Kick off your Monday with some snotty, punk-tinged, classic hardcore from Punitive Damage in the form of their new single, “Bottom Feeder.”
The track is out on the band’s forthcoming record, This Is The Blackout, releasing October 14 via Atomic Action! Records. It’s reminiscent of ’80s and ’90s classic hardcore but with a new, invigorated energy.
“‘Bottom Feeder,’ which we originally called ‘Puni Rocker,’ is what happens when you give five rock ‘n’ roll nerds bottomless coffee, topo chicos, and free rein in the studio to annoy (producer) Taylor (Young) with endless ‘OK but what if we did this…,’” says vocalist Jerkova. “This was the song (on which) we decided to lean into our collective insanity and make something that’s preposterous and fun. At one point in the studio, we had joked about wanting (a) Jerry Lee Lewis style piano riffs, and Taylor was like ‘are you being serious?’
“We thought we went too far with our bullshit and tried to play it off as a silly joke, but it turns out his mom, Teresa Young, is a piano teacher. We ended up ending a series of voice memos back and forth with her in the studio with different piano ideas to put into the song. She absolutely blew our expectations and knocked it out of the park. To me, this song is the result of a group of people having the absolute best time.”
“It’s a classic ‘Just hear me out…’ riff that requires me to convince people,” says guitarist Czecho, “The initial idea was written in my living room during lockdown. We were gonna record it, just to see how it turned out, but didn’t think it would make the record. It’s actually one of my favorites on the record. We’ve got moshers and rippers, I wanted to have a ROCKER. Something for freaks to bob their heads too. There are NO upstrokes in this song. If you see us play this with upstrokes live, we owe you a beer.”
Preorder the album here.
