Into The Scene: Loose Ends W.M.B.D

Photo: Liam Gauntlett The next wave of hardcore is getting rowdy, and we love it.

Our second instalment of Into The Scene takes us to West Midlands beatdown quintet, Loose Ends W.M.B.D. who are riding the next wave of Hardcore/Beatdown into new and interesting horizons.

Though they’re still fresh-faced to the scene, with their debut EP ‘Bleak’ having just been released, they’re still becoming a rising name amongst their local scene and have the talents to extend beyond that.

Loose Ends W.M.B.D sound returns to the more beloved days of Hardcore, if you’re big fans or Terror or Billy Club Sandwich then you’ll find the essence of that raw, pounding style boasting its way through their tracks. With mouth-watering breakdowns, it’s easy to see why this band fares well in a live setting.

Guitarist Jonny Price spoke to us about the band’s influence and the bigger picture of Hardcores growth in modern times, explaining that they went into Beatdown because it’s “just a bit badass and the crowd is absolutely mental.”

“What inspired this band and this genre for me was actually a bit of a reaction to what I’d been doing in previous (softer) bands that never worked out” Price says “After my old band split up, I needed something else to work on and was immediately like “Fuck it, I’m gonna just write stupidly heavy stuff for giggles” and invited Chris (Vocals) to get involved. Chris and me have been pals since we were little kids and we’ve been going to Hardcore shows up and down the country together for years and we have always loved the live energy, which was a big inspiration when we came to start our own thing. We were more into straight up hardcore to begin with but obviously ended up crossing paths with some of the Beatdown scene over the years and got into it from there.”

Photo: Liam Gauntlett

Price admits that while Beatdown still isn’t that popular as it’s essentially a sub-genre of a genre, Hardcore has grown exponentially in years thanks to bands breaking through on a bigger independent label and attracting new people, because “Hardcore in general will always have a following, it may fluctuate from time to time but a lot of the hardcore scene encourages dedication.”

Hardcores commercial success rode into the early 2010s and has rapidly taken over the scene, with the likes of Varials, Counterparts and Knocked Loose selling out venues and becoming household names. Speaking of its commercial success Price comments that whilst the commercial success has been great, there’s still a world of Beatdown/Hardcore in the underground DIY scene to be explored. “I still think the Beatdown/Hardcore scene relies on its DIY ethic and is mostly an underground thing. The main thing commercial success has done for hardcore is allow the scene to grow in numbers, thanks to more commercial bands like Knocked Loose and Varials that have included Beatdown elements in their music drawing people in but I don’t believe it will ever grow out of being a DIY scene for the straight up Beatdown bands and I think that’s probably for the better. Part of Beatdown/Hardcore is being an underground culture and I personally think that’s how it will always stay, even if it does grow a bit over time, it’ll still stay the same self-managed, self-sustaining community it has always been. For the ones who are truly involved, it’s the same gritty, grassroots scene.”

Photo: Liam Gauntlett

As for themselves, Price reflected on their starting out moment where they’d originally tried to lean into the Hardcore side of Beatdown. “When we started writing, our goal was to bring back the more “Hardcore” side of Beatdown. We saw that in recent years, Beatdown bands were taking more influence from Deathcore and Slam and we believe it should be more closely associated with Hardcore. We love Drowning and Desolated so we wanted to bring those influences out but we also wanted to showcase more of the straight up Hardcore influences that OG bands like Bulldoze and Billy Club Sandwich have in their music and just give it a little modernization.” COVID-19 is ravaging smaller bands like Loose Ends W.M.B.D, they’re surviving on what little money they’d made at shows before says Price. “We are now making absolutely nothing” he says “shows are our only income, booking fees and merch sales at shows is our only way of making money, so right now our income has halted. Luckily, we all have jobs or furlough schemes to keep us going personally but in terms of the band as an entity, everything has come to a halt, apart from the odd online merch sale (side note; buy a tee).” Loose Ends W.M.B.D. released their EP ‘Bleak’ recently, check it out below:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/looseendswmbd/

Article - Yasmine Summan

About Into The Scene The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taken a massive swing at the music industry, with most live event shows for 2020 already being cancelled and the rest in a limbo of unknowingness, label and PR companies unable to fully operate in-house and artists across all boards being constrained in their abilities to make and market their art.

It’s also left the little person, that being small and local artists, unable to fend for themselves or rely on the plush album sales and record labels safety net of money in these hard times. Here at 3 Songs & Out we want to show our support and admiration for the foundational core of our scene: the underground. ‘Into The Scene’ is a project launched to support local and small bands. Our local scene is the boiling pot of fresh new talent and we want to support that in any way we can.