Knocked Loose: Kick in the Teeth

I can count on one hand the number of times a song truly marked me—the catalyst for a before and after moment: I’m different now that I’ve listened to this. More times than not, it’s been “heavy music,” the catch-all term describing abrasive stuff starting at punk and careening down into the depths of noise, black metal, deathcore, and the like.

In high school, listening to Black Flag’s “Damaged I” — with frontman Henry Rollins dog panting as he says, “My name’s Henry… and you’re here with me now,” followed by a wave of distortion that smacks you in the face — was an early, transformative milestone. It felt like sticking a quarter in an electric outlet; a rigged arcade game where the prize is a full-body shock. Hearing “Guillotine” from Death Grips’ debut 2011 mixtape, Exmilitary, was a similar experience: a fucked up frisson that scared and excited me in equal measure. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I get this feeling once every five years.

Fortunately, it turns out this sensation — the music equivalent of tasting a dark, stomach-churning madeleine cookie — can still be achieved in the 2020s. Look no further than Knocked Loose’s third studio album, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To.

The album’s opening track “Thirst” starts with sparse atmospheric noises — a bell or chime ringing; maybe a match being struck. It conjures the sensation of walking through an abandoned cemetery at night, possibly being stalked by one of those sex demons from It Follows. Then an inhale… and all hell breaks loose. Singer Bryan Garris unleashes the type of blood-curdling scream that makes all prior uses of the phrase moot. The five-piece then pummels your eardrums with the most extreme-yet-controlled 90 seconds of music you’ve ever heard. It’s the type of tune that makes you want to barrel roll out of the side of a moving car, rip multiple phonebooks in half, or steal a cop’s gun straight out of the holster. I always describe it as “punishing stuff,” and I mean it as a compliment.

For more than 15 years, Knocked Loose has been making “extreme music.” It’s both hardcore and metalcore but neither descriptor is quite accurate. Their releases uncompromisingly combine elements of the headiest and heaviest microgenres with ease. It’s almost as if the band took the most brutal, intense qualities of everything from Slipknot, Converge, Hatebreed, and even Blood Incantation, and used a baling press to compress them into a sweat-slicked diamond of sound. Mix that with shot-in-the-heart lyrics about loss, grief, and even a concept EP about a late night car crash, and you’ve got a band that’s taken the best of its influences and elevated them into something more colossal than the sum of its parts. Members Bryan Garris (vocals), Isaac Hale (guitar), Nicko Calderon (guitar), Kevin Otten (bass), and Kevin “Pacsun” Kaine (drums) met in high school through the Kentucky hardcore scene and over many years and near-constant touring established themselves as one of the toughest, tightest, and technically-gifted heavy bands in America.

But an interesting thing happened around the time of 2024’s You Won’t Go. Despite being their most abrasive and aurally gobsmacking release to date, something clicked. The band started getting legions of fans from well outside the hardcore scene, becoming as close to a mainstream crossover success as a group this corrosive can get. They played a Coachella set so wild there’s still an active Reddit thread about it. They performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Their song “Suffocate” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. Few of their tracks have less than 4 million streams on Spotify, with a couple nearing 100 million. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“The fact that we’re appealing to a ‘normal person’ is kind of insane,” says Hale. “It doesn’t make sense, but we’re going to keep pushing it. My thought is that everything is insane now, which makes nothing insane.”

Even wilder is that the group hasn’t pulled a single punch as its audience has grown. “We’ve leaned into being extreme since the beginning, but our stuff has gotten more extreme, more abrasive, and scarier over the years,” adds Garris. “Heaviness has always been the underlying goal, and I think that’s something people are drawn to right now.”

Knocked Loose is the rare act that not only gets more sonically caustic as it gets more famous, but also keeps finding ways to convert the masses. They’ve toured with countless hardcore bands, opened for Slipknot, Slayer, and Metallica, yet they’ll also split a bill with punk-rap psychos $uicideboy$ or release a single with Denzel Curry. It all makes sense when you see the live show, featuring infinite stage dives and more windmill kicks than a Jean-Claude Van Damme banger. “If we’re playing a skate park in NYC to 400 kids, or we’re playing [Coachella], we’re the same band. The only thing that changes is the stage,” says Garris.

The group’s relationship to fashion reinforces its atypical DNA, too. Knocked Loose recently appeared in a Stone Island campaign alongside High Vis, Angel Du$t, and Haywire 617. And Hale, the sartorially adventurous guitarist, regularly rocks designer skirts onstage — a flourish that complements the Yohji Yamamoto, Junya Watanabe, and Comme des Garçons pieces that are staples of his public wardrobe. Taken as a whole, these nods to progressive style flow seamlessly, without a hint of the band turning on its hardcore/metal roots.

Knocked Loose has some major next steps brewing, and while it’s too soon for them to discuss publicly, the question propelling them forward has remained consistent throughout their entire career: “How do we make the most intense, heavy music we can, and what are the new ways to get there?” says Hale. Success hasn’t sanded down their edges, and there’s no sign it will. Which means the thing that kicked in my skull during that first listen is coming for many more people. Good. Everyone should get haunted like this at least once.

Zach Sokol: What drew you to heavy music in the first place—what were your entry points?

Bryan Garris: I grew up on hip-hop because my parents were into it—that was my first musical love. Then one summer my aunt introduced me to System of a Down, Slipknot, Korn, the big nu-metal stuff. Since my parents had their own taste, this felt like it was mine and I dove in headfirst. This was when they still played heavy music on TV, so I’d watch Headbangers Ball with a notebook, and if I liked a song I’d write it down, because you couldn’t just look it up on your phone. I was always searching. Around the time Isaac and I met, I’d found the DIY scene in Louisville. Isaac was finding it at the same time, so we went through that discovery together. It was a massive black hole—we’d hang out and just share whatever we’d dug up that week, going to blogspots and finding demos on Bandcamp of bands nobody in the world cared about, and thinking it was the coolest thing.

Isaac Hale: Bryan and I came up in a metalcore scene adjacent to hardcore but not part of it. We were some of the first kids to come from the metalcore scene and infiltrate the hardcore scene, and it took the Louisville hardcore scene a second to suss us out. “Are these kids real? Do they actually care?” Which is funny, because now those are the people we’re in bands with and go to shows with. They were never cold to us; it was inviting, but they were making sure we were in it for the right reasons.

Was there anyone who made you feel like this could be a career, not just a passion project?

Isaac Hale: Honestly, I don’t think that was on the radar. For me personally, since I was a little kid I’d always had the dream—you can ask my parents. I got a guitar in my hand very young, and they knew I was married to the music thing. My dad raised me on bands like Metallica; he was into the metal and hardcore scenes and got into it with me. But being the guy who plays in front of tons of people and is in a successful band—that was always a dream. I didn’t think Knocked Loose was going to be the band that did it, because Knocked Loose was a product of our love of hardcore, just a fun thing. “Making it” wasn’t on anybody’s radar. We were always the band that took it one step at a time: “It’d be cool to play a show. It’d be cool to play out of town. It’d be cool to put out a record.” It was never sitting everybody down and going, “Here’s the master plan to take over the world.”

Bryan Garris: I think one of the main reasons it’s worked is the goal has always just been the next step. Still to this day. The first time we toured, we bought a van from a church for 1,500 bucks. We toured for two weeks by ourselves, dead of winter, miserable weather. But it was the most fun thing ever. And I remember having a moment where I was like, “I’m doing whatever I can to do this forever, even at this level.” I got home and told my girlfriend, “I think I’m going to try this for real.”
And to this day, the live show is still my biggest measurement of success. I don’t care about numbers. If there’s 30 people at a show and five know who you are—that’s the most mind-blowing thing ever. Then a hundred people show up and 50 know Knocked Loose. Even crazier. There’s always been momentum and that’s kept us going. We were able to quit our day jobs in 2017.

The lineup’s been really consistent. Outside the actual instruments, what’s each member’s superpower?

Bryan Garris: The dynamic is in an interesting place. You meet bands on tour and the longer they’ve been a band, the more they hate each other. For us it’s the opposite—we’re getting closer, since COVID especially. We couldn’t tour, so we just started hanging out again, and that snowballed. When we’re home, we hang out. On tour, days off, we’re all getting dinner, going to movies. They’re like roommates I’ve had for 15 years—brothers, even. You learn what pushes each other’s buttons, and to keep it healthy you just don’t push them.

You had a quote that always stuck with me — Knocked Loose is “just heavy music for normal people.” Does that still resonate?

Bryan Garris: I think I meant we’re lucky to be part of this wave of heavy music being recognized on a much more mainstream scale. And it’s not just us, it’s a whole scene of bands. People want extreme music right now. They want to peel back the first layer of what’s behind the mainstream, and that’s where we are. We’ve leaned into being extreme since the beginning, but our stuff has gotten more extreme, more abrasive, and scarier over the years. Heaviness has always been the underlying goal, and I think that’s something people are drawn to right now.

Also, we have fans who’ve listened to us since the beginning and grown as we’ve grown. If we were releasing the same music we did ten years ago, they’d be bored. The music keeps getting more extreme, so it keeps them on while bringing new people in.

Isaac Hale: I don’t know if I’d phrase it the same way now, because it has this connotation of “Knocked Loose is a metal band for normies,” which isn’t true. But the point is, we connect to a lot of people and in many ways we’re the most extreme band a normal person would listen to. We’ve had a good deal of success with people who don’t listen to music this heavy, which puts us in a unique position—so instead of dumbing it down, we’re going to make the most extreme music possible. We’re playing Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Jimmy Kimmel, all this mainstream stuff—and we’re going to make sure we’re the most extreme thing that’s ever happened on those stages. That’s what we’re striving toward.

So the fact that we’re appealing to a “normal person” is kind of insane. It doesn’t make sense, but we’re going to keep pushing it. My thought is that everything is insane now, which makes nothing insane. There’s not much that can blow my mind anymore. The closest thing to absolute insanity was the Metallica offer. That’s the closest to starstruck we’ve been, and it’s amazing it happened.

Would you say yes if SNL offered?

Bryan Garris: I’d do that in a heartbeat.

Isaac Hale: There’s not much we wouldn’t do. We’d only turn something down if it interfered with us morally.

Bryan Garris: Our mindset since the beginning: if we’re playing a skate park in New York City to 400 kids, or we’re playing SNL, we’re the same band. The only thing that changes is the stage. So those have never even been challenging conversations. Our attitude has always been: if we can convert someone into liking what we do, it’s a win.

There’s something exciting about an audience you have to win over. There’s stakes when it’s, “Let’s see if we can get some new disciples.”

Isaac Hale: That’s maybe the most important thing we’ve done with the live show — putting ourselves in situations where we’re playing to a crowd that could be opposing us. That’s the entire memo behind our live show, and we thrive in that environment. Those are some of my favorite audiences because I love seeing a visceral reaction whether positive or negative. It’s a fighting-the-good-fight feeling.

Bryan Garris: Learning how to crack a crowd is one of the most rewarding things, because you can watch it happen in real time from the stage.

I want to get into the ties between hardcore and style. There’ve always been style ties in underground music, but you guys stand out — particularly you, Isaac, with the designer clothing and rarefied menswear interest. How’d you get into fashion, and how has your personal style evolved?

Isaac Hale: Everyone in the band has a certain style vibe they’ve been chasing. My journey with clothes happened adjacent to my music journey. I got into avant-garde, crazy brutal textures, and it wasn’t musicians inspiring me—it was a whole different mindset. For a long time fashion was just stuff I liked to look at. I owned books about it, I’d read up on it. It wasn’t until the past five years or so that I thought, “Maybe I could actually wear these things I’ve been looking at wide-eyed forever.” Because your average Rick Owens model is six-four and looks like a vampire on drugs, and I’m a normal-looking bald guy with a beard — you don’t assume you can pull it off. I had to grow the confidence to actually wear these pieces and feel comfortable in them. And I’m very appreciative of the rest of the band for giving me the space to do that.

Bryan Garris: My taste is much more subdued. Mine’s based on being an uncomfortable, self-conscious person, so I dress pulled back, but in pieces I think are higher-end — plain, but from good designers, or nice denim. Not flashy, but tasteful statement pieces.

Once the show became more of a production, we fell into having stage clothes. When we got the Coachella slot, we knew we wanted to look good. We never had a conversation like “you guys have to bring it,” but we all understood the assignment. That snowballed into us focusing more on what clothes we play in and letting that be a statement, which let Isaac go even deeper. I remember Isaac brought up wanting to play in a dress almost like he was gauging our reactions. It was never a second thought. We said, “OK, cool.” Plus, we joke that every band in the ‘90s had the one weirdo—“Wear a dress, be our Wes Borland, be a weirdo, we don’t care.”
Who made the skirts you wear, Isaac?

Isaac Hale: I’ve worn a few. I’ve worn a Yohji one; the most recent was a Junya one. I have a couple of CDG black ones. For me, there’s a midway point between the brutal leather textures with zippers everywhere—the crazy Rick stuff or the Isaac Sellam stuff—and the femininity of the more flowy textures. I love the dystopian cargo vibe, but I also love beautiful flowy clothes, and finding that balance is a journey I’m always on. It’s fun to explore it through stage clothes.

You were also featured in a hardcore-centric Stone Island campaign shot by Isaac Lamb. Why did that feel like an organic fit for you guys?

Isaac Hale: The entire story of Stone Island reaching out to us still kind of blows my mind because of how down to earth and genuine they are. There’s a whole group at Stone Island that really truly cares about subculture and being able to bond with them about fashion in the hardcore scene was so refreshing. It’s not “big industry” vibes with the people we worked with. These are real people with genuine passion for the culture. I literally found Stone Island through people wearing it in the hardcore scene, so the brand embracing that and shining light on what we do is a beautiful thing.

Do you have goals you haven’t accomplished yet—which is crazy to ask, because you’ve blown past every expectation: Coachella, a Grammy nomination, opening for Slipknot, Slayer, Metallica. Do you have any white-whale goals left?

Isaac Hale: When we got the Metallica tour, that’s the ultimate thing you can ask for in the space where we exist. There’s not a tour that feels more prestigious. I’ll go on record and call them the greatest metal band of all time, and maybe the biggest.

Bryan Garris: It’s what I said earlier: it’s just the next step. The next step is executing the next project the right way, and hoping our vision translates to the people who’ve supported us—and to new people, too. It’s the next step.