The first time one of my bands put out a record was in 1997. Some dude I was talking to on AOL wanted to start a record label and I said I’d do all the work if he paid for it. The end product was the first Voice of Defiance 7”. The cover is the best thing about that record, so let’s just leave it there. 29 years later (fuck), here I am again. The feelings are the same: the excitement of sharing my art with the world, the anxiety of if anyone will care, and the satisfaction when some do.
This release is really important to me. I don’t peel back the curtain on my personal life on the pod or here really, and I’m not starting now, but I just have to say that I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to put out another LP. I honestly never thought I’d do it again. On top of that, as a musician it’s probably my most satisfying release, partially because it’s the first record I’ve written sober which was challenging.
I’m sure more accomplished musicians can set aside time and just hammer out music, but for me it’s always been about being in the mindset to channel ideas. The same way that you bowl the best between your 3rd and 4th drinks, my brain seemed to open up sometime around then. Either that or I’d be assisted by the white noise in the shower, which has now become my only reliable tool.
With my last band, Retaliate, we put out four LPs and a 7” out over a span of 14 years. I wrote all the lyrics and contributed to maybe half of the music on the first LP, but less and less on each subsequent one. For Subversive Intent, I picked the guitar up again and challenged myself to write some tunes that didn’t suck. You’ll be the judge of that.
I’m really fortunate to be surrounded by musicians more talented than myself. Our drummer, Matt, hits super hard and has the memory of an owl, or whatever animal is supposed to have the good memory…I forget. Manny our bass player is one of the fastest learners I’ve ever had the pleasure of jamming with and always brings a tuner to gigs. He just finished making a short film; check the trailer here. Luis, our shredder guitarist, well…he shreds, which I can’t, and he’s maybe the chillest dude ever. Catch him spinning records around town as DJ Catkiller, an unfortunate nickname given to him ironically after he once saved a cat from coyotes. And Sergio our frontman has pipes for real. That’s pretty much cuz when he put down the 40oz’s, he picked up those Persian clubs that the Iron Sheik used to work out with and swings them around his head on the reg. Impressive!
Since you all hear or read me talking or writing about music all the time, I thought I’d break down what I was trying to go for with this record. You can tell me if I got close or totally whiffed.
But first, here’s another reminder to buy the record so maybe someone will put out another EP or something for us in a couple years.
Alright, let’s get into it…
Fold your hand before you see them
Throw the towel before the beating
Quit before the gun goes bang
The weakest link in the chain
Living life caged by fear
Never leading, in the rear
A coward’s heart, a jester’s mind
Plankton in the changing tides
Capitulation
This is the seventh song we wrote during the demo era but I thought a six-song demo was long enough. Our first eight songs were written and released sequentially, something I wanted to do since that’s what Ill Repute did for their first 35 songs or so. I had to break the streak in order to sequence the LP.
Musically, this is another straight forward hardcore song—I was thinking The Kids Will Have Their Say meets Age of Quarrel meets the 3rd AF LP. Lyrically, it was about institutions like colleges, law groups, and media outlets folding to the 2nd Trump administration without even putting up any semblance of resistance. Truly shameful behavior.
Stripped of your rights and spirited away
Blinded, bound, and beaten - shackled in chains
A target of lies but it ain’t what it seems
A systematic victim of white supremacy
Disappeared, they’ve been disappearedCry out but no one hears your screams
Nightmare - this ain’t no fucking dream
Trapped in a box - your new reality
No way out - you can never break free
Musically this was my attempt to mash 1981 DC with Scandi hardcore. If you’d like to hear someone actually master what I was setting out to do, check out the new Yleiset Syyt record.
Lyrically this song was about DHS deporting people to CECOT. Sergio shines on this one.
Got your hands in everything
A basking shark on humanity
Nine gets one
Suffocating us so only you can breathe
You’re a god amongst men, that’s your belief
Nine zeros get a bullet
Cuz your kind shouldn’t exist
American oligarch
Put fear into their hearts
Your riches were made by exploiting
So at night I have a single dream
To line em up, one and all
And use their brains to paint the fucking walls
This was one of two Retaliate songs that I wrote for an EP that we decided against doing, so I reworked them into Subversive Intent songs since I liked them so much. For SI, I abandoned any sort of palm muting on the fast parts and sped up the breakdown so it’s better for lyrical flow, worse for mosh.
Lyrically it’s the manifesto of a dude who doesn’t think billionaires should exist. I mean, I agree with that part for sure, but do I agree with his methods? I’m open to the argument at a minimum.
Free Luigi.
Walkin down the boulevard, dead of the night
Streets are ghost, ain’t nobody in sight
Then out the corner of my eye, I see some guy
Staring at me from under a light
I’m not the one - won’t be victimized
Our eyes locked as he shuffled towards me
I got my hand on my blade - JIC
From the look in his eye, I knew it was time
It’s fuckin’ him or me, it’s fuckin’ do or die
This was the obligatory mid-tempo banger so I could get Dan Sant to order the record, but honestly I was writing less for him and more for Pig Champion or Izzy Stradlin. I wanted to make the song as sleazy as possible to match the subject matter.
Lyrically, this is part two of a story that started with the song “Kiss” from the demo. For “Guy,” I wrote the continuation from the opposing point of view. Real Private Dancer shit going on over here.
They tell you lies a million times, facilitate the grift
Defend the S, C, LLC, make bombs to kill poor kids
They’re flying in a private jet, you’re on the city bus
They’re selling off the public lands with no proceeds to us
They’re coming at you
They’re coming at me
So we’re coming at them with subversive intent
Their mansions are adorned in gold, you can’t afford a home
They ate the fucking carcass while we’re fighting for the bone
They’re monitoring every motherfucking move you make
Stuck in a surveillance state with no hope to escape
I love this verse riff but after recording it, I think it’s half of a Svart Parad part that was hibernating in the back of my brain. Luckily you’ll probably only notice if you work at Sorry State (what up, dudes?). Luis and I split the solo. We panned it hard in the mix to give it that old Slayer vibe.
Lyrically, it’s a tale as old as time that unfortunately still needs to be restated: the government only exists to protect the wealthy /connected and to fund the perpetual war machine/surveillance state.
Trapped in a fascist state
Religious law controls your fate
Activists - lock ‘em up
Murdered press - cover up
Politicians - pay ‘em off
Infidel heads - lop ‘em off
Petrofascist - oil fields
Petrofascist - blood spilled
Lashing gays, women caged
Sportswash it away
No regard for human rights
Behead apostates
A fun part of doing a hardcore band is deciding what songs you want to cover. Since we are a San Diego band, at some point we kicked around covering Battalion of Saints. My favorite song from them is probably “Animal In Man” so that’s the one I wanted to do, but recently they started gigging again and we have a band rule of not covering any current bands.
Here’s us covering the Shitlickers instead:
Anyway, you get where this is going; musically “Animal in Man” was the main influence. Manny steps out from the shadows here to do backup vocals. He was on “Guy” too but you really hear him here and he sounds great.
Lyrically the song is about human rights in the Middle Eastern petrostates. If you watch any sort of combat sports or pro wrasslin, you’ll see the sportswashing first hand. Shoutout Loujain al-Hathloul, an actual living legend.
Their algorithms carved out a piece of our brains
Then they microdose us dopamine to cope with the pain
Feeding us lies until we choke
Their debt must be paid by the hangman’s rope
Don’t trust your lying eyes to see what they see
Coerced perception is now reality
This blazing fast hardcore song shows off how tight Matt can play. We broke our no breakdowns rule from the demo for the 2nd time on this one.
Lyrically, it’s about how the algorithms are constantly trying to control our lives by feeding us an endless amount of slopaganda.
Starvation as a weapon
A weapon of war
I wanted to do a really slow D-beat song like the Kuro song “Human Gas.” Here’s my attempt.
The lyrics are about the terrorist state of Israel using starvation as a weapon of war in their ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza.
Here’s a good cause worth supporting.
I swear to God it wasn’t me
Victim of state brutality
Since I was born I had no chance
Now me and the reaper dance
Strapped down - ready to go
My death will be on your soul
I’ll see you on the other side
This time it’ll be your hide
I made my peace with inner self
The final joker has been dealt
This is the other Retaliate tune that got repurposed. I was going for a mean sounding Motorhead/Inepsy style slow-fast rocker. The verse riff is probably my favorite on the record.
Lyrically it’s about an innocent person who is on death row and their day is here. How can you claim to not trust the state but still be pro-death penalty?
The only capital punishment I support is the Big Pun record.
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
Programming the death of cells
Envenomed by microplasticsExcrement of technology
In the water and the air we breathe
I love when a band tries to make the last song on their record different or special. That’s what I was trying to go for here, kinda doing a NWOBHM type song with a tiny bit of an early ‘90s Norwegian flourish. This is Luis’ best solo on the record and probably my favorite of his other than “Mark 84.”
Lyrically it’s about a piece of the fallout from the meteoric rise of plastic production worldwide.
Shit’s fucked.
I hope that some of you enjoyed this look into my thoughts behind all the tunes on the new Subversive Intent LP. Jam it wherever you listen to music and it would be much appreciated if you grabbed a copy here.
Thanks for the support!
Upcoming gigs:
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Thanks for the support!
- ZN
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