THIS CITY LOVES YOU: THE BOSTON LOCAL MUSIC SCENE
Design by Shruthi Krishnakumar
By Mario Sierra
On September 22, Thiscityhatesyou and Loser (formerly known as Spaz), played their unofficial first show together. Independently organized by members of both bands, the set took place on the Charles River Esplanade. The show consisted of an hour and a half of loud, raw, emotional music and short protest speeches—a combination that eventually drew a noise complaint and a shutdown by the police. This event showcases only a fragment of the music scene currently generating in Boston, packed with the DIY ethos that has resided in the city since the 1980s.
Over the course of a week, I had the pleasure of interviewing both Thiscityhatesyou (TCHY) and Loser, alongside KeepYourDistance (KYD), which features members of both bands. KYD consists of Aiden (vocals), Michael and Xavier (guitar), Ryder (bass), and John (drums). They played their first show on February 3 at the Middle East Club Upstairs in Cambridge. The self-proclaimed post-hardcore and emo quintet and I spoke for around two minutes before they got on stage.
Mario: Why this style of music specifically? Why this genre?
Xavier: I don’t think it’s anything specific, we just fuck with the music and it feels good.
Ryder: We kinda just came together and made some good music.
Aiden: Big into the emo, big into the post-hardcore—and that’s what we play.
Mike: This is just the main shit I listen to, so it’s what I want to play.
Mario: What inspires you to write—maybe something that doesn’t fit the genre? What is an outside inspiration for you?
Ryder: I like art rock.
John: Emotion.
Xavier: I guess the same thing as them. I’m big into the blues and shit, and I like to feel when I play, so that kinda plays into it a lot when I write shit.
Aiden: I write my lyrics. I’m just emo, so I write my lyrics emo. Or I write about, like, being a kid or something.
Mike: One of my biggest influences is shoegaze.
Mario: This is your first show, right?
Aiden: This is KYD’s first show.
Mario: Yes! How are you gonna get the crowd hype?
Aiden: I’m just gonna pretend to be Parker Cannon and see how it goes!
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Punk band Loser played their album release show on February 3 at the Middle East Club Upstairs, with KYD and TCHY opening for them. Loser consists of Emmett (vocals), Hal and Xavier (guitar), Milo (bass), and Griffin (drums). All five members and I stood outside in the cold and talked for around ten minutes.
Mario: Firstly, what drew you into this style of music specifically—the ‘80’s hardcore type of thing?
Emmett: I mean, me and Milo were both raised—
Milo: We were fucking raised on it. I was named after the singer of the Descendents.
Emmett: Yeah, and in an apathetic society, where it’s like phones and stuff like that, I think that punk rock teaches you to express yourself. That’s what originally drew me to hardcore, but I’ve been listening to it since I was eight.
Griffin: Green Day.
Hal: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
Xavier: Hardcore music.
Mario: How does it feel to interact with everyone—all the stage diving and the mic grabbing?
Xavier: They fucking kneed me in the balls, but it was fucking awesome.
Griffin: I’m the drummer; I didn’t know that was happening.
Hal: I’m kinda looped up in singing and trying to stay on the mic and shit. It’s easy to feed off the energy coming from the crowd, and it’s really infectious.
Milo: I could express every emotion that I’ve felt in the last year, all at once.
Emmett: Hearing people sing songs that I wrote in my bedroom, crying while writing the lyrics, makes my heart whole. Having that community and that whole unity aspect—everybody singing our songs and our lyrics—is really fucking motivating and makes me wanna live my life.
Griffin: I would say, knowing that that happened is fucking incredible, man, being able to bring that energy that we all feel.And everybody that’s a scene kid, you know, music hits us differently: We get chills listening to our favorite chorus. Knowing that we, as humans and as regular people, have the capacity to bring that to other human beings in a room is why I love music so much.
Milo: Also, I feel like today, it’s so fucking hard to find a place where you feel safe and okay—where you can be yourself. Being able to bring that for someone is, like, pretty fucking amazing.
Xavier: I remember when they asked me to join, the one thing I was excited about was like, “These are my boys.” But the more I thought about it, I feel like it’s really hard to find people that are just, like, really open . . . trying to be open-minded and hear another point other than their own. It’s just really nice to talk about what I feel is true. I grew up in a household where I really couldn’t do that at all.
Mario: What are some influences that you guys have that people wouldn’t realize are influences for you?
Emmett: ‘90s hip-hop: NWA, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Jurassic 5—all those fucking guys. Hip-hop is punk rock. It’s rebellious music; it’s politically conscious music. So I fucking love ‘90s hip-hop. And, a lot of funk: Funkadelic, Ohio Players—shit like that is where I got a lot of the groove that I write.
Hal: For me, I’m really influenced by shoegaze, so I’m always tryna play with pedals more and just create wild, crazy sounds on stage.
Xavier: I guess I could’ve shown my influence there with the blues shit . . . ‘cause again, I’m new, so I don’t really write any of the stuff with them, or yet, you know? A lot of the blues shit—I fucking love the blues, I love all that. I grew up listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn, and I’ve been into Kingfish. That’s my shit, man.
Milo: Karl Alvarez from the Descendents. Fingerstyle all day long—that’s just all Karl Alvarez.
Griffin: A lot of Chris Cornell’s solo work. Pretty much everything under the umbrella of grunge. Nirvana, and I would say Green Day likes as much hate as they get. They’re one of my favorite bands. They write hooks like fucking motherfuckers. Dave Grohl, but that’s expected—veryone’s influenced by Dave Grohl. Nora Jones, I fucking love Nora Jones.
Mario: How do you handle balancing your political activism with having fun and being silly on stage?
Emmet: I mean, on stage you see Griffin and me showing our nipples, and we like to have fun. But mixed in with that are good hooks and a politically conscious message with good lyrics. I love punk rock because you can mix melodies and hooks with political music. People get hooks stuck in their heads, and it provokes thought. It’s about putting on a show and making sure people are having fun with their friends. That’s another thing: I love each and every one of these guys, you know, and one of them’s my fucking brother.
Xavier: I think it is 100 percent important to talk about these things. But when you talk about balance—-my whole thing is because of how my stepdad raised me. His thing was that people are passionately ignorant and ignorantly passionate about everything. You’re gonna want to fucking shout and scream about everything, but at the same time, you have to embrace the love in your life. We’re low-key going through the same shit all the time because of hate, so I think it’s important to talk about these things,to bring awareness, and to really do something about it. At the same time, I just try to find myself in grace and to appreciate all my homies around me who make me a better person every day. I just try to remember all the love.
Milo: For me, “fun” is kind of relative. It’s being able to let off anger at the political and serious things. I don’t know if it’s “fun,” but that’s what I’d want to be doing more than anything else. I enjoy letting off that anger because it helps me, and so I guess that’s fun.
Hal: Yeah, I was gonna say it really comes down to the songwriting. You gotta like the groove and the melody in order to get that message across. I feel like that’s where the divide between fun and political shit comes in.
Griffin: We are all just straight from hate, man. We’re all coming from the same place: hate and fear. Those two energies are so closely intertwined and driving each other. Yes, punk rock is very political, but I think, especially in this day and age, it’s important to vocalize that and not act [violently]. If we look at the greats in history who really ended some tough times, they were all peaceful. They didn’t do shit, yet this world is fucked enough to have just killed them, you know? MLK didn’t hurt a soul, man, and he was doing God’s work, but he died. People like that don’t get what they deserve, which is why it’s the toughest thing to be loving and peaceful. That’s the most badass thing a human being can do, and that’s what we all need to do.
Xavier: My last thing is that hate is genuinely a generational trauma. I came from a very MAGA household. My mom came from the Philippines—just a very “hard” brain. I don’t blame her, but I think showing that love is important because . . . I mean, before I met all these guys and everyone else here, I had a core group of homies who genuinely showed me community. Being able to find that—having that—was everything. That’s what it’s all about. [We’re] a community that the government is trying to divide and conquer. It’s all the media. I thought we all learned that fucking propaganda was the thing, dude? It’s all about love, man.
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TCHY was formed in the early fall of 2025, consisting of Willow and Carmen (vocals), Aiden and Zane (guitar), Levi (bass), and Grant (drums). Since then, they’ve played shows in New York and Providence alongside bands such as Ted Williams, Ursa, and mybodywasfoundinahollowtree. The emoviolence sextet and I shared some pizza and talked about the life that surrounds their band.
Mario: What got you into this genre and style of music personally?
Aiden: I was big into hardcore, so I like those mosh-music vibes.
Grant: My first show was CATALYST, so I got to see a great intro to the genre. Obviously, I wanted to start some new shit.
Carmen: Yeah, me too. I’m also from Rhode Island, and CATALYST just got really big. I started going to shows at this place called Al Dios, which is no longer a venue, but I started going to shows there and I loved it.
Levi: I just like shit that sounds disgusting.
Zane: Honestly, there’s like two things. One is the skate scene. A lot of my homies who skated listened to this type of stuff, and also Levi—I feel like he kinda put me onto screamo. Partly through the skate scene, I met [XXX], and they started Blursday. They put on sick-ass DIY shows, and that introduced me to the New York scene. Shoutout Blursday!
Willow: I got into this genre because my best friend, Connor, actually took me to a Vs Self show. I think it was Vs Self, CATALYST, and, like, three other bands at the Market Hotel. That’s what started it, but I think the most memorable show that I went to that really got me involved in all that shit was actually the first Blursday show. The Screamo BBQ? That shit was sick.
Mario: What are some unconventional influences that you guys have—maybe stuff that’s not necessarily screamo or hardcore?
Aiden: American Football.
Grant: American Football. Lowkey, a lot of jazz for drumming. But, yeah, I would say American Football is a huge influence.
Carmen: I really liked that people were making clothes and zines, and when I saw those [DIY] spaces . . . that’s where I could find more of that and more inspiration. I kept going to shows because I was really interested in the artwork and also in the scene.
Levi: My dad used to play a lot of grunge music when I was a kid. He’s from Seattle, so I feel like a lot of that influenced me—Alice in Chains and shit.
Zane: I listen to a lot of, like, really sad, folky, emo stuff. I feel like screamo and sad emo coexist very well. You have the same emotion—like, I can just sit in my room and cry to some sad shit, or I could scream really loudly.
Willow: This is kinda hard for me, but when I think about my musical background, I did a lot of choral music throughout high school. I feel like, in a weird way, that influenced me—or at least made me see how different parts of a song work together.
Mario: What are your favorite aspects of the crowd? I also want you to talk about the “this city hates you” call-out.
Zane: Motherfuckers who throw down—I just love watching people mosh.
Willow: Just, like, seeing people move around and, I guess, express their energy. And [as for the call-out], I love that.
Grant: It’s a moment where everyone who’s listening can stop, kind of, like, beating each other up.
Levi: Also, I feel like I just remember going to shows when I was younger and moshing—like, moshing hard. It’s fun to see other people moshing hard to our music; that’s just awesome.
Aiden: When you’re playing something that makes people move like that, it’s a good feeling.
Grant: Yeah, you know, reciprocated energy.
Carmen: I think for me—I don’t mosh; I get scared I’m gonna get hurt. So I really respect the people. If that’s how the music makes them feel—and they do it, and I can be a part of it, and it helps them in a way—then I respect that. It’s something that I don’t understand, which is also what makes it attractive to me. I mean, that’s not how I release my energy, but I think it’s really cool that that’s how people want to do it. And for the call-out, it kind of just started while practicing—
Zane: Kind of an accidental thing. It was like, “Yo, let’s just yell it,” and then we were like, “Oh wait, this kind of works for the song.” I feel like that’s also the message of just some real shit, like being from New York City. It’s fucking hard to live in a city; it’s fucking hard to pay rent and to get a job. Just the lifestyle of a city is hard. Most cities are kind of just—I feel like they just hate people, and the government, and gentrification. Cities are just . . .
Levi: They don’t want to see you win.
Zane: Yeah, they don’t want to see you win. And that was also the preface for part of our band name—the lifestyle of being in a city and the hard things you face. That goes for everyone. So, this city hates you.
Mario: What are your favorite places that you’ve played besides Boston?
TCHY: Laundromat, New York City.
Carmen: That was insane.
Zane: Best show ever; it got to be in my hometown. And that was our first show, so it was like—seriously, it was fucking memorable.
Mario: Final question: How did it feel adding Carmen to the lineup—having two vocalists?
Willow: I have a story for that. I remember I was in Zane and Grant’s dorm one day and we were just sitting down. They asked me what I would think about adding a second vocalist, and I told them, “Only if it’s Carmen.”
Zane: That experience was sick. How it happened was, we were doing the laundromat show and Grant was like, “Yo, can Carmen read a spoken-word poem? She’s a dope-ass writer.” And so we were like, “Fuck yeah.” She wrote a poem for one of our songs and did it spoken-word, and then she just kind of started screaming with Willow. We were all like, “Yo, that was dope.” So we were like, “Let’s add Carmen.” Ever since then, it’s been sick. Also, the contrast—she’s got kind of a higher scream and Willow’s lower, so it works really, really well harmonically.
Carmen: I have never felt so supported and encouraged. I have a space where I can just be as creative as they want to be; I’m very heard and never pressured. I genuinely feel so loved. From the beginning, I got to hear them practice before I was in the band, and I was like, “Oh my god, I would listen to this every single day.” So then when they were like, “Oh, do you want to join?” it was like, “Oh my god, what? Like yes!” It’s been literally the best. It’s the best.
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The local heavy music scene in Boston has always had a rich history. From Converge in the ‘90s, to Have Heart in the ‘00s, and Pat Flynn influencing basically every band that came from the Northeast after 2008, Boston hardcore remains one of the liveliest iterations of a DIY scene. These newer bands, Thiscityhatesyou, LOSER, and KeepYourDistance, are keeping the movement alive and modernizing it for the better.