Ties That Bind

BIND first emerged in the shadows of Hallow’s Eve. It was November of 2018, and as punks gathered at late live venue DECLINE, the band was billed alongside Overthrown, Radigals and Doldrey as part of a lineup organised by House of VANS. The crowd had both older members of Singapore’s hardcore community, and new-school kids brought up on bands like Knocked Loose and Turnstile – but as DECLINE’s packed Friday night crowds moshed on, a thunderous reaction greeted them.

“As soon as we started playing, we saw people going off,” BIND’s vocalist and frontman, Ragman recalls. We saw these kids’ reactions to the music, and it was a two way energy. We were giving, they were receiving, and it just got better. The general confidence changed, and you felt the mood change.”

It was a momentum that carried into their second performance, held at Play By Ear Studios the following year. “When we got there, we saw a lot of hardcore kids, and we came to realize that a lot of these kids showed up because they wanted to watch us because of the last show [at DECLINE], even though that was the year before,” Ragman recounts. “Put in perspective, we definitely created some type of impact that would make the kids want to come out and watch us again.”

“I thought: “Woah, there is some magic in this room right now.” The chemistry was so right, and the magic was there,” Ragman mentions emphatically. “I felt so right about it – it was everything I was looking for in this band, and I knew right off the bat that this would eventually lead to something else,” After about six studio sessions, the quartet realized they had about five different songs, leading them to work proactively as a team to record and release the EP by December that year. 

The sessions were productive. “The magic of these guys is they all went into the studio, and they nailed all five songs in one fucking session. That was phenomenal. Standing there, looking at these guys – I was like, holy shit, these motherfuckers are giving me a run for my money, man.” With all the instruments recorded live, Ragman then overdubbed his vocals on a separate day.

You can hear a lot of that chemistry distilled down on STATE OF MIND’s ferocious tracks, much of which draws from both 80s New York hardcore to British street and crust punk. “Not Your Fight’s” rallying cries recall classic youth crew anthems, while powerful d-beat odes like “Deranged State of Mind” fill the tracklist.

Here, they begin sharing their favorite records, revealing the foundations that crafted their riffage. Pointing to his Madball tattoo, Ragman gave a shout out to their vocalist, Freddy, as well as the early works of Agnostic Front. Beyond those names, he namedrops more records, including Youth of Today’s “We’re Not In This Alone”, Judge’s “Bringin’ It Down”, No For An Answer’s “A Thought Crusade”, and Minor Threat’s classic “Out of Step”.  Jai mentions his fandom of legendary American groups like Betrayed, Strife, and Warzone, while his riffs were notably influenced by European hardcore acts like Refused and Shield. For Syed, 80’s British punk shaped him - alongside the foundations laid down by D-beat pioneers Discharge.

Those records themselves form part of STATE OF MIND’s identity – itself a product of the members’ history with the punk scene, which shared a symbiotic relationship with the skating scene in Singapore. As such, local skateparks became popular meeting points for the emerging community to share records, zines and knowledge on hardcore – and thus became the gateway to BIND’s members into the world of hardcore in their teens. Through countless discussions and exchanges held at these hangout spots, it was where they found personally influential records introduced to them.

“To promote our shows, we’d put up posters we hand-drew from hand at hawker centres and just these random places around town. We would hang around the Forum at Orchard and give out tapes to our friends,” Syed would reminisce. As he and Ragman found themselves both involved with skater culture and Singapore’s metalhead crowd, their obsession over skater magazines like THRASHER eventually lead them to articles on various legendary punk outfits, from DRI and Suicidal Tendencies, to more straight-forward outfits like the Misfits, Dead Kennedys and Circle Jerks.

All already into punk-influenced metal bands the likes of Metallica and Slayer, the three’s journey to hardcore became a natural one, as they found hardcore’s emphasis on relatable social and personal issues more realistic and personally relevant than metal’s high fantasy and shock-value Satanism at the time. Along with hardcore’s separation from the sense of elitism and exclusivity harbored by many adjacent subcultures at the time, the three naturally found a place and sense of identity within the scene. 

Jai also shares that his early involvement in the hardcore and skate scenes became a productive avenue that allowed him to escape gang culture, prevalent in areas like the neighbourhood he grew up in.

“A lot of my friends ended up getting sent to boys’ homes or juvenile court, going to jail and stuff,” Jai recalls. “Back in the 90s, I took this opportunity to get into skateboarding and hardcore as a channel to divert myself from all the struggles - all the fighting, or other kinds of “unsavory activities.”

A popular epicenter for that solidarity turned out to be the celebrated TNT Studios. Run by producer and musician Wong “Ah Boy”, his welcoming nature and relaxed house rules allowed for the area surrounding the studio to become a hangout spot, allowing for the practice sessions of random bands to become informal, small-scale gigs. It was where the band also formed a close-knit relationship with Wong, whose expertise in recording punk and extreme music made the recording process a lot smoother for them. “We have this relationship with him. He’s a friend, not just some guy who you pay to record,” they note. 

“These guys would be jamming for two hours, and then they’d start playing a whole lot of songs that we're all familiar with,” Rag recounts on their past memories at TNT. “We’d just get in the room, taking turns grabbing the mic, and start pushing and shoving each other inside the fucking studio. A lot of us were kids – maybe half the size or what we are right now. But we easily cramped 20 people in that studio - and we'd just have a lot of fun.” 

These weekly gatherings at TNT became the bridge for Ah Boy’s later ventures as a local gig organiser, where he self-sourced and self-organised events at reasonable prices, even when operating at a loss.

“Ah Boy saw all this and realised, hey, you know what, why don't we just put up an actual show?.” With the Substation available as a go-to venue, so we connected the dots, and things just fell in place. That’s how the scene got really huge,” Ragman muses.

“Then there was us - before we started playing in bands, we were fans. So you had the crowd, you had the bands, you had the sound guy, you had TNT, and then you had the venue. It was a mixture of a lot of different people that played their part in starting a movement,” he reflected. 

With hardcore’s lack of elitism and stylistic constraints, Lion City hardcore has been able to continuously thrive with unique sounds. With bands often finding a free-form canvas to experiment within, modern hardcore gigs often include lineups of bands that sound completely distinct from one-another, with acts infusing hardcore with influences from adjacent subgenres, and even styles outside of extreme music. Given the varied creative paths that bands were taking, I asked the guys in BIND about what direction they could see hardcore going in. 

“The thing is, there are no written rules in hardcore,” Rag deftly responds. “Some kids are likely to push the boundaries - bands like Burn, Snapcase, Quicksand, Into Another, Shelter all came from the hardcore scene, and they kind of pushed the boundaries in a way, right? But there are also bands that sound super old school, bands that sound metal and bands that sound melodic, and they all have roots in hardcore.”

Ragman continues by referencing modern bands that reference older genres. Mentioning South East Asian bands, he mentions hardcore’s love affair with the HM-2-heavy sounds of 80s death metal, including Singapore’s own Doldrey. “In that sense, I would say you cater to everybody out there,” he says.

Above all, combined with his return to music, the ability to share the stage with LCHC’s up-and-coming bands fueled the excitement he had for BIND’s emergence. “It's amazing to see a lot of kids who are so much younger than us still doing whatever we started back in the day, you know?” 

Jai reiterates Rag’s admiration. “You can see kids born in 1995 or 2002 – some as young as 16 – and their knowledge of 80s hardcore is probably deeper than mine,” he states. “Every time I meet these kids, they’re able to introduce me to all these new bands, and when I talk to them, I can see they’re more knowledgeable than me.”  Believing that the advent of better technology and internet access had a large impact on the current scene, the three believe the scene’s current torchbearers fully utilise their resources to the best of their abilities, and given their admiration for the scene’s current proprietors, it came as no surprise to us that the guys were well up-to-date with the current wave of bands popping in Singapore. Alongside a slew of bands from the hardcore scene – including Losing End, Rebel Hifi, Weight of the World, A.D and Radigals – the three namedropped Fuse, Deceased and Doldrey as their favorite local acts. In particular, the three give a big shout out to Remnants.

“Remnants fucking rock man,” the trio emerge in unison.

Syed also gives a special mention to death-metal quintet Darah. As the son of Stompin’ Ground’s drummer, Ayong, Syed had known their drummer, Islam Falmi, since he was a child - making it more surprising for him when he emerged to become a powerhouse drummer of his own right.

“With his father being in Stompin’ Ground, he used to follow us to most of our jamming sessions. He was really quiet, but he was always there, and Ayong would teach him about drumming,” he shares. ” He would usually keep to himself – but now he’s such a fucking good drummer. After Darah put out their E.P, I asked Ayong: “Are you sure this is your son?’”

Talking Singaporean acts, the three also mentioned some pretty surprising favourites, outside of their home genres. Invited to North East Social Club’s New Year’s party by Nick Wong (of Marijannah and Caulfield Cult fame), the event at the Projector turned Ragman into a fan of Wong’s post-punk outfit, Blood Pact, as well as indie-rock mainstays Subsonic Eye. “Even with their whole dreamy pop thing, they had the loudest reaction in the room,” Ragman reflects on Subsonic Eye’s set. “I was like, wow, this band is something else.” 

Jai also mentioned his love for pop punk. With his booking agency Reconstrux Bookings having brought in bands like The Story So Far, he gives shoutouts to Singaporean pop punk counterparts Fader and Iman’s League, while also mentioning experimental electronic duo, .gif as a favorite of his. As for Syed, he professes his love for The Smiths, a love the three in BIND all shared – excluding Morrissey, of course.

Nevertheless, there were critiques the three of them had in regards to the current scene. 

Ragman proceeds to tell us stories of local shows attended by massive crowds of 700 to 1000 people, and how even a bad local show could easily amass a crowd of 200. With Singapore’s early independent gigging scene featuring affordable spaces that were accessible for long periods of time, he tells us that booking 30 bands a night for a show was an easy feat – with Ah Boy regularly hosting shows that would last well over 12 hours. Listening to Ragman describe the state of the scene years ago, his accounts came as a huge surprise to us, with Singaporean music’s current lack of infrastructure and lackluster ground level support.

According to the three, a hardcore show used to be a welcoming environment for attendees to freely socialise amongst each other, as part of a singular state of camaraderie. Now, they, and many others, find themselves disheartened by what they perceive as an increasing number of cliques forming amongst show attendees, who socialise exclusively amongst themselves and create an unwelcoming environment for newcomers. 

“Not trying to sound like a nostalgic fool,” Ragman remarks with a laugh. “But that's exactly how I felt when I grew up [experiencing] it first hand. Back then, all of us were like one family, because hardcore was a new, emerging thing. You didn't have to have a crew, you just had to be out there – now, it seems very fragmented.”

Given this, Ragman would attribute the advent of the internet and subsequent breakdown of interpersonal communication as a double-edged sword, contributing to the disunification of the hardcore spirit. 

“We’d hang out in the streets - that was our meeting place to exchange records and connect with the like-minded. But I guess I can understand it. It's a whole different generation, and they don't necessarily see things the way we see them,” he reflects. 

With positive takes on social consciousness like inclusivity, clean eating, fitness and spirituality being trademarks of hardcore and straight edge’s earliest waves, “unity” has become a colloquial rallying cry every hardcore punk fan has probably heard more times than they count. On closing track “Memories,” STATE OF MIND touches upon that subject: “Looking back at all those times / I wouldn't change a goddamn thing / We stood tall / We stood proud / It was us against this world,” Ragman screams on the track.

However, it appears that the term may have been more applicable to the original hardcore scene than it is today. With a perceived increase in violence at shows and “disunity” in various scenes around the world, many enthusiasts fear hardcore’s turn into that which it sought to destroy. Coming from what many would consider to be the more “positive” era of hardcore, we asked them about whether or not they felt that hardcore was heading in a more negative direction, and whether they planned on promoting more supposedly positive ideals in future releases.