Shot in the Dark at the Vault in Pomona; From left, Isreal, RJ (drums) Eric, Andy I'm behind Eric somewhere

            “I’ll be there by 1:00,” I can clearly hear myself saying as the clock rolls around 12:57.  It was Friday and I had just left school.  I hopped into my 1990 Jeep Wagoneer-- the one with the wood panels on the side--and quickly squealed onto the street.
           I was headed to Northview High School for a music show.  I guess it was pretty crucial that I was running late because the show was ours.  My phone was blowin’ up with calls from the band, telling me we went on in 5 minutes.  They couldn’t just go on without me. I was the bassist.  We were Shot in the Dark.  I speak in past tense, although I’m not sure it’s over, but that’s another topic.  This was one of our biggest shows and I was barely putting the key in the ignition.
            I don’t know what I was thinking saying I could be anywhere in 15 minutes on a Friday afternoon in Southern California.  When I finally got there, I sped across the campus to the gym.  I ran into the room in front of a huge crowd of high school kids.  I flipped on my bass and got ready for the first song.
When I look back at that moment, I compare it to the night of our first concert.  We had changed a lot since then.  Some will say for the better, some will say for the worse.  We had gone from one style to another completely different.  We adopted a whole new culture and following, even though it’s questionable how many fans we actually had.  Fans or not, we had gone through a change.  We had become HARDCORE.
            It’s a little hard to describe hardcore music.  To anyone that’s heard of emotional or emo music, hardcore just seems like emo with yelling and more energy.  That’s what I thought it was at first.  I was convinced hardcore was just a trend that came with the emo fad.  To me, hardcore was just emo on steroids, a little stronger with a lot more aggression.  Emo is characterized by singers with high voices singing about how much their lives suck over a simple guitar riff.  Just think of soft rock and make it so soft it makes you want to cry.  A lot of people hate emo and anything to do with it.  Hardcore is pretty different from emo in the sense that it has a certain toughness associated with it and the song subject varies a lot.  For example, a hardcore band named Atreyu recently put out a new album where most of the songs are about the lead singer’s bout with alcoholism, while one of their previous albums were about vampires and Ann Rice novels.  From Atreyu’s The Curse, “The Crimson” reads:

The darkness has been biding its time
To claim its latest victim
Fresh meat for carnal desires
To become what I became
I viewed the sun for the last time

           While one of their latest singles, “Ex’s and Oh’s” begins with:

You took me home, I drank too much
Because of you, my liver turned to dust

           Another band, Avenged Sevenfold, has a few songs about biblical stories and uses a lot of biblical imagery in their music.  Hardcore music has a lot of intensity, harmonics (squeals and chimes), distortion (speaker-on-fire crunch), and the occasional SICK guitar solo.  The guitar work makes you think, “Hey that sounded pretty cool,” or “I need to learn to play guitar,” because the solo adds a lot of blazing energy to the song.  Hardcore music is the kind of music that you can’t help but get into it, and it’s easy to get into.  One of my cousins accompanied me to a hardcore show once and he had a great time.  He’s really into hip hop and writes hip hop music, but at this show he was going nuts.  He was screaming with the band and jumping around with all of us, it was great.
           In the beginning, we didn’t even have a name before we were trying to get shows.  I still can’t believe I actually joined the band.  They got me to play bass, which I had never done before.  It was a little awkward at first, but it all started to work out.  After a month or so, we started to get our own sound and some of our own songs.  Most of the songs were by written by the guitarist, Israel, and the singer, Jeff.  We had a sound largely influenced by Incubus, a pretty good rock band, and classic rock.  Our sound was really mellow with the occasional rock groove, like Smashing Pumpkins or Stone Temple Pilots; hardly hardcore.  We actually covered a few Incubus songs.  At that point, we felt that we needed to play a show.  We ended up booking a show at the Whisky a GoGo in Hollywood, CA.  We still didn’t have a name but they booked us as an unnamed act.  I guess the Whisky’s supposed to be this big deal, but when we played there it was lame.  First we had to sign a contract saying they could take our equipment if we didn’t sell enough tickets.  Then the drummer, RJ, finally named us after something he saw in a movie.  Next, we paid a bunch of money for a DVD of the set, but that was a big waste of money.  The Whisky has this thing where they record your show for you because they don’t allow cameras in the place.  You check the sound levels and camera angles and have them digitally put you name on the screen when the DVD starts.  Sounds great, right??  Turns out, when they actually start recording, they must give the camera controls to a drunken idiot, because that’s the quality of the DVD we received.  When a guitar solo was on, the camera would flash to the lead singer, or when music was playing, the camera would zoom in on water cups left on stage--no lie.  The best part about the Whisky was hanging out backstage and seeing our name, Eccentric Circus, on the marquee.  At our first show, there was a huge crowd of family and friends, and it seemed like the greatest thing ever.
           There was something about those first shows that I never noticed until now.  The crowd.  Our first show spoiled us; it was a packed house.  Our family and friends all came out for our first show ever, but every show after was mostly close friends and a few others.  We all appreciated it, but there wasn’t really a crowd for our type of music.  Kids didn’t come in flocks to see a band like Incubus.  We were easy to listen to but the kids that weren’t there for us weren’t there for our style of music either.  They were always there to see the headlining band or their friend who was performing that night, or they just wandered in from the streets.  Whatever it was, there didn’t seem to be much of a crowd for our style, even though it was easy-to-swallow rock.  And it didn’t help that our stage performance was a little lacking, at least that’s what all my friends told me.  “The music is great; the band rocks hard, umm but the singer, ummm teach him to dance or catch a beat or something,” our friends said.  Whether he was moving or not, new people didn’t seem attracted to us.
           Anyway, after a few shows, we were told by a lot of our friends that we needed to change a lot of stuff, including our singer and certain set songs.  We cut a few songs and added a few songs and there was a distinct difference between our new material and our old.  It was a lot heavier, which basically meant we could bang our heads a lot harder to it.  It had more distortion, more minor keys, squeals, and double-bass drums (the double-time beat that pulses every hardcore kid’s heart).  It may sound strange that we changed our sound, but it makes complete sense considering the music we started listening to.  Right around this time, Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) released their album City of Evil and both RJ, our drummer, and Israel loved it.  They slowly started playing more like them, incorporating breakdown rhythms and intense phrases.  In fact, Avenged Sevenfold was the only reason RJ started using his double-bass pedal.  The band started to get heavier, but Jeff stayed the same, so we started to separate.  This was shown at one of our shows when we even covered the A7X single, “Bat Country.”  But this time, Jeff wasn’t singing.  We recruited RJ’s brother, Eric, to do the intense vocals for that song.  Little did we know, that was a look into the future of our band.  The more songs we played, the heavier we became.  Soon we were a little too heavy for Jeff to keep up, so he left the band.
            So at this point our band was without a singer and musical direction.  I was convinced I didn’t want to be “just another hardcore band.”  I was hoping we’d keep a similar style of the harder type of rock, but find a better singer.  We were without vocals for a short time, but during that time we had to decide what we were going to do with the band.  We had been a mellow rock band, but we were getting progressively more hardcore. 
            We found a singer pretty quickly and we already loved the guy, because it was RJ’s brother Eric.  We had already done a song with him onstage, so were comfortable with him too.  With Eric came musical direction and a great stage show.  Eric was already deep into hardcore music as well as other styles, so he introduced us to a lot of hardcore music.  I had never really listened to hardcore music that much, but the rest of the band was really getting into the scene.  Our sound was becoming more and more like other hardcore bands, but we were finally becoming a better band.  Our first shows were great and they only got better.  When hardcore music became most of our set, everything about being a band changed.  When we were known as a hardcore band, kids started coming to our shows not to see us, but to hear hardcore music and see the hardcore show.  It was as if we had an automatic following from these hardcore kids.
            When hardcore kids go to shows, they go with certain expectations for the night.  The music has to be loud, fast, and with breakdowns.  Breakdowns are a part of a song where the beat goes to about half time and the guitar plays a repeated syncopated triplet rhythm.  If the breakdowns aren‘t played, the kids can’t dance, and hardcore kids love to dance.  Hardcore dancing is a lot different from other types of dancing.  It’s not moshing, if you’ve heard the term, and it’s not like dancing at club.  It’s all about this shuffle rhythm done with the feet while the arms are flung around aggressively.  It’s one of those things that when you see it done, you say to yourself, “How and why are they doing that?”  Hardcore dancing is probably best described as a one-person fight.  Dancing is a huge thing in hardcore music and it’s one of the major differences we noticed after our style change.  It was amazing to actually see people reacting to our music, other than just bobbing their heads.  It was this huge connection within the performance; it was great.  The hardcore style is another mark of the culture associated with the music.  They usually wear black or a band shirt of someone you’ve never heard of and have a strange haircut (No hair on the sides, reverse mullet, sometimes nothing but sideburns, one really long bang, or a Beatles haircut cut by a blind man) and sometimes a “hardcore hat“ covering the whole thing up.  Hardcore hats are like old-style train conductor hats; shortened bill and cap.  Basically, once you’ve seen a hardcore kid, you’ve seen them all.
            Hardcore kids seem to have an accepted notion of what’s hardcore, and what’s not.  The hardcore community defines what’s hardcore and the kids are the living definition of it.  There are no real written rules of hardcore, but once you’ve experienced the scene, you subconsciously pick up what they are.  They “live hardcore” by going to the shows, dancing, dressing accordingly, and having this attitude in everything they do.
            Once we hit the hardcore scene, this was all completely normal and it was great to see that when we changed, our environment changed as well.  The way people responded to us at shows was completely different; it went from, “Hey guys, good show” to “Hey man, you ROCK at the drums, I love the singing, dude that breakdown was SICK”.  I think we started to change personally, too.  We were a lot more rowdy with Eric than we ever were with Jeff and I think the music contributed to our energy.
            Our music got harder and our fans got harder.  The band was still into hardcore a lot more than I was, so I could see the difference from what we were before.  It was weird being in a hardcore band but not really listening to much hardcore, but I think it gave the music a different flavor.  After we recorded a demo and changed our name to Shot in the Dark, I began to ask myself where we could go if we stuck to hardcore music.
            Before we identified ourselves with the hardcore genre, I was certain hardcore was just a trend.  I didn’t want to be part of a trend that was going to die sooner or later.  I saw no future or benefits to hardcore music.  I guess I couldn’t say anything because I had never been in a hardcore band, but at the same time I didn’t really want to be in one because a lot of people look at you funny when you say you play hardcore music.  A lot of kids think it is weak and a waste of time.  Our music may have been difficult to share with my parents or teachers, but it was so much fun to play.  It wasn’t like the music they grew up with by far, even if they loved the thrash metal of the 80’s, hardcore is usually still too intense for them.  After a while of telling people we were hardcore, I loved it.  I loved telling them and seeing the look they gave and I also loved being in the band, it was so much fun.
            Every time we had a show it was amazing.  The hardcore kids are great; they give shows energy.  As far as I’m concerned, hardcore is a great scene for kids.  It’s a great scene, but is it a trend?  It’s still hard to tell how long hardcore music will actually last, given its place as a musical counterculture in music.  Hardcore music is something kids can attach themselves to.  It’s that thing parents can’t get hold of and it’s where you let loose and have fun.  Since it has reached this point, I don’t think it can be considered a short-term fad anymore.  As long as the bands are around, the kids are going to attach to the culture.  The music will always be there, but what keeps it alive is the kids looking for something to call their own.  It’s almost ridiculous for me even to say this.  In one moment, I swear it’s a fad and now it’s as if I “believe” in it.  Well, I guess it’s not a fad.  I still believe the bands have no great future in hardcore and the music will outlast the musicians.  Hardcore music isn’t a fad and will last a while, but the bands will fade away until it won’t even matter what their name is.  It won’t evolve, it’s stuck at this point, because if there’s anything different about it in the future, it’s not hardcore anymore.  It’s like the concept of cool.  Once we can all realize what’s cool, what is cool changes and the cycle continues.  With hardcore we realize what’s hardcore and it stays that way, or else it’s not hardcore.
            As for our band, we were having a lot of fun, making songs, meeting new people, playing shows.  We were in our prime when our guitarist left.  We got a new guitarist, but we never had it the same after that.  Then I left.  Then everyone else left, except the new guitarist.  I guess it’s safe to say we probably don’t have much of a future in hardcore music, but what band really does?  Even mainstream bands that identify with hardcore have drastically altered their style from their beginnings. When I think about our band and our shows, I always think of a good time, no matter how bad we played that night.  I loved our role in hardcore and hope hardcore is something that may come to last.