Reign Supreme Tell the Scene to ‘Grow the F— Up’

If the internet has taught us anything non porn related, it's that there are a million hardcore bands out there. In fact, fifteen just started and played their first show while you read the title of this post. Sadly quantity does not always mean quality as many of the bands in this sea of heaviness are just doing impersonations of the bands they love and feel kin to, but when a band creates their own tide everyone tales notice. Reign Supreme are a band parting the sea of hardcore imitators and today marks the band's release of their first full length 'Testing the Limits of Infinite' via Deathwish Records.

'Testing the Limits of Infinite' is miles ahead of their last EP 'American Violence', and the band wanted it that way. "'American violence' was out first effort so we really wanted to keep it simple. It's very easy to relate to. It's very easy for any hardcore kid to listen to on his way home from high school and relate to it." Reign Supreme vocalist Jay Pepito told Noisecreep during a late night phone call, "'Testing (the Limits of Infinite)' is a lot more faithful to us as musicians and a little bit more of an honest effort."

"There is no shortage of great riffs. There is no shortage of great progressions, but there is a shortage on really great songwriting," Jay says directing his words at that ever-growing sea of hardcore bands. For him the most honest thing was to add more layers to the music, to make it more than just about letting off some anger. "I guess the thing for us is I just try to make every single part of the song have a legitimate reason for being there," he explained. "Like I don't want to just write a breakdown so buttheads can kick box. We want to make sure that if there is going to be a breakdown there is going to be stuff added to it with a lot of texture going on."

This texture idea and having more than just down tuned riffs and fierce breakdowns comes from Jay's own record collection. The records that he re-listens to and lives by. Jay wants Reign Supreme to mean something saying, "The kind of hardcore I like to listen to is the hardcore with a message and a meaning. I mean I like dumb straight edge hardcore like Floorpunch, don't get me wrong, but the stuff that always strikes a nerve with me is immensely personal. Bands that sing about things like standing up for yourself and holding out against whatever bullshit the world and society tries to force on you, I think that stuff is really powerful."

Jay has been in the hardcore scene since he was 15, or so; it's a love for him and one element expressed in this record is how people are destroying his love by not thinking for themselves within it. "I see a lot of talk and I see no action and I see a lot of hypocrisy and I see a lot of people standing up saying they want certain things and saying they're going to do certain things and I see a lot of people not following through with it," Jay says.

At this point in the phone conversation the phone became the mic, and this article became the crowd. "It's time for us as a scene, as a people, as a subculture, to call ourselves out and say," Jay preached, "grow the f--- up. There is something that can be done with all this anger. It's simple. Stop being a dickhead and go volunteer at your local homeless shelter, or run for office and change the world, or get a neck tattoo and drop out and go to prison. I don't care what you do as long as you do something with yourself instead of sitting there f---ing away the life that exists in this beautiful thing we have that is starting to die because people are just doing what they are told to do."