Earlier this year, No Echo readers might have caught my feature on Australian hardcore band No Peace. If you didn't, the Adelaide-based outfit released their debut album, Something More, via Life.Lair.Regret.Records late last year. It's a tasty concotion of Count Me Out-inspired mosh that you need to investigate for yourself.
Last month, No Peace went out on a run of live dates throughout Southeast Asia, hitting cities Jakarta and Surabaya along the way. Vocalist Jesse Conte reached out to me about that, and his band's recently released track, "Iconoclast," a ripping addition to No Peace's discography.
Before we get into No Peace's recent run of shows in Southeast Asia, tell me a bit about the lyrics to “Iconoclast” and what inspired you to write it.
The lyrics to "Iconoclast" are firmly aimed at religions collectively. I was lucky enough to grow up with Agnostic parents, so I didn't have any one belief system or god brainwashed into me as a child. In my teen and early adult years, I quickly realized people did not like being questioned about their religious beliefs, no matter how ridiculous they were. Which is crazy to me.
Religions, like everything else in life, should be questioned rigorously and fact checked ruthlessly. These institutions have done some good in the world, sure. But they have done a whole lot of horrible things too. I don't need to even begin listing it all here.
I wrote the song out of frustration and rage towards people who blindly follow without questioning. And how religious institutions often propagate backwards and damaging conservative beliefs that uphold centuries long racist and sexist mentalities.
Anything that could be destroyed by the truth; should be. I truly think that if every human on this planet had access to freedom of unbiased education as a child religion would be considered an archaic belief system of the past. As a human race we would come to realize we are better off without any gods of our own making.
"No gods—know peace"
It seems like No Peace has a strong connection to the Indonesian hardcore scene. Outside of proximity in terms of flight travel, what is it about both scenes that you feel mesh so well?
I absolutely love the Indonesian hardcore scene (and all of Southeast Asia's hardcore scene). Like all honest and good things, our connection with the scene there grew with time. We share passion towards the same styles of hardcore, DIY ethics at our core, have community driven purposes for everything we do, support each other and the bands.
I think the rest of the world could take a closer look at the scenes in Southeast Asia as a whole and learn a lot.
If you are reading this and want to look into SEA HC then check out Set the Fire Records from Jakarta and Blacklisted Productions from Singapore. Shoutout to all my hardcore family in Indonesia, Eddy, Widi, Kevin, to name a few.
It’s almost a year since No Peace dropped the Something More album. What have been some of the highlights since that time for the band?
Our record release show for Something More was a wild highlight, Hurricane Fest has been an annual event for the last 3 years in a huge skate park. We had a bunch of friends bands come over for the show and it was pretty crazy!
The SEA tour we just did went off, we visited Malaysia, Singapore and a whole load of shows through Indonesia. Every one was crazy in its own way. Hardcore and music transcends language and cultural differences, No Peace felt so humbled by the responses we had on this tour.
We also shared the stage with Fiddlehead, which was a personal highlight for me. Those guys are so down to earth and nice.
Playing in Adelaide with SPEED, Scowl and Sunami was a fun time too, huge stage, big crowd. Mental show!
What’s the plan for the band now that you have this new track out?
"Iconoclast is part of a 3-way split release we are honored to be part of with our brothers in True Fight (Japan) and Final Attack (Indonesia). Their songs for this release are coming out soon, along with a cover track from each band. I can't wait to hear the response from the community towards True Fight and Final Attack new material, these bands deserve so much recognition and success.
No Peace is writing some new tracks to be released early 2024, it's a lot of fun getting back into the vibe of writing and studio time. And I'm more pissed off than ever, so expect some rage in the vocals.
We would love to tour more of Australia, but ultimately No Peace wants to see the world. So any and all scenes that are willing to have us, we will come and play if it works.
Half of No Peace also plays in a straight edge band called Stressed. They are releasing a demo end of the year. Psyched for that!
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