Down To Nothing

Trapped Under Ice

Cruel Hand

Thick As Blood

Naysayer

Forfeit

xTyrantx

Harbinger

Set The Record Straight



I remember when I was watching xTyrantx, they played this game where they threw a football into the crowd and whoever had it by the end of the song got a free t-shirt or something. People were beating the shit out of each other for it, it was insane. I watched all the bands and was amazed at the energy that the bands were giving off with the crowd reciprocating. I was hooked instantly. I could only remember the name "Cruel Hand" so I looked them up on Myspace as soon as I got home, checked it out, checked out all the other bands on their top 8, and it all started there.



There’s a common sentiment that drummers are hard to find in the hardcore scene. When did you pick up drumming? Were you always drawn to it or did you pick it up out of necessity? Do you play any other instruments?





AOP just put out a promo: “View of the Few” backed with a Car vs. Driver cover of “Blame.” Are you guys currently writing new material? What is the writing process for AOP?

I’ve never listened to Car vs. Driver or Ex-Members Of… until AOP put out covers of their songs. What went into the decision to cover these songs?

Top 5 Atlanta Hardcore Releases?

What a hard question to answer.

1. Foundation - Everything

2. Criminal Instinct - Demo

3. Slow Fire Pistol - Moment Of Clarity

4. Act Of Faith - Gain

5. Cold Stare - Demo



Atlanta’s hardcore scene seems to be thriving with a steady output of music and shows. What are your thoughts on Atlanta’s hardcore scene and on the hardcore scene in general?

As with any hardcore scene, there are its ups and downs. I will say that Atlanta Hardcore is definitely on a positive incline right now with more bands forming and shows coming through. We're blessed with a great selection of venues for all different kinds of shows and we definitely don't take that for granted. As for the hardcore scene as a whole, I'll focus on the positives instead of the negatives. I really love that singing along to bands is making a comeback now, (shout out to the ospo) and I also love that people are making more of an effort to accept new younger kids into hardcore.

In addition to playing music, you’ve also released music through a couple of different labels (Floodlight Records and Fruit Stand Press). What lead to you starting and working on labels? Are there any new releases in the works?

Floodlight started just because I wanted to help my friends create physical copies of their music, that's really it. My first vinyl release was Featherweight (Day by Day/Deflect guys). I met those guys just by mutual friends and going to shows in Florida. I've learned a lot through the process of releasing music and then when I moved to Atlanta, Kaleb and I wanted to start a different creative outlet that didn't solely revolve around releasing music by the name of Fruit Stand Press. Our friend Jon D did the logos for it and we released Slow Fire Pistol's 12" EP through it. There's a big zine in the works as well so keep your eyes peeled for that.

What do you have lined up for 2018 and beyond? Things you’re looking forward to?

Any final thoughts to close out the interview?

Last, but not least – what is your favorite Foundation song?

1. Never Stops Raining

2. Evaporate

3. No Cure For Fools





Abuse of Power at Damaged City Fest 2018 ( photo by Farrah Skeiky

But we all know that they don't have one bad song.

Abuse of Power is currently recording their debut LP set to be released by Triple B Records.

In the process of figuring out what FRAME was going to be, I jumped the gun and sent a couple of questions to Yoon from Abuse of Power in April of 2018. He sent over his answers the next day and I've been unintentionally holding on to them since then. Mea culpa. Some of the information is obviously a bit outdated, but the interview is really good and it needs to reach its intended audience (that's you).Yoon is the drummer for Abuse of Power and Faze and has played in a handful of bands in the Florida and Atlanta scenes. He also put out Slow Fire Pistol's debut 12"with Abuse of Power vocalist Kaleb on Fruit Stand Press. In the interview we discuss some of his influences, his entry into hardcore, and the canon of Atlanta hardcore that played a role in developing Abuse of Power. The promoter asked us if we wanted to play and since we're fans of MG we thought it'd be cool to play such an unorthodox bill for us. It was a cool show, we got to play to metalheads that we've never seen before, a handful of our friends and also got to play the new song "View of the Few" live for the first time. After all was said and done it was a cool show.We just recently played Turnstile's Time & Space record release show and it was probably the most amount of people watching us at one point ever. Much love and respect to those guys and the DC fest crew for helping that happen. This past United Blood (2018) was also really awesome to play. The first show that we thought was pretty crazy was our first year at America's Hardcore. Atlanta & our friends put on for us and it was amazing to see. The most unusual would probably have to go to the Mammoth Grinder gig that we talked about earlier.The first hardcore show I ever attended was in Jacksonville, FL in January of 2010 (I think). I had just started being a part of my local music scene and I wanted to support bands in my area. I saw that this one band was playing a show so a friend of mine and I went. I was either 14 or 15 so I couldn't drive yet but thankfully my friend had a car at the time. We arrive at the show and then he leaves shortly after to "patch things up" with his girlfriend or whatever. The band I went there to see had even finished playing and packed up as soon as I got there. I was a little annoyed at that point but I just tried to enjoy whatever show was left. The lineup is pretty crazy for someone's first show, this is as much as I can remember.Kids Like UsWhen I was around 10, I thought my cousin was the coolest person ever, and he played drums so I wanted to pretty much follow suit. My dad bought me a drumset around 2007 and has probably regretted that decision since, haha. I didn't take playing drums and wanting to get good at it too seriously until I was in Society Abuse and before that it was just a necessity thing in reference to playing in bands. I can barely play guitar, but I like to fuck around every now and then. I also have a very small ability to play the piano and flute. Y'know, typical Asian things.There are some great drummers that I enjoy watching on Youtube, but I'd have to say that my drummer peers influence me the most. There's not a whole lot of drummers in hardcore that stand out to me but the ones that do are Shawn Costa (Have Heart/Free), Daniel Fang (Turnstile/Praise/AD$), Champ Hammett (Foundation), and Brian Rutter (King Mine). Watching any of them play live always gets me so pumped, they all have their own unique style to their playing and kill it.Faze doesn't really have anything planned right now. I feel a little guilty because we're not touring on the new 7" that Triple B put out for us, but it's mostly on the back burner so that I can focus on AOP right now. I still love all the guys a whole lot and Justin is in AOP so it's cool.We are writing new material. We're definitely taking our time with it but it's in the works. I would have to assume it's the same writing process as most bands: one of us comes to the table with a riff or a song idea and all of us pitch in ideas/comments/suggestions and it begins to mold into a song. Everyone in the band is included in the process.Even though not all of us are originally from Atlanta, we all take pride in living here. We started off covering Foundation's demo song "Landslide" as a homage and it just went from there. We felt that the history of Atlanta hardcore has been under the radar for the most part, so we thought it'd be cool to cover some bands from here that we listen to a lot. I remember when we released the All I Need // This isn't Goodbye single and someone tweeted about it. Something along the lines of "It sounds like some Senses Fail emo bullshit" or whatever, pretty funny haha.If you haven't already, check out "Ex-Members of..." and "Car Vs Driver," both amazing bands.2018 is pretty busy so far, AOP has shows lined up at least every month whether it be a show in Atlanta or a run of shows we're doing. In April we have a show lined up with SFL's Result Of Choice and another one with Stick To Your Guns (lol), along with Except and Magnitude. After that we're doing a string of shows on Wise's tour, an Atlanta hardcore showcase, Sound and Fury, and another European trek. Looking forward to every single one of these shows, thankful to anyone and everyone who books us and/or comes out to the shows.Old School Pile Ons, get with it.Gonna tweak this a little.