Wall Breaker’s second album has a drummer who no longer lives anywhere near the rest of the band. Lucas recorded “Breaking Down” with them, moved back to Michigan, and by the time the LP came out, his replacement Kris was still learning the songs.
Fairly typical of how things have gone for this New Jersey/Baltimore straight edge hardcore band, whose thirteen new tracks pull from early Boston hardcore, late-80s NYHC and the frantic 2000s thrashcore stuff. It’s taken eight years since their debut, “Democracy Dies“, to get album number two finished.
And three drummer changes along the way, plus a pandemic, various relocations and a rehearsal schedule that involves people travelling between states. Wall Breaker have never been especially convenient to organise.
Bassist Jeff DeSantis and guitarist Jeremy Evans first discussed starting a band while Jeremy was playing in Coke Bust and Jeff was going out as a roadie on various tours.
They already lived far enough apart to make regular rehearsals awkward, but wanted an excuse to play music and see each other. That was the arrangement from the beginning, and it has remained pretty much the same.
Members are based between New Jersey and Maryland, with roughly three hours separating them. Getting everyone together about once a month is the usual goal. Some have children, everybody has work, and the band have to fit around whatever else is happening.
Jeff sometimes watches younger bands writing, recording and touring at a pace Wall Breaker could never manage. He admits to being a little jealous, although he’s also seen what happens when bands take on too much.
“Honestly I see a lot of younger bands doing way more, and sometimes get jealous. Then they burn themselves out within 2 years after writing like 7 songs.”
Wall Breaker had already been through a few years of figuring themselves out before their first album. Their 2017 demo grew out of an earlier attempt by Jeff and Jeremy to start playing together, and when Ken Ramsey and drummer Ben joined, they recorded five songs that eventually formed the basis of the band.
By September 2018, they had “Democracy Dies”, a twelve-song LP issued on vinyl through Refuse Records and on CD through Absolute Contempt Records. The band were also getting ready for a European trip connected to Refuse’s 25th anniversary festival in Poland.
In an interview with Carlos Ramirez at No Echo around that time, Jeff talked about their love of early SSD, Slapshot, Citizen’s Arrest and Life’s Blood, along with the speed of the 2000s thrashcore scene. He jokingly called Wall Breaker the “least straight edge straight edge band”, pointing out that their rehearsal conversations were much likelier to involve Lack of Interest than Bold.
That background is still easy to locate in the music they’re making now. The songs on “Breaking Down” are mostly short, built around fast drums, shouted vocals, sharp guitar parts and repeated refrains that are easy to imagine a roomful of people joining in on. “Old White Male” gets its entire argument across in thirty seconds, and “Listen” is over in twenty-six. Only the closing title track approaches three minutes.
Jeff reckons Lucas helped push the songwriting further towards Poison Idea, taking out some of the youth crew influence that had been more prominent before.
Getting to the point where Lucas could contribute was another story.
In January 2020, Wall Breaker released “Resurrect“, a three-track recording that included “Chaos Magic“, “Trepan Me” and “Resurrect“. The band had recorded the songs with John Burton in 2019, with Steve Roche handling mastering the following year. They wanted to preserve the new stuff before Ben left following a move away from the others.
Jeff wasn’t certain whether those songs would become the beginning of something new or the last thing the band did.
“We had considered those songs either a preview of what’s to come or a swan song.”
Brian, who’d previously played in a band with Jeremy, came in on drums. Then COVID arrived. Wall Breaker never managed to play a single gig with him, and when live music eventually started returning, they’d lost contact.
Lucas was next. Originally from Michigan, he’d moved to Pennsylvania, and the others knew him loosely through previous bands. There wasn’t much of an adjustment period. He was around the same age, had a similar musical background and got involved with writing.
Shows finally resumed around 2023. Wall Breaker were playing a mixture of older songs and new ones, steadily adding enough stuff that the possibility of another seven-inch became unrealistic. They wanted to make a full-length.
The album they eventually recorded in late 2024 and early 2025 had been taking shape across several different versions of the band. Even songs they’d already recorded years earlier were still changing.
“Resurrect” made it onto the new LP with its title intact. “Trepan Me” became “Trepanation”, a name that had already appeared in the earlier song’s lyrics. “Chaos Magic” had been one of their earliest compositions, and by the time they were choosing the final album sequence, it had begun to seem out of place.
“Chaos Magik ended up getting cut from the LP, as it was the first written and we felt it didn’t fit as well, but was on the Choice Now single and is a bonus track on the CD version.”
The reworked “Chaos Magik” and the twenty-one-second “Mine Not Yours” appeared alongside “Choice Now!” on a three-song release in May 2025. Both later ended up as bonus tracks on the CD edition of “Breaking Down“.
That earlier release had another purpose. The album was already recorded, and Wall Breaker hadn’t found anyone to put it out yet.
Jeff still runs Bleeding Edges, a New Jersey punk and hardcore label he started back in 2010. It had been much busier about a decade earlier, particularly with limited cassette releases, but he always intended to keep using it for his own stuff.
He wanted to do a five-inch lathe-cut single, and “Choice Now!” gave him the opportunity. The two songs that had been removed from the LP made useful additions.
The band also decided to send any money left after covering costs to the National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps people access abortion services through a network of local organisations. The song itself deals directly with bodily autonomy, reproductive rights and decisions made by people in power over other people’s lives.
Jeff has little patience for the current American political situation.
“Whether we want to acknowledge it, politics affects us personally. We live in a country being run by the worst people, who are giving away our tax dollars to the other worst people. It gets tiring and defeating, but as a community we need to have each other’s backs, because our institutions have completely failed us.”
Wall Breaker were already writing about racism, political power and social issues on “Democracy Dies“. “AmeriKKKa“, one of the songs from that record, dealt with the racism Jeff saw becoming increasingly acceptable during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
“Breaking Down” continues with that anger. “Old White Male” takes a shot at the loud, self-important sort of person who treats every disagreement as an attack and spends far too much time arguing online. “Ain’t No Flag Shagger” goes after flag-waving patriotism, police allegiance and the various coloured-line symbols associated with it.
There’s also “Play Stupid Games”, which gets through a repeated refrain about violent behaviour and its consequences in under two minutes.
Vocalist Ken Ramsey has always seen hardcore as somewhere to address contemporary politics, but he also writes from experiences much closer to home.
“I think hardcore punk is, by its very nature, political and should operate by addressing contemporary issues. But it’s also deeply personal in its expression.”
“Grey Rock” comes from his experiences of trauma and abuse, including things people close to him have gone through. The title refers to the grey rock method, where somebody dealing with an abuser limits contact, withholds personal details and avoids giving the other person emotional reactions or information they can use against them.
Ken was especially interested in how cold that approach could be.
“I find the coldness of the solution – not giving one’s abuser the time of day, no info, nothing that can be used as ammunition – to be both effective and empowering. The stark, austere imagery around a grey rock standing strong, that’s really profound to me.”
The lyrics are direct about refusing to give an abuser anything further. A repeated “Grey Rock” chant breaks up the verses, and the song eventually reaches the extended hardcore breakdown Ken compares to “War All the Time“.
He wanted friends involved at that point in the recording, and Kathi and PJ contributed additional vocals.
“There’s a certain irony here, but yelling “fuck you” (twice!) is sometimes all you want to do in these difficult situations, so there’s space for that too.”
The title song deals with Ken’s own mental health difficulties. He had written “Breaking Down” before anybody decided to use the name for the album, and the double meaning was already there: breaking down walls, and falling apart yourself.
The lyrics move through anxiety, painful thoughts and the feeling of being unable to get out of your own head. By the end, Ken is also singing about reaching other people, with the band’s name appearing in the closing refrain.
He wants that possibility of connecting with somebody to remain in the music, particularly after losing people in the punk community to suicide. From his own experience, the years since the pandemic have made those concerns especially immediate.
“As much as it’s joyous to yell ‘fuck you’ at what’s pissing you off, I also want our songs to build bridges to other punks. Probably always, but certainly from the pandemic onward, there’s just been far too much suicide in the scene. It’s a drop in the bucket, but I want to make sure people know that they are not alone, pain is fuckin temporary and punks help punks.”
It’s quite a lot to fit into a hardcore song that lasts two minutes and fifty-four seconds. The band give the closing track room to stretch out, following twelve shorter songs that deal with everything from political frustration to personal distress.
The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Darren Nanos at Up In The Locker Room in Long Island City, Queens. By early 2025, the recording itself was finished.
Then Lucas’s wife found a job in Michigan, and they moved back that summer. Wall Breaker had another record ready and another vacant drum stool.
Jeff contacted Kris, whom he’d played with in several bands years earlier. He agreed to join, giving Wall Breaker their fourth drummer and the current lineup of Jeremy on guitar, Ken on vocals, Jeff on bass and Kris on drums.
Kris was still working his way through the thirteen songs when the band resumed playing shows.
Meanwhile, the “Choice Now!” single had got the attention of Dave at Indecision Records.
He reached out to Josh from School Drugs to ask for Wall Breaker’s contact information. School Drugs and Wall Breaker had played together before, and Josh was able to put them in touch.
Indecision came aboard after the album had already been recorded. Dave liked what he’d heard and, according to Jeff, was remarkably patient as the band worked through further delays.
For Jeff, there was a personal bonus to the whole thing. Indecision had been one of the labels he cared about when he was young and getting deeper into hardcore.
“It’s super cool that a label that was very important to my young HC upbringing is the same label to release my own band all these years later.”
Indecision took care of the vinyl and CD editions of “Breaking Down“, while Bleeding Edges handled the graphics and Village Idiot provided the cover illustration. The finished sleeve uses bright blue lettering around a black-and-white illustration of a figure looking into a mirror and pulling at their face, revealing a skeletal face underneath.
The LP arrived on 4 September 2026, with thirteen tracks in its standard edition. There are also two additional songs on the CD, bringing together the main album and the recordings they’d used on the earlier “Choice Now!” single.
By the end of September, Wall Breaker were out playing a release weekend with GO!, the New York hardcore band fronted by Mike Bromberg, better known as Mike BS.
GO! originally played from 1989 to 1991 and were closely associated with the ABC No Rio scene in Manhattan, where Mike was involved in organising the early hardcore matinees. Their short, fast songs and openly political lyrics had a particular place in New York punk at a time when the broader hardcore scene could be considerably less welcoming to people outside its prevailing macho culture.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
Wall Breaker had shared a show with GO! around two years earlier, and they’d got along well enough to stay in contact. The members of Wall Breaker were already fans, and GO! invited them onto the weekend run.
Jeff particularly liked the idea of playing a Sunday NYHC matinee with them.
“It was wild to be playing a NYHC matinee show with GO! on a Sunday (even if the weather sucked).”
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
And it really did suck. One of Wall Breaker’s shows was cancelled because of the weather, and a major storm affected the New York date, where the bill also included A Total Wreck. Other shows around the same weekend were cancelled too.
Mike had been looking forward to playing with Wall Breaker again. He knew Ken and Kathi, liked the band’s music and thought the combination made sense.
“Ken and Kathi are great people – very friendly, warm, and outgoing. And the band makes great music. Listening to them and to us…it works. It’s an easy combo.”
A Total Wreck played a somewhat different style, which Mike enjoyed having on the same bill.
With attendance badly reduced by the storm, all three bands ended up playing to a relatively small crowd. What stayed with Mike was how everybody supported the others while they were on stage.
“Due to the MAJOR storm the attendance was small (other shows that weekend got cancelled), but all three bands were really there for each other, supported each other during the live sets. That was nice.”
The matinee also brought back memories of the shows he used to enjoy when GO! were first active, with bands approaching hardcore from different directions on the same afternoon.
Mike finds it funny that there’s a recognisable generational difference between GO! and Wall Breaker, even though the members themselves aren’t especially far apart in age.
“Our ages are not very different, but it does seem like a generational difference for the bands. I know GO! was an influence on Ken way back. I always loved playing matinees with a variety of bands, so this show definitely brings back those days.”
He’s also pleased to be playing alongside musicians he gets on with, and who have their own ideas about the music and the subjects they want to address.
“I appreciate their perspective and energy and drive (in addition to the great music), and the camaraderie.”
GO!’s songs are even shorter than Wall Breaker’s. Mike remembers their setlist containing roughly thirty songs and claims they managed to inspire the other band to record something that lasted under ten seconds. For a group who’d taken eight years to finish thirteen songs for an LP, that’s a fairly good joke.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
The weekend gave Wall Breaker a chance to play their new stuff with a band they’d admired for years, although the weather made it a much smaller affair than everybody had hoped.
Jeff remains pretty relaxed about how little sense the band’s schedule makes. The members are older now, and there’s only so much time available between everything else they’re doing.
“The Wall Breaker timeline never made sense, and likely never will.”
“Breaking Down” is available on Bandcamp and streaming platforms, with vinyl and CD editions through Indecision Records. The thirteen-song LP came out on 4 September 2026, and the CD adds “Chaos Magik” and “Mine Not Yours”.
