Band: Bloodguilt
From: California
Their formation story:
(Ray Harkins, vocals): "As with most bands, it started with some songs. Our drummer, guitarists and bassist have all played with each other and came up in the SoCal hardcore scene with bands like Focused, Stavesacre, Crucified, Project 86, and Innermeans. For the past 10 years or so, they hadn’t been playing in any real active bands but started to pass ideas back and forth amongst each other, never finding a home with a vocalist so the songs sat around.
"A mutual friend of the band, Chad Pearson (a co-founder of The Milita Group) was speaking to our drummer about these songs and he suggested to reach out to me. Alex, our drummer, and I hopped on a call and while I had been in bands for most of my life (Taken, Mikoto and helped run Sound and Fury for 3 years) I had never played in a straight forward hardcore band, so the idea intrigued me. Alex sent me the songs and I immediately loved it and agreed to try my hand at singing over the five songs they had. Fortunately, I didn’t suck and they let me in."
Their sound in their own words:
"We aren’t reinventing anything but just putting our own spin on the '90s hardcore that we grew up listening to and still love to this day. Reference points are Unbroken, Strife, Undertow, and a little bit of Judge thrown in."
Latest release info:
"We self-recorded our debut EP with our guitarist Steve at the helm. We sent the tracks around to our members that don’t live in Southern California to track their parts and finally, topped off with our good friend Beau Burchell (mixer of Morning Again, The Bronx) mixing the EP.
"Fortunately, we twisted Mike Hartsfield’s arm (owner of New Age Records) over lunch and he agreed to put it out and we couldn’t be more thrilled. No joke, if you told 15-year-old me that this would be happening not only would I not believe you but I’d call you a liar."
Future plans:
"Truthfully, one offer or plan at a time since we all live in different places but we did just play our first shows in Southern California with The Barbarians of California, Mad Peaceful, Lockslip, and Darasum which was incredible. Our EP comes out on April 4th and are looking to play more shows around the US."
What other bands from their region should we check out?
"Southern California is always showing up with a strong slate of diverse bands of all sounds, styles and philosophies. Will the list could go on and on I will shout out bands we are label mates with like Darasuum and Spark of Life as well as bands like Major Pain, Duhkha, and Greed Culture.
"Truly, there is something for everyone in this scene and the more you dig and participate, the more it can reveal itself."
The Bloodguilt EP will be released on 12" vinyl via New Age Records on April 4th (pre-order).
Bloodguilt on social media: Instagram
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