Hardcore music is often a misunderstood genre and lifestyle

By Darlene Dobkowski
4/29/10

People unfamiliar with the hardcore music scene, whether in Boston or elsewhere, might assume it is full of violence. They would find stage diving, moshing and singers screaming their heart out, but those into the scene say this is just an aggressive façade.

Take for example Have Heart's last show. Many fans were voicing their hatred of police, but lead singer Pat Flynn said he explained to a police officer who stopped by that it is a way of expressing an attitude, not acting on it.

"When you're young and 15, you hate the cops, even if you're f**king suburban
commando from population white kid everywhere, you hate the cops no matter what," Flynn said. "Even if you're extremely privileged, you're just young. You hate authority. And I remember thinking that's a real immature attitude."

Flynn believes that because the scene includes many young fans, it often worries adults.

"Because it's done by young people and older generations are always kinda worried about the younger generations because that's the future and whatnot," Flynn said.

This attitude stems from the beginning punk and hardcore scenes that believed in anti-authority. This is often seen in hardcore scenes today that consist of younger, teenage fans. Flynn grew out of that mindset and used it to prevent the show from shutting down.

"I kinda thought think about it rationally," Flynn said. "That was a big point of Have Heart and our existence in the hardcore scene was to abandon those traditions, which I'm not a big fan of tradition, but kinda abandon those stupid traditions that just kinda dictate how things should be when it's just tradition."

Flynn thought that a situation like this could not have happened at a better time than their last show.

"It couldn't have been more typical of a Have Heart moment saying, 'Listen, we understand cops are bad and whatnot, but there's a use to this and they see this as craziness because they don't understand it, but you need to go out of your way to consider the fact that people aren't just going to understand this right away and taking the time to mind that is a good way to live in terms of how you get by because everyone is different,'" Flynn said.

"Sweet Pete" Maher performed In My Eyes songs with the other members of Have Heart before their last set. He witnessed what happened and sees the result in a positive light.

"I think Pat handled it very well," Maher said. "He didn't take the punk rock attitude of, 'F*ck the cops.' As much as it sounds, I mean, you can call me a punk sellout, I mean, you have to work with the system."

Maher thinks that the way Flynn explained hardcore to the police officer was very accurate.

"He worked with cop and he explained it to him the best that he could and the cop accepted it that it's a positive release of energy," Maher said. "No one is there to hurt each other. Everyone is just there having a good time and it looks like uncontrolled violence, but it's kind of a controlled release of aggression more than it is violence."

Some other misconceptions of hardcore involves the straight edge lifestyle, which many fans embrace. Flynn, who is straight edge, notices how people react to the way he lives.

"The thing that kinda sucks is that I have this stigma because 'Oh, I'm Mr. Straight Edge' that I don't want to hang out with people because they're drinking," Flynn said. "It's not that. It's just loud or f*cking obnoxious."

Flynn believes that the lack of people asking questions about hardcore is what makes the genre and its lifestyle have so many mistaken beliefs.

"Like I said, people don't really totally have the understanding of young people today and people don't inquire enough as they should," Flynn said. "They kinda just cross it off before they inquire and I think it's important to start for everyone."

The things that help create hardcore and the scene often has some misunderstandings. People outside of the genre often think that the record label helps the band in any way possible. As much as the record label helps a band with promotion, everything else is in the hands of the band and the fans such as planning shows and booking travel to get to those shows.

"They're not doing nothing, but when it comes to getting to these places, we're the ones getting the visas, getting the tickets, paying for the tickets," Flynn said. "We never asked Bridge Nine for a dime because we knew of a lot of bands in the past who have and have gotten money from them, but we wanted to be self-reliant."

Journalist-in-residence at Emerson College, author and NPR critic Tim Riley reminisces about the beginning stages of hardcore and how he saw it as a continuation of the punk scene.

"Well I adore it, but I'm old school," Riley said, "And I remember when they started talking about this new brand of music called hardcore and to me, it meant how to distinguish hardcore from punk. Punk was sort of built to self-destruct and it did that really quickly and sort of really dramatically in very exciting ways. Hardcore is what came after to figure out a way how to keep punk alive, the ethos and the energy and everything without betraying the punk ideal, which was very self-destructive."

In a way, the punk scene is very alive today, but in different forms and alterations. Maher thinks what punk is today can and should help people understand what hardcore is.

"I think it's hard for me to realize or think that any parent or adult or any person who doesn't know about stage diving or moshing or hardcore slam dancing," Maher said. "I would think everyone knows about it just from the Internet, Green Day, Blink-182 like popular punk rock, whatever you want to call it."

No matter what people in the hardcore scene do or say to people who don't understand it, you can't expect everyone to accept it.

"Some people are never gonna get it," Maher said. "Some people are never gonna want to get it. Some people are never gonna listen to you."

Even though a certain genre of music or the lifestyle that accompanies it isn't understood doesn't mean that people can't live amongst each other.

"You got to take people on an individual basis," Maher said. "Just try to reason with people and try to get along with people. You're not going to get along with everyone, but you know what? You can try."