Yesterday, Atreyu's frontman made the claim that his band invented metalcore. In his statement, he says Atreyu pre-dates Poison The Well, who pre-dates Atreyu by one year, and Killswitch Engage, but leaves out the fact that both those groups put out their debut albums before Atreyu. Apparently math is super hard for some people.
Anyway, I'm not here to tell you that Alex Varkatzas is wrong. Guitarist Doc Coyle (ex-God Forbid, Bad Wolves) and frontmen Brian Fair (ex-Overcast, Shadows Fall, Hell Night, etc.) and Phil Labonte (All That Remains) are here to do that. It all started when Coyle started off with a joke about Varkatzas' claim and then listed some bands that pre-date Atreyu by quite a bit.
Everyone knows I invented metalcore ? https://t.co/vdhHSw6BI8
— Doc Coyle (@DocCoyle) October 16, 2018
Honorable mentions to Starkweather, Converge, Vision of Disorder, Earth Crisis & Rorschach.
— Doc Coyle (@DocCoyle) October 16, 2018
Labonte first jumps in to agree with Coyle, and then Fair jumps in later on to talk about the bands that influenced his original band Overcast. Overcast put out their first EP in 1992, and Fair says there were bands before that EP that pushed them in that direction.
Oh boy. ?♂️ https://t.co/3d0prYMLoQ
— PhilThatRemains on youtube, IG, Twitch #BLM ?️? (@philthatremains) October 16, 2018
I think @DocCoyle may be right about overcast. Though they didn’t have melodic singing. The European/melodic influence is surely from bands like ATG, In Flames, and Soilswork.
— PhilThatRemains on youtube, IG, Twitch #BLM ?️? (@philthatremains) October 16, 2018
I considered what @brianshadfall did in Overcast to be melodic singing. As well as screaming
— Doc Coyle (@DocCoyle) October 16, 2018
They were first for sure but I guess considering how much melodic euro thrash metal I was into at the time it never struck me the same. I felt like it was way more hardcore. I felt like melodic stuff came after Overcast.
— PhilThatRemains on youtube, IG, Twitch #BLM ?️? (@philthatremains) October 16, 2018
I think the Euro influence is semantics. It was the loudest voice in terms of a metal influence. But not necessary to be considered metalcore. Cave In didn’t have any of that. Still was definitive metalcore IMO. Same with All Out War, Dillinger
— Doc Coyle (@DocCoyle) October 16, 2018
See and those bands all strike me as heavy on the core part and light on the metal. To me they were a precursor. But this conversation is gonna do that. Who is to say who definitely started. Alex is smart. ?
— PhilThatRemains on youtube, IG, Twitch #BLM ?️? (@philthatremains) October 16, 2018
Overcast definitely dipped our toe in both the metal and the core at a time a lot were not but I would point to Zero Tolerance, Starkweather and Leeway as the bands that pushed us in that direction. Cave In were always ahead of the curve in every way. https://t.co/Cy5Il5vemX
— Brian Fair (@brianshadfall) October 16, 2018
Totally. And for the record Overcast formed in 1990 (granted we sounded like a Cro-Mags clone with Hetfield style vocals, check the “Feel The Pain” demo in all its sloppy glory) and the metal influences started creeping in early. By the “Bleed Into One” 7” it started to show. https://t.co/accWzlcV5L
— Brian Fair (@brianshadfall) October 16, 2018
So yeah, not that this needed to be heavily debated or anything, but the deluge of conversation about it has actually been pretty interesting. Maybe people will get into some older metalcore-type bands that they otherwise never would've heard of outside these tweets and comments.
