Good evening everyone,
We have a question: Is punk rock dead?
There’s no scientific answer, yet it’s still intriguing enough to be covered by a ton of media. Take a look at some Google search results for “punk rock dead”.
What’s clear is that the question is being asked enough to make punk rock significant. And what makes the genre significant, you may ask? Bands like Harriers of Discord.
When we first listened to …And They Did Live, I couldn’t believe that we never heard it before. Our disbelief stemmed from this: it was really, really good.
Aimee Oliver, Marcus Trujillo, and Duane Hall first got together in 2018 to be today’s Harriers of Discord. The band in itself has been making content, originally from Aimee, since 2014.
The story of the band is, to put it best, spontaneously adventurous. First Aimee wanted to get back to playing music after a four year hiatus — so she bought an in-home studio that she hadn’t used for months. Then one day she decided to start making tracks. And at some point while doing that, she’d have Duane and Marcus join her for the ride.
Like every great artist, the tremendous trio that is Harriers of Discord creates music because it makes them feel good. There isn’t a more important objective for them. And they’re not the only ones who feel good while playing: they’ve performed live around the country and have developed some fame over the Internet.
Before we get into our interview with them, here are some new punk rock releases that dropped today.
Riff Releases
UK punk band Scratch21 launches self-titled EP.
Chicago-based rapper Noname releases Room 25.
Chicago-based jazz musician Angel Bat David drops Transition East.
Without further ado, give it up for Harriers of Discord!
The Riff: When did the band first form?
Aimee: It started just as a solo project for me for the first year or so. I would just record all of the music myself and then started doing acoustic shows and then afterwards people started joining. Duane was one of the first.
The Riff: When did Duane first join? And how long has the current band been together for?
Duane: Aimee’s solo stuff started to gain momentum and people wanted her to play shows so I joined in to help make that happen.
I joined in 2015 and the lineup of Aimee, Marcus, and I had started in 2018 I believe.
Aimee: I think he joined 2015, and with the current lineup we’ve been as is since 2018.
But Marcus was playing bass instead of drums for us before that earlier in the year.
Duane: I started out playing guitar in the band then moved to bass when Marcus moved to drums.
The Riff: Who does vocals?
Aimee: It’s musical chairs.
I’m the vocalist. Most people that haven’t met us think I’m a guy at first. On account of my husky, burly voice.
Duane: Some people are surprised when they see our vocalist is actually a woman.
The Riff: Aimee, can you tell me about your journey from being a soloist to playing musical chairs with Harriers of Discord? Why did you end up starting the band at the time?
Aimee: I have been recording solo stuff since I was in high school, most of it with Marcus’s wife and my best friend, Hillary, on this little Zoom 8 track recorder. It was pretty amazing, but I stopped playing or making music for a long time when I left high school and maybe after about four years, I ended up with a chunk of money and decided I wanted to get back into recording again.
So I went out and bought a beginner’s home studio and then let that sit there untouched for a few months. Then one day I had a song in my head — Boring People, from the first album — and just started recording. And then I made another and then another and then just kept going until I had an album’s worth of material and dropped it out into the world.
After that, our old bassist Mike was working sound at our local bar and caught me while I was drunk and was like, “wanna play acoustic next week?” and I agreed.
Then it just kind of unraveled. Mike wanted to be in the band. Our friend who was a drummer wanted to jam. Duane was in. And then we switched drummers and we were fully fledged. It all happened pretty quick. I was only solo acting for about six months before everybody jumped on it. It’s been pretty fun though.
Ultimately I never wanted to have a solo project. I’m so grateful for everybody who’s been in it with us, and now that it’s Duane, Marcus, and me it’s fun because the band gets to change again but so does our sound.
The Riff: It’s incredible that the band got together literally off a whim. Everything came spontaneously, from buying your home studio to using it to forming a band while drunk.
So what happened next? Did you all start recording, make tracks, then play at local venues? And how long did it take you to do your first performance as a band?
Duane: Aimee already had like three albums recorded all by herself, so we had tons of material to work off of. We already had a record deal, too.
Our first show was in a backyard at our friend’s house, and since we were really involved with our local music scene we started getting more shows thrown at us. Right from the start we started doing like two shows a week. It was really cool.
Aimee: I definitely count myself lucky. We’ve had no shortage of amazing musicians.
We did our first show maybe a month after we all started playing with the first lineup in our friend’s garage. Everybody but our drummer had stage fright so, of course, we got really drunk and messed up a lot but it was super fun.
We really became a band after our first drummer, when we were just doing acoustic shows together a lot at small bars. One day, we were playing at this random place with a bunch of friends in Rancho Cucamonga, and Mike had called his old friend’s brother, Kriist, over to watch. He saw us play and was like, “hey, I’m gonna be your new drummer” and then we just played shows all the time. Sometimes we’d play once a week, mostly twice, and then on rare occasions we’d play three or four in a weekend. And since it was Southern California, they were all very far from each other so we spent a lot of money on gas with pretty much no pay.
The songs we were playing, I already recorded. We’d just choose them off the albums and be like, “this one!” So the next thing we did was record our ‘new’ versions of that. And instead of making a big deal about it, like you should, I would just drop the album and be like, “oh yeah! Here ya go!”
Kriist may have joined us in 2016. But Duane, Mike, and I were playing in 2015. Then Marcus joined in 2018.
Kriist actually only played with us for one week before our first show with him, and he just nailed it.
Duane: About the stage fright, I started out wearing a bandana on my face because it helped.
Aimee: Been social distancing before anyone.
The Riff: The stage fright must’ve been torturous in the early days. But clearly you got the job done. Do you still experience stage fright?
Duane: No I don’t get it at all. It only lasted a couple months.
I remember the last time I needed the mask we had opened up for Blake Schwarzenbach from Jawbreaker. The first sold out show we ever played. Few hundred people. I was nervous as fuck, drinking a lot to calm the nerves and it went bad. Our old drummer (turned out to be what would’ve been their last show) canceled on us the day of. But we figured the show must go on so we played it without her. We started having feedback issues, equipment problems, the works. It was just awful. I was sweating bullets the whole time. I just wanted to end it.
After what I figured would be the worst show I’ll ever play, I never got stage fright again. It really levels you out when you finish a song and not a single person in a completely packed venue claps. Complete silence.
“The songs we were playing, I already recorded. We’d just choose them off the albums and be like, ‘this one!’ So the next thing we did was record our ‘new’ versions of that. And instead of making a big deal about it, like you should, I would just drop the album and be like, ‘oh yeah! Here ya go!’” — Aimee Oliver
The Riff: When did you sign with your record label? And how did they help the band overall?
Aimee: The weird thing is I signed with the label in Asheville. It was two weeks after I released the first album. Duane and I went up to visit our friends in Asheville, and I was literally about to just drop two grand on some vinyl, because it’s fucking expensive. But I like vinyl, so whatever.
And then while we were there, I was telling our friend about it and she was like, “oh yeah, this dude wants to press your album to vinyl.” She handed me this crumpled up piece of paper in her pocket. It was completely by chance that we were even in Asheville at the time and I met him at her work, the Buchi Bar downtown and he was like, “yeah we press vinyl on demand. We’re just starting up and we wanna listen to your album and see if it’ll be a good fit”. He originally heard it because she had played a track at the bar. That day he messaged me and was like, yes! And they’ve been really awesome people. I think it was released via vinyl in February 2016.
It’s really amazing though because, since they’re a subscription service for vinyl, they literally connected us to thousands of people and vinyl lovers.
On top of that, I think in 2017, Feedbands hosted a SXSW festival for all of their artists. Duane, Marcus, Kriist, and I got to go out there, book a little tour, and play for them. They were incredibly accommodating and it was really cool to get to meet them in person and have them still continue to support their artists.
The Riff: It sounds like you have a lot of national experience, from LA to Asheville to Austin. Where would you say your fan bases are most concentrated in? And, other than vinyl listeners, how else do your fans get to interact with you? Anything you did back then versus now for that?
Aimee: The three of us have traveled a lot and have a lot of friends who travel a lot, so we’ve been fortunate with connections. Our biggest followings are definitely where we’re more connected. From Pomona to Riverside in California, Las Vegas and Asheville.
The Riff: I’d like for all of you to answer this individually: what was your favorite gig you ever performed in? Why was it your favorite?
Marcus: For me, it was probably when we were on tour in 2018 and we played in El Paso at a small practice space called Snuff Film District that was basically a garage with a sound set up. It was packed and the energy was great and we played with some great bands. I met a lot of really cool people that I’m still friends with today.
Aimee: We’ve had so many really fun shows.
I think one of our most memorable ones, before we left California, was at the DBA because we filled the entire place and everybody was so lively and singing along. It was a great time.
But honestly one of the funniest, most memorable ones was in San Antonio when everybody got so trashed. We were just watching people vomiting all outside the venue. We were walking back to our car and a cop came up to us and was like, “hey! be careful! There’s puke everywhere.” And there were like four puke puddles surrounding the car.
I cheated and picked two. But I have more. This was a hard question.
Duane: We’ve had so many amazing shows. Backyard shows are some of the funnest. Just big parties with all of our friends. Aimee and I have the same birthday so every year we throw a birthday show. Those are always my favorite because everyone comes out. All the ones we’ve had from Pomona to Riverside to Vegas to Asheville have been just the best! I look forward all year to our birthday shows. They all rank up to number one together I think
Also back in 2017 we played Punk Rock Bowling. It’s the biggest punk festival in the U.S. That whole experience was one of the most memorable for me.
The Riff: How many times has the band gone on a country-wide tour?
Aimee: Only once. It was more of a Southwest tour though.
It was pretty hard for us in California and Marcus was still in Vegas.
California was very expensive. A black hole. And even though we traveled a lot, our drummer was having a hard time getting off work and was also in a lot of debt, so we weren’t really able to secure a lot of shows away from a few days off. But when Feedbands did their Dashfest in Texas, we were all in. Marcus and I teamed up with our friends Daikaiju since we were all going to the same place.
The Riff: Are you working on any new music at the moment?
Aimee: We’re actually recording a song at this very moment.
Not sure if we’re making this one a single or another [album], it’s just the last piece to the puzzle and we can hopefully release something very soon!
The Riff: That’s awesome. Something we haven’t discussed yet, what would you say has influenced your music?
Marcus: Lord of the Rings, old Western movies, and Rush.
Aimee: Those three right there, baby.
And sometimes terrible power metal depending on the mood.
The Riff: How do you go about making music together?
Aimee: It’s always different. Sometimes I write songs that are ready to go and we flesh them out. Sometimes one of us will just be jamming to something and then we’ll all start jamming and be like, yes! Let’s do that.
The Riff: Any Rush songs or old Westerns you can recall that specifically influenced your music?
Aimee: So many. The first three albums for me were all completely Western influenced. It got a little more prog-y when the real drummers came on board.
Like I said, both are just so fucking talented and amazing and any time Marcus and I are writing he can tell in my guitar when I want him to just go crazy and we’ll be like, “you know, like Rush? Perfect.”
I think our last album and this newest one started straying a little from the Western surf part, but there are still hints in the new music. Mostly though, we try and make every song different and are influenced day-to-day. We stray away from just having one sound.
The Riff: What does the future look like for the band? After the virus, will you be touring or performing live again and where?
Aimee: Hopefully we’ll get to tour again. We had to cancel our tour in March, which was sad because it was our first East Coast outing. But you know, shit happens. I think all we really want to do is have a good time and play music everywhere forever. Not to speak for everybody.
The Riff: Well we can’t wait to see you live again.
What bands have you met that you listen to that you think we should listen to?
Aimee: Here locally, Fantomex comes to mind because they just released their album and it’s absolutely fantastic! They’re really incredible musicians. And Nest Egg was dope.
In Vegas there are some awesome bands. I was really taken away by No Tides.
Also the Callers, here in Asheville are one of my favorites.
Punk music in Pomona, Ciphers of Transcendence are super fun.
Marcus: Nest Egg, Takanakuy from El Paso, and The Rifleman from Las Vegas.