Pressing On Continue the Spirit of Mid 90s Hardcore

Pressing On's musical partnership dates back to the mid-90s when guitarists John Wilkerson and Grant Kasten, bassist Jonathan Hughes, drummer Erik Trexel and vocalist Will Harris played in various influential hardcore bands including Copout, Warcry, From Ashes Rise and Talk Is Poison. Crossing paths as members travelled, toured and relocated across the country from the south, to the Bay Area and Portland, the five-piece have built a strong musical and personal foundation.

Named after a Gauze track, Pressing On takes on a mid-90s hardcore approach and mindset and whips it with up some d-beat inspired ferociousness.

Though the band is older with more adult responsibilities and families, they've lost none of the bite and following a well received demo, that was pressed to vinyl, they return with four new tracks of pissed and belligerent hardcore. Released on Deranged Records, the songs remain anthemic and defiant.

 Listen to the track "Shit On Your Future" and read a chat we had with Will to learn more.

Noisey: "Shit on Your Future" has a very blunt message. Does responsibility lie with the current generation for getting us into the current political mess?

Will Harris: It refers to not only the failure of the current generation, but the Baby Boomers who witnessed the rise of the environmentalist movement of the 60s and 70s, then the oil crisis of 1979.

At the time, many responded with genuine concern, developing the first serious attempts at alternative energy which suffered a serious setback as Reagan came into office. Now we face a new level of crisis with the advent of global warming, demanding even more urgent action, but once again, people would rather focus on trivialities. We now have a 'leader' who doesn't acknowledge the existence of this very real threat, at a time when a course of action is demanded.

It's difficult, even bewildering, to know what to do here in the U.S. It takes quite a bit of money to install solar panels, upgrade insulation, buy an electric car, etc., whatever steps one feels may help, but if there was greater societal awareness and concern, perhaps it wouldn't be so daunting and difficult. The real tragedy is that we have the technology and resources to radically and positively change the path that the world is on, but with the ongoing trend towards isolationist nationalism, increased military spending, and xenophobic, violent attitudes worldwide, it doesn't look good.

Most of you now have children. Singing songs about a fucked future must feel especially weird/frightening.

Writing songs about an uncertain future takes on a new seriousness and urgency with children in the picture. We were all in bands with our fair share of apocalyptic themes, but to be honest, looking back, I didn't fully understand the gravity of the topics I was trying to write songs about. Now as an adult with a family, there's a new dimension to 'fucked future' scenarios, I have a 10-year-old son, is there now a possibility of him being drafted into the military 6 or 8 years from now, to serve in some insane 'clash of the civilizations' conflict? Will my daughter face water or food rationing as an adult? These don't seem so far fetched anymore.

The demo got a lot of attention and was pressed onto vinyl. How different is the new material from the demo?

While I wrote most of the earlier material, and the new record has songs by two other members of the band, they're still within the same stylistic parameters. We didn't have a set idea of what the band was supposed to sound like, only that the rhythm section would loosely be based on a "D-beat" format, not in a purist sense, but utilizing elements of that particular beat to write guitar riffs that take advantage of the unique flow allowed by that sound, as opposed to the choppier, more rigid sound of older USHC.

Obviously, to any fan of hardcore, we are not a true "D-beat" band, but that is an underlying influence. As people who have been listening to punk for 25- 30 years, we are influenced by a broad range of American, European, and Japanese hardcore from the 80s to now.

Do you still go to many hardcore shows? Do you enjoy being part of the hardcore scene as much as you did in the mid/late 90s?

I rarely attend shows other than the ones we play, but that's mainly because I live in a relatively isolated area. We still listen to punk and hardcore, old and new. Though the scene as a social outlet is not a part of my life as much, the music is still very valid and vibrant to me. I took a long break through most of the 2000s, primarily because of moving to the country, learning gardening, farming, animal husbandry skills, and such, but punk and hardcore music never stopped being a part of my life.

I keep track of new bands and the scene in the last 5 plus years seems better than at almost any time since the 80s. As someone who became involved in this scene in the late 80s in the south, the growing presence of women and people of color in hardcore is refreshing. There was a time when I started to feel like it was just a bunch of white boys screaming, and wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to be a part of anymore, but the rise of bands like Replica, In School, S-21, Criaturas, and others, have absolutely refreshed my faith in this music.

I also have to mention G.L.O.S.S. I never saw them live, but just watching a video and seeing the crowd response, seriously almost moved me to tears. To see another group of outsiders finding their voice is amazing. Also the spread of punk and hardcore across the globe, especially to third world countries, where we see the true embodiment of this music as an expressive medium. I just read an interview with a Malaysian band where the singer relates his belief in straight edge and hardcore to resistance against colonialism, environmental destruction, global capitalism, slavery of drug use and consumerism. It was an amazing distillation of the power of hardcore to give all of us a voice, that we have in no other forum, to literally scream against the injustice we see in the world.

Pressing On's record will be available soon on Deranged.

Image: Darren Plank