Paternity Test is a hardcore band based out of the Gateway City, aka St. Louis, Missouri. "[Drummer] Travis and I would frequently talk about Jerry’s Kids, Government Warning, Limp Wrist, Tear It Up, and Career Suicide," vocalist Nate wrote me about Paternity Test's formation. "I was personally feeling fatigued by what feels like a decade or more of mid-tempo and mosh-riff hardcore so I jumped at the chance to make this band a reality."
Playing shows since 2022, Paternity Test recently dropped a 4-track ripper called Subculture Ruined My Life... Nate said the following about the songs on the EP:
"Lyrically speaking, 'Blowhard' is inspired by a number of people I know who have hinted at suicide as a way to get attention. 'Ephemeral' is my critique of people who consider and obsess over their artistic legacy. It’s lame, don’t do it. 'Heatwave' is about a family members extremely messy divorce. The song was originally going to be called 'Divorce Court' but 'Heatwave' felt more slick."
When Nate initially reached out to me about Paternity Test, he referred to the band as "fastcore," a stylistic tag that isn't as common today as it was a couple of decades ago. "I use fastcore as a catch-all for bands who were doing the throwback '80s thing or intentionally playing fast in the late '90s-to-mid '00s. People will challenge me on my 'definition' but it’s just easy shorthand for saying the main focus of our band is playing fast.
"Having come up in the era of Grave Mistake/ No Way Records, this world felt unavoidable and now it feels lost to time in some ways. I find this style to be awesome for a number of reasons but here are three that stand out: Stylistically, it’s drawing from punk and I feel like that encourages a bit more experimentation.
"Fastcore was not a purely American phenomenon, there are plenty of awesome international bands to check out that have a much different take on the style from the American bands. Most of these bands have been out of vogue for a decade or two and existed in an era where records were cheaper to press so these records infest every dollar bin in the country."
In terms of pointing people in the direction of some Fastcore 101, Nate offered: "Keep a sharp eye on the dollar bin for records from labels like 625, Havoc, Grave Mistake, No Way, Deranged, Gloom, and Bloodsucker. [Laughs] You are sure to find something that doesn’t deserve to be a dollar.
"Here are 10 records that have heavily influenced our songwriting. If you like what we are doing but haven’t made it too far down the path of fast hardcore, these are great places to start:
- Government Warning, No Moderation
- Tear It Up, Nothing to Nothing
- Cut the Shit, Harmed and Dangerous
- Limp Wrist, Limp Wrist
- Career Suicide, Attempted Suicide
- Jerry’s Kids, Is this My World?
- Bones Brigade, I Hate Myself When I’m Not Skateboarding
- Poison Idea, Pick Your King
- Life’s Halt, We Sold Our Souls for Hardcore
- Carry On, A Life Less Plagued
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Paternity Test on social media: Instagram
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