There are worms on a plate, right next to a microphone. Soon enough, they’re hanging out of a singer’s mouth, exactly where that microphone normally goes. It’s one of several fairly ridiculous things Columbia, Missouri rock band Hang Your Hate have put into their new video for “Worms?!”, a song about ordinary people living under power, the institutions controlling them and how easily some of those same people end up accepting what is happening.
The five-piece bring together melodic punk rock, hard rock and hardcore influences, with Luke Anderson and Ryan Sapp on guitars and vocals, Dylan Riggs on bass, Brent Williams on drums and Garrett Curry handling lead vocals. “Worms?!” runs for just under three minutes, repeatedly returning to the shouted “We’re all just worms down here!” refrain. Garrett wanted that same hectic energy in the video, which he directed and edited himself.
The song originally came out in May, ahead of the band’s debut album, “Projections of Misery“, released on 10 July. A few months later, Garrett still considers it one of the best examples of Hang Your Hate working together.
“I wanted to revisit ‘Worms?!’ because I think we were firing on all cylinders when we wrote this jaunt. Itโs chaotic (my favorite) & I think the lyrical content will be relevant for awhile so why not.”
There’s plenty packed into those lyrics. Garrett goes after kings and queens, contracts and handshakes, and a country he considers to be on borrowed time. He describes people as frogs sitting in a pot while the water slowly heats up, unable or unwilling to jump. By the time he gets to “Kiss the hand that feeds you shit”, his frustration has become considerably more direct.
The song came together as he was becoming increasingly angry about political and social developments around him, including the use of artificial intelligence in health insurance, surveillance, data centres and decisions made by the US government.
“I feel like all I was doing was simply reacting with disgust to the world around me. Every day talking points were starting to get brought up to me for the first time. AI being a decider on whether you get coverage or not, data centers, mass surveillance, America funding a genocide, being told by our leaders that clean drinking water is not a right. The list goes on forever.”
View this post on Instagram
The reference to AI concerns its use in decisions about health-insurance coverage, including whether medical treatment will be covered or claims denied. Garrett had been reading about insurers such as UnitedHealthcare, Cigna and Humana and the growing use of automated systems in American healthcare.
He also makes his definition of the song’s central image pretty clear.
“I believe the worms are ordinary people under power like you mentioned. Just proles.”
Still, there is anger directed towards those ordinary people as well. “We’re just so ignorant and complicit”, he shouts later in the song, and his explanation takes us straight into small-town America, immigration enforcement and political echo chambers.
“Obviously the energy of this song is directed at people in power, but that line specifically is directed to the people in small town America that believe ICE is doing the lords work. Itโs directed to the people who are foaming at the mouth for Trumpโs $500 Affordable healthcare act rebate. Itโs directed to white folks in small communities inside echo chambers.”
Garrett’s reference to the $500 rebate concerns the Trump administration’s Affordable Care Act refund programme, which began sending payments to eligible people in autumn 2026. The administration announced refunds for nearly one million people across 30 states, presenting them as the return of excess fees collected through the federal health-insurance marketplace.
That example sits alongside Garrett’s criticism of people who see ICE’s actions as justified and of communities where political views are reinforced by the same voices over and over again.
His lyrics eventually turn the criticism back on everyone caught up in the situation, including himself. The worms are people living underneath those in charge, and the song keeps returning to what happens when people accept the arrangements that keep them there. Garrett ends up digging into his own hole, looking for some solace.
For the video, he had a much simpler starting point. He’d been thinking about red barrels with “HYH” painted on them and white jumpsuits for some time. When they finally got together to shoot it in Columbia, most of the other ideas arrived as they went along.
“Basically I just had this idea of red barrels with ‘HYH’ on them & white jumpsuits for awhile now. The idea developed on set that day, all of us just coming up with random bits on the fly if needed. Not much thought went into this music video besides it just being a jam video & the camera work being chaotic. I love lenses that can do crash zooms.”
The band play among the barrels, with the camera moving around them and Garrett making the most of those sudden zooms. Some of the visual ideas came from everyone contributing whatever occurred to them during the shoot. The political subjects behind the lyrics weren’t used as instructions for what to film.
“Unfortunately the visuals have nothing to do with the lyrical content on this one. I think the camera work very much matches the energy of this track though.”
Garrett handled the direction himself, with Jeanna Ross, Austin Kolb and Garrett working as camera operators. Kylie Shaw was also involved as photographer and camera assistant. Nobody had to abandon any major ideas during the shoot, although the lighting eventually cost them a particularly unpleasant-looking wide shot.
That’s where the worms come back in.
“The only shot we didnโt get was a wide angle of me dangling worms from my mouthโฆ or, we did get it but the lighting was off so it got cut. I would have put more in my mouth but Dylan kept telling me it was gonna make me sick & I was starting to feel like a spectacle so I just wanted to move on.”
Apparently, Dylan had reached the point where somebody needed to tell the singer to stop putting worms in his mouth. Garrett was beginning to feel a little ridiculous himself, so they left it there.
The video was completed without any major disagreements over the direction, and the whole thing was made with help from people around the band. It’s another example of Garrett’s approach to music videos, following earlier visual work including Hang Your Hate’s cover of Mac Miller’s “Objects in the Mirror”, which received its own video premiere and interview through New Noise.
With “Projections of Misery” now several months old, there’s still more Garrett would like to do with the record. Ideally, every song would get a video. He also knows that asking friends and collaborators to keep helping with those shoots has its limits.
For now, the band have their biggest local audience to think about. On 25 October, Hang Your Hate play Rose Music Hall in Columbia, and Garrett is looking forward to having the video out just ahead of that show.
“I’m excited to show this music video to our fans right before a hometown show! Our biggest fan base is in Columbia so I know it will be appreciated. I feel like ‘Worms?!’ will atleast get one more parade out of this, & then we will move on to the next music video. I would love to do a music video for every song off ‘Projections of Misery’ but I donโt know how many favors I can keep asking for.”
“Worms?!” is taken from Hang Your Hate’s ten-track debut album “Projections of Misery“, released on 10 July 2026 and available through Bandcamp and streaming platforms.
The video is scheduled to become publicly available tomorrow, October 23, with the Columbia show following two days later.
View this post on Instagram
