Band: Hatespeech
From: Orange County, California
Their formation story:
(David Dabiri, guitar): "I met Jesse, our singer, on the campus of Cal State Long Beach in 2021 when he flagged me down as I was skating because he liked my First Blood shirt. The first question he asked me was “do you play any instruments?” followed by 'Do you want to start a hardcore band?”' This fatefully came at a time when I was telling the people closest to me that I missed playing heavy music and felt like my life wasn’t complete unless I was playing in a hardcore band.
We found Kris, our drummer, on Craigslist, which is a real throwback, and Cyrus, our bassist, had played in punk bands with Jesse since they were in high school. After a little shuffling around and playing musical chairs, we locked down this lineup in late 2023 and have been rolling together ever since."
Their sound in their own words:
"I would describe our sound as a band as one that incorporates and celebrates the last 30 years of hardcore music, specifically bands from the mid-'00s. As a general consensus, some of our main influences we all share are Down to Nothing, Terror, Downpresser, Have Heart, Comeback Kid, Donnybrook, Allegiance, Internal Affairs, More to Pride, Hatebreed, Trapped Under Ice, Cold World, etc.
"I also can’t get away without naming System of a Down as a big influence, for being an example of people who share the same heritage as some of us thriving and bringing visibility to our culture and the struggles of our people.
"It’s always difficult for me to lock down an FFO, I feel like our influences come out in different songs and make them unique in their own way so the best way I could describe it would be throwing that first decade of the '00s in a blender and hoping for the best. We are all very open as musicians when it comes to the creative process and all of us listen to a wide variety of styles of music, so nothing is off the table."
Latest release info:
"Our newest release consists of three songs we wrote last year that we feel as a package give a pretty good overall insight into our sound and the direction we’re heading in as a collective unit.
"Compared to our previous release, I feel that we are honing in more on our style and sound and the songwriting has been continuing to take steps forward. We’re definitely not a beatdown band, but I feel like there are enough heavy and danceable parts to make the songs enjoyable to vibe to."
Future plans:
"As it stands right now, we’re hoping to drop a full length at some point later in the year. All of the guitar parts and structures are more or less written, but we like to collaborate together as a unit to make sure everyone has the opportunity to add their own influence to the overall final product.
"Aside from that, we hope to play a lot more shows this year, hopefully in new areas where we haven’t played yet, and continue to foster and grow stronger relationships in the areas we already have been playing in. We just completed our first weekend run as a band and had an absolute blast getting to spend quality time with each other doing what we love. Hopefully we can get a couple more in before the end of 2025."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"There are so many I could list so I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible. For Orange County, I would say Con, Outlawed, Ink, Think of Demonz, Marrow, and Whirlwind are all incredibly sick bands.
"For the greater LA area, shout out to our family in Jack-Knife, ’92, Headspin, Monk, Gottlieb, Darasuum, and Therewolf.
"Last but not least, much love to all the dope bands and the entire scene in Coachella Valley who have shown us a ton of love and hospitality the two times we’ve had the pleasure of rolling through: Bronca, Destroy Nothing, Killfloor, Face Facts, honestly every band out there is dope as hell. They got something special out in the desert for sure."
Hatespeech on social media: Instagram
Tagged: hatespeech
