I’ve always believed stereotypes, whether positive or negative, are reductive and paint a picture of entire groups of people. Case in point: everywhere our band goes, before we play a single chord, we’re immediately clocked as being a metalcore band. Sure, if I saw five guys in Killswitch Engage hoodies, I’d also assume they were on the same bill as us that night. But what we don’t appreciate is this broad assumption that we’re from the most remote parts of the Midwest based solely on the kind of music we play, just because a sizable majority of metalcore bands are from areas dominated by cornfields.
That being said, I assure you all that it’s a complete coincidence that our upcoming tour only includes dates in Iowa and Nebraska.
I assure you, it’s a pure coincidence that we’re only playing venues within a 200-mile radius of Des Moines. The fact that we all were born and raised in a town where there were more cows than people has nothing to do with spending our formative high school years listening to and daydreaming about becoming the next Slipknot.
Here’s a thought: maybe we’re just some kids with anger issues and some Ibanez guitars from Boston who just got stranded here! No, no, you’re right. Everyone would see through that ruse the second any of us tried to say the word “bag”.
I just don’t want people to look at us and think “oh, all their guitars are tuned to drop D, so their tour van is filled with countless KwikTrip receipts between Cedar Rapids and Omaha.” True, but it’s not our fault; there are like 50 dive bar venues between the two. It’s a matter of logistics!
Metalcore can be from anywhere, man, and I refuse to let anyone pigeonhole the dozens of other metalcore bands from our town because we all hate our stepdads and need to yell into a microphone about it. I bet nobody would question what kind of music we played if we were from some coastal elitist town like Naples, Florida.
But if you’re make broad generalizations, be my fucking guest. But one of these days we’re gonna play a show in Cincinnati, and then we’ll finally be written off for the shitty quality of our music and not the fact that we’re too terrified to be more than a tank of gas away from home,
