For a relatively short-lived band, Bird of Ill Omen left a remarkably deep imprint on the South Florida hardcore underground. Formed from the ashes of Crestfallen and featuring members who either came from or would later help define bands like Culture, Morning Again, Shai Hulud, and more, the group carved out its own lane with a darker, emotionally charged take on metallic hardcore.
While their two releases—Self, Dare You Still Breathe?, and When Love Would Have Shown Interest in Us Both—never reached a massive audience during the band's existence, they've quietly become cult favorites over the decades, passed between collectors and discovered by new listeners long after Bird of Ill Omen called it a day.
Now, those recordings have been brought together for the first time as a newly remastered 2xLP discography through King of the Monsters, with mastering by Dan Coutant and a fresh visual presentation designed by original vocalist Damien Moyal.
Ahead of its release, No Echo caught up with guitarist Peter Bartsocas to look back on Bird of Ill Omen's formative years, the uniquely creative South Florida scene that shaped the band, and why these songs continue to resonate nearly three decades later.
When you think back to those early days, what pulled you together as a band?
Bird of Ill Omen came into existence when original drummer, George Rios (Brethren, ex-Floor), bassist Tom Rankin, and Jose Martinez (Trust No One, etc.) linked up with Joe Simmons (Culture/MA/AFR) and Damien Moyal (who had just left MA and Shai Hulud). Rose from the ashes of a band called Crestfallen that included Jose, Tom, George, and future Bird guitarist Andrew Logan.
That lineup played several shows, and they already had a pretty intense set. I was playing bass in Morning Again at this time and was trying to start something else, playing guitar. It's around this time that Jose left, and I happily replaced him, as I was already really into what they were doing. They were downtuned and dark, reminiscent of Starkweather, Unbroken, Threadbare, Bloodlet, and more, and emotionally raw compared to much of the other hardcore being served up locally at the time. The lyrics were more abstract and personal, with less emphasis on scene ideologies.
Bird of Ill Omen always stood apart in the South Florida hardcore scene of the 1990s, shrouded in mystery. What were you hoping to do that set you apart from the other acts in your orbit?
I can't speak to the shrouds of mystery, but [vocalist] Shane Post, who had just moved to South Florida, was a stranger to us. He was a mystery we were trying to figure out! He was a few years older than us and had this crazy stage presence, so we probably started making up shit about how he left Ohio because he was evading the law or whatever as a joke.
We certainly didn't think about standing out at the time, but we didn't fit the mold of a hardcore band, that is for sure. Our drummer had long black hair and listened to Celtic Frost, At the Gates, Cynic, etc., as much as he did to hip-hop. Tom ran a distro, and he was always bringing in records that were exposing me to a whole other scene.
New bands that shed the standard Victory and Revelation Records sound releases of the time. Andrew was very much into all the hardcore and punk of the era, and he is possibly the most musically gifted person I have met, so he moved on to studying music, learning loads of other instruments and sounds to the point of composing and arranging for classical. I was into a lot of punk, hardcore, metal, and grunge, and we all just coalesced around a sound we wanted to hear.
South Florida in the 1990s was a melting pot of hardcore styles. Where did Bird of Ill Omen find its place within that landscape, and what sticks with you most about the scene that grew up around the band?
The mid-'90s South Florida punk/hardcore scene was one of the best experiences you can hope to have as a young kid getting in to this music. It was very inclusive and diverse in it's sounds and players. It was awesome how each area of the state had little micro scenes with their own sound or band that was being championed, but more importantly, these bands would all play together.
One of the first shows I ever played was in '95 with my very first band. We were doing this whole Youth Crew thing. There was a ska band with a full horn section, a snotty punk band, and local hardcore stalwarts Tension ripping it up as usual. And it was fun for all. Sure, everyone was cliqued up, but there was an acceptance that if you found your way to this place, you were at least not interested in whatever was going on in the mainstream.
Bird of Ill Omen found kinship early on with local bands like Strongarm, Shai Hulud, Cavity, Promise No Tomorrow, An Acre Lost, etc. As we started playing more out-of-town shows, we met more like-minded Florida bands like Dragbody, Reversal of Man, Carlisle, etc.
You have to also consider that around this time there was a huge explosion of bands that were shedding the "hard" and adding more metal to the core. Lowercase-m metalcore bands like Overcast, Disembodied, Converge, Threadbare, Deadguy, etc., and even some of the second-wave emo bands, were a huge influence on the scene, and it trickled down to what you wanted to hear in your own scene.
Self, Dare You Still Breathe? and When Love Would Have Shown Interest in Us Both have both taken on a cult life of their own. Did you realize that people kept tracking down and talking about these records years after Bird of Ill Omen was gone?
I felt pretty disenfranchised from the hardcore scene by the time I moved to Brooklyn in 2004, but I ended up reconnecting with some ex-Floridians that I knew from Gainesville and quickly met Rich Hall (RIP) through them. He would kind of bust my balls about the band, but one night out with him I actually ran into Chris Tzompanakis, who had put out the 7" on One Day Savior Records.
I slowly met other people who had heard of the band, and it was flattering that someone from, like, Oklahoma or some other non-Florida location had heard our music. I think some of that reach might be attributed to the 403 comp that we were on as well.
I have seen an uptick of listeners on streaming services in the last few years, so that was also a pleasant surprise—that people are still finding us, even for the first time, perhaps.
When you revisit these songs now, what jumps out at you? Are there lines, riffs, or moments that land differently for you today than they did when you first wrote and recorded them?
Listening back to the songs, I am always personally faced with how depressed and unhappy I felt back then. Having written some of the lyrics, I know I had a lot of anger in me that I was hoping to get out. Angry at my parents for the abandonment I experienced. Angry at the changing world that I felt helpless in.
It's always fun to listen to the riffs and mentally catalog all the influences that were shaping the writing at the time. Funnily enough, when Andrew joined the band, I remember getting together to show him some of the riffs and catch him up on the songs, and he knew like half the material already because a lot of the parts were scabbed from Crestfallen songs that he helped write.
This new release brings both records together for the first time, and what sparked the idea?
The idea came together because I was noticing people online either looking for the records or posting copies of the LP for Self, Dare You Still Breathe?, and I am truly horrified by the cover art we chose for that back then [seen here].
I remember John from Eulogy Recordings didn't want to get involved with vinyl pressing at the time, and our good friend Erika offered to press copies of it. I do not remember why we didn't just use the original art from the Eulogy CD because that was a very cool layout (done by Nick Dominguez of Strongarm and Further Seems Forever) with far more interesting artwork.
How did King of the Monsters get involved in the discography project?
We were huge fans of what Mike [Ganz] was doing with King of the Monsters back when we were an active band. We even tried to get him to release stuff for us then because we loved his visual and sonic aesthetic with releases from Absinthe, Jeremin, Creation Is Crucifixion, Prevail, the ROM/Puritan split, and all the dirtier/noisier hardcore he was putting out.
I was "shopping" the idea for a discography around for a while with not too much traction when Mike hit me up completely out of the blue. I put the feelers out into the universe, and it came back tenfold! It was an amazing opportunity to finally work with him all these years later. Not sure if there's a label owner chat going on behind the scenes or whatever, but the timing was truly incredible [laughs].
Damien Moyal was not only part of the band's history but also handled the artwork and visual presentation for this release. How important was it to have someone so closely connected to the original story involved in preserving and presenting this material?
Damien was the original vocalist, and he came up with the band name. He left the band after a few months/shows after I joined to focus on Culture and then, a little later, As Friends Rust, which he named using a line he reclaimed from a BOIO lyric for "Now Ruin Is."
We kept three of his song lyrics for the recording we did later. He really set the tone lyrically for us, and it was hard to get over the departure, but he had always been supportive of us and complimentary to Shane, who replaced him.
I am still friends with Damien to this day, and knowing his background in design and doing physical releases for various other projects, I knew he was the right person.
Digging through the band's history for this discography, did any old photos, flyers, recordings, or stories come up that caught you off guard or brought back memories you'd forgotten?
I feel like I have always been the vault keeper/archivist in the band, so I had seen a lot of the material used and unused for the discography already.
Strangely enough, I asked the other guys in the band to look for any memorabilia or pictures to use for the release, and no one came up with anything new. Then, out of nowhere, while we were still deciding on the cover, Andrew Logan found a handful of pictures that I had never even seen before while he was moving, and in a crazy last-minute pivot, we redesigned some things to use them in the layout.
Lots of memories came flooding back because of old flyers from shows that we may or may not have played [laughs]. I sometimes see some where I have no recollection of playing that show or the fact that we even played as many as we did. It seemed like such a flash in the pan for me since it was 30 years ago.
A few shows really stick out in my memory, playing with bands we loved at the time like Coalesce, Brutal Truth, Cave In, and more, or this one show at the Old School House in Fort Pierce where things got wild—a Halloween show or a fest or something.
If you could step back into a Bird of Ill Omen show in the mid-'90s, what do you think would stand out most to younger fans about the band, the crowd, and the energy in the room that might be hard to find now?
There was always a certain feeling of angst or danger at some of the shows. One time Damien started to choke some kid in the crowd with the mic cable, but then somehow it got turned around on him, and he ended up getting choked out. I believe he blacked out in the middle of the song.
We also played a full moon show at the Old School House where things got out of hand with some band beef, but nothing too violent.
I always liked the idea of some sort of live performance element. There was a small-scale riot that ensued at a Club Q show where Damien was wearing a mask of John Wylie from Eulogy. I remember cutting out a bunch of the published full-page photos from the Heaven's Gate cult mass suicide and taping them all over our amps, and always having the lights out. That kind of low-effort spookiness somehow worked with the music.
One Halloween show we had two gallons of fake blood and had our friend jump out and douse the audience. Some were not pleased! Sometimes there was real blood from playing guitar the wrong way, or one time I smashed a guitar out of personal frustration.
There was a lot of pent-up energy for sure. We were young and still learning what it meant to navigate through this world (without GPS) and our emotions. [Laughs] Hell, I am still on that path today.
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Bird of Ill Omen Complete Discography 2xLP will be out July 10, and is available for pre-order via King of the Monsters.
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