
When we recorded 'Desperation,' we had not made the decision to officially break up quite yet, as we still had to tour and support the record, but we knew the end was soon. That last full US tour really broke us in different ways and we made the decision to pull the trigger not long after that tour. Or at least, that’s how I remember it.
Since the final show in 2008, Allegiance has been one of the few bands to resist a reunion show. What’s up with that? What was the vibe of the last show?
John: The last show was beautiful–a wonderful collection of all of our friends’ bands we’d played with. It was a Rivalry Showcase–the last Rivalry Showcase as well (I believe). It was the cap of an absolutely wonderful time of life. If I had my way now, we never would’ve broken up, we would've just disappeared into the night. If you put too much weight on it being the end…I don’t know.
I had an interest at one point in playing again, just for shits and giggles–not make a thing of it, just book a show, play Gilman, play with someone’s new band, call it Allegiance, and just play to play with those guys again. It would have been more for us than anyone, but it never metastasized. At this point, if it were to happen, it likely wouldn’t be on my back. If it did come together. I’d be there for it.
Duane: The last show was an experience that I still think about often. It was a sold-out Rivalry Showcase at Gilman, and really, it doesn't get much better than that. But it was more than that. It felt like a party and a funeral at the same time.
Also, just the fact that people went nuts for a hardcore band playing over 20 songs in a set says a lot. My attention span for hardcore sets certainly does not last that long. The energy and emotion in Gilman that night was something that I just can’t explain.
It blows my mind, because I see people talk online about the best sets they’ve seen a hardcore band play and I’ve seen our last show come up a fair amount of times. It was a beautiful way to end the band and it was absolutely perfect, but it was an emotional night, and we all digested the experience in different ways.
A part of me has always been terrified to ruin that memory, and I have no problem admitting that I’ve held a stern anti-reunion stance for years. I really dug my heels in at times when we’ve had reunion offers. If I’m being honest, it’s caused some discussions in the band that are not always pleasant, and this is unfortunate because I love these guys.
Ever since we broke up, I’ve always said there’s no way I’d ever do a reunion, unless it was a benefit for a loved one or for Gilman Street, and even then, I still wouldn’t really want to do it. However, I do have to admit that over the last few years, I’ve softened a bit with this stance, and my frame of mind these days is “never say never.”
But if I‘m being realistic, it would be almost impossible for this to happen, due to logistics. Ross and I are in the Bay, Dante is in Colorado, John is in LA, and Isaac is down the coast and doesn't even play drums anymore. However, if it did somehow happen, I’d personally be way more excited to write music with the guys again, and I’d likely be less interested in playing just live just for the sake of playing live. The creative side of Allegiance was something that was really cool, and it’s something that I catch myself missing at times.
But yeah, if this were to happen, we’d have to do it more sooner than later, before we all get too old (laughter). Anyway, that’s where I’m at with this topic.
I see bands getting compared to or citing Allegiance as an influence in No Echo articles to this day. No Other Way and No Peace released covers of "My Pledge" and "No Dice," respectively. There’s still a lot of love for the band today. What do you think of the band’s ongoing impact?
John: I’m always shocked–shocked about both recorded covers. Seeing them cite us is always a shock. It feels so great. I think that in the grand history book that is Bay Area hardcore punk, we were a sentence, maybe a paragraph at best, not even a chapter. Gilman moves on, hardcore punk moves on. People come, they go. They’re with us; suddenly, they’re no longer with us.
At this point, I’m always so humbled when someone mentions to me they saw us play, or we resonated with them at some point, or whatnot. In fact, at one point, this happened recently, and I just gave that person every extra Allegiance record I had. They’re all gone now. We’ve got no doubles, no merch, and for so long I was holding onto the notion we may play again if I willed it into existence.
I'm fully at peace with where it has landed and always humbled anyone ever remembers. While still open to whatever the future holds for this band, other bands, no bands all at the same time.
Duane: When I hear covers of our songs, or see the band cited as an influence, or even see things like Allegiance-themed tattoos, it does make me feel weird. I guess that I have a hard time believing it, and I’ve always had a hard time with anything complementary, as it makes me feel uncomfortable. However, I do think it’s cool when these things happen, but again, it’s just...weird.
I’m not saying this in a critical way, but I do wish there were more hardcore bands around today that approached songwriting like us. We played really fast, but could get very heavy, but in a non-testosterone filled and violent way, which is something that I’m a bit critical of today with some hardcore.
But hey, hardcore always goes in cycles and as I keep telling John, we’re due for a youth crew revival very soon, which I’m all for.
To wrap this up, I’ll echo what John said. I’m at peace with Allegiance. We all have other musical endeavors, and we’re all still friends, so I can’t ask for more than that. I’m 100% happy with what Allegiance was and still continues to be, and I’ll forever be proud of the little niche of punk rock history that we carved out for ourselves.
Oh and one more thing, RJ PHILLIPS FOREVER.
***
Members of Allegiance have gone on to form the bands Berthold City, Caged View, Foreign Nature, and A Fool’s World.
Allegiance on social media: Instagram
Check out Allegiance's influences Spotify playlist here.
Acknowledgements go to Kyle Whitlow (Rivalry Records) and his blog.
Tagged: 2000s hardcore week, allegiance