At the end of Defy You sets, vocalist Joseph “Joey” DePrizio tells people something that has little to do with merch, upcoming shows or getting another pit moving. If somebody feels like they have nobody to talk to about their mental health, they can come and talk to him.
One night at Cinco de Mayo in New Brunswick, somebody did.
Joey is keeping their identity and the specifics of their story private. What stayed with him was the end of the conversation.
“I wish more people would be vulnerable in the scene because it feel like I can’t talk to any of my friends here about it,” the person told him.
Joey asked whether they had tried.
“No because they didn’t want anyone to think of them as not being tough or too weak for the scene that they’re in.”
For Joey, that exchange joined several other situations he does not want to discuss publicly. He kept coming back to the same problem: somebody would rather sit with something alone than risk losing a bit of their perceived toughness among their closest peers. It eventually fed directly into “Fragile Mask”, the new song at the centre of Defy You’s three-track “Happy HellFest” EP.
“Why is it such a sign of weakness to be vulnerable and talk about your feelings?” Joey asks. “Let your true emotions come out and be who you are. Don’t hide behind a fragile mask.”
That idea was also coming from years spent watching hardcore change around him. Joey has been going to shows for roughly a decade, through shifts in trends and demographics, and says one constant for him has been trying to stay recognisably himself. Everybody goes through periods of wanting to fit in. He has also watched people around different scenes seemingly change themselves to match whatever they think is expected.
“But I see right through you,” he writes in “Fragile Mask”.
For Joey, the point extends well outside clothing or music taste. People having different interests and personalities is part of why a community remains interesting in the first place. Everyone is already there because hardcore gives them a common language. He would rather see people bring some of themselves into it.
That makes “Fragile Mask” one part of a small EP that Defy You planned quite carefully. “Happy HellFest” came out through RTF Records on June 26, 2026, ahead of their appearance at HellFest in Carteret, New Jersey. Its other two tracks pull backwards rather than forwards: a newly recorded “P.O.D.” featuring Julian from Heavy Hand, and Defy You’s version of Guns Up!’s “Won’t Change For Me“.
Joey eventually found a pretty simple way of describing why those three belonged together. Guns Up! represented the band’s inspiration. “P.O.D.” represented their past. “Fragile Mask” represented their future.
HellFest gave them a reason to put all three in one place.
Defy You had grown out of New Brunswick around Joey on vocals, Rupa Z on guitar, Jon W on guitar, Mikey S on bass and Creasen N on drums. Their target from the beginning sat between the faster hardcore-punk of the early 2000s and the heavier strain that came through during the following decade, with No Warning, Trapped Under Ice, Backtrack and Guns Up! among the obvious reference points. By HellFest, they wanted people seeing them for the first time to get more than one snapshot of what the band had been.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
“P.O.D.” was the obvious piece of their own past to bring back. The song came from their demo, had become a regular set opener and was already one of the songs that people consistently responded to. As the band improved as musicians, Joey thought the old recording no longer represented what they could do with it.
They also wanted the recording to retain the speed and aggression that matter to them when they play live.
Heavy Hand were already close to the band well before Julian entered the recording. Both bands are on RTF Records, and Joey describes the members of Heavy Hand as brothers after the memories they have built together. Giving Julian a part on “P.O.D.” made that friendship part of the recording itself.
The choice of section was appropriate too. Joey normally uses that part of the song to hand the microphone to a friend during shows. Julian’s voice is different enough from his own that having both on the record changed the character of that exchange without changing why the moment existed in the first place.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
A few weeks later at HellFest, the recorded guest spot became a live one. Julian, who also plays in XL Bully, came up during “P.O.D.” to perform his part with them.
The Guns Up! cover has a different history attached to it. Rupa suggested recording “Won’t Change For Me”, a song that had already become a personal favourite within their friend group and carried enough shared memories that Joey says they are impossible for him to separate from it.
When he spent more time with the lyrics during recording, another connection became clearer. Joey read the song through personal resilience and emotional independence at a point when both ideas already had a history within Defy You.
The band started during what he calls a very low point in his life, mentally, physically and emotionally. The other members gave him somewhere to put aggression and anger that otherwise had nowhere useful to go. Defy You became an emotional outlet in the process.
Recording a song about coming through that kind of period therefore had a meaning beyond paying respect to a favourite band. For Joey, it made sense as a way of entering the band’s next period while acknowledging the place Defy You had originally come from.
That past-present-future idea might have remained fairly neat on paper. HellFest made it messier and much more physical.
Joey went into the venue the day before Defy You were due to play so he could set up their merch. Seeing the room and stage immediately gave him stage fright. He then had about 24 hours to sit with it.
Once the band actually walked onto the stage, the nerves disappeared.
Defy You were among the first bands playing that day, and Joey had not expected the room to respond as strongly as it did so early. By the time they reached “Fragile Mask”, the song had only been available for about a week. He assumed one or two people might know enough of it to join in.
Instead, people started grabbing the microphone and singing parts back at him.
Some of the faces were completely unfamiliar to Joey. For a song tied so closely to a conversation about people being afraid to show weakness around their own scene, hearing strangers already know the words was about as immediate a response as the band could have hoped for. Releasing it before the festival had done exactly what Defy You wanted.
“HellFest as a whole was absolutely phenomenal and it was such an honor to play alongside many legendary bands and friends,” Joey says.
The set also pulled their surrounding community directly onto the stage. Along with Julian joining “P.O.D.”, Kevin from Old Wounds and The Shape came up for Defy You’s cover of the Misfits’ “Halloween”.
“Much love to both of them,” Joey says.
HellFest carried extra weight because Defy You saw the booking as a chance to represent present-day New Jersey hardcore beside friends in XL Bully and Negative Force. Connecting “Happy HellFest” to the festival was their thank-you to the NJHC people who had supported them, while also giving anyone unfamiliar with the band a reason to arrive early.
As Joey puts it, the idea was simple: “you need to show up early and see us”.
Even the EP artwork was pushed back into New Jersey history.
The “Happy HellFest” cover is based directly on a promotional Halloween trick-or-treat poly bag sent to record shops by Warner Bros. and Ruby Records around the 1988 re-release of the Misfits’ “Walk Among Us”. The original “Happy Halloween” design became “Happy HellFest”, with Defy You’s name, the three songs and RTF Records worked into the new version.
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
Those original bags have become rare collectors’ items. Rupa came up with the idea of using one as the starting point and the rest of the band quickly agreed. Their friend Eric K., also credited as Eric Kenny, handled the finished artwork.
They took the reference one step further on the physical edition. Defy You made only 25 “Happy HellFest” cassettes for HellFest, and the lyric sheet inside is another Misfits reference, this time based on the sheet from the “Halloween” single. It is the sort of detail somebody can completely miss while still making perfect sense for a New Jersey band who wanted the physical release to carry a little local history inside it.
“The Misfits is one of those bands where if you don’t like them, you have to at least respect the impact they had on punk music,” Joey says. “Being from New Jersey especially I have such a strong respect towards them and the fact that they paved the way for us and so many others to do what we love.”
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
That relationship with New Jersey is much more immediate when Joey talks about New Brunswick now.
The city’s wider music community covers far more than hardcore, but Cinco de Mayo has become particularly important to the local NJHC network around Defy You. Joey credits Fernando and the restaurant directly.
“If it wasn’t for Fernando and that restaurant I have no idea what would even be Hub City Hardcore right now.”
RTF Records sits on another part of the same map. Pat, who runs the label, has been involved for years, and Joey talks about joining its history with obvious respect. Plenty of bands have passed through RTF, while its 2026 roster puts Defy You alongside XL Bully, Heavy Hand, Duel, Still Feel Gone, Eric Raven, Fools Gold, SunnyBoy and GDP.
Joey is just as quick to throw attention further across New Jersey. His current list runs through Quiz, Insanity Plea, Disobey, In Blue, Eyes of Fear, Negative Force, Manik, Bodylock, Jawdust, 50 Days at Illiam, Ballistix, Paralysis, Roseblood, Sewn Away, Cheat Death, Depressionista, Heathens, Lucky You, Never Again, Cutdown, Who Remembers and Hindsight, along with the other NJHC bands still putting in the work around them.
In his view, turning up to a show at Cinco de Mayo remains one of the easiest ways to see some of that happening at ground level.
Asked where Defy You themselves belong within it, Joey does not try to put them above or outside any of those names. They are one band among a wide group of artists contributing to the same community.
“As long as the NJHC is here that’s where you’ll find us.”
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
“Happy HellFest” is only six minutes across three songs: “Fragile Mask” at 2:27, “P.O.D.” featuring Heavy Hand at 1:49 and “Won’t Change For Me” at 1:32. Mike Morello mixed and mastered the EP, with Mike M credited on the release page, while Eric Kenny handled the art.
A month after HellFest, the most useful way into those six minutes is still the conversation that started this story. Defy You keep making the same offer Joey makes from the stage. The band are open about mental health, and he has no use for the instruction to “man up”.
“Talk about your feelings. People would rather hear your story than attend your funeral. If you ever feel like you aren’t good enough for this world, just remember that you are loved and cared about more than you think.”
🔔 IDIOTEQ is ad-free, independent, and runs on one person’s time. If you want it to stay that way: DONATE via PayPal or SUPPORT via Patreon.
NEW: IDIOTEQ Explore 🗺️ Browse 15+ years of our archive by city, country, and style. Find artists on the world map or trace related sounds through the styles map.
Stay connected via Newsletter · Instagram · Facebook · X (Twitter) · Threads · Bluesky · Messenger · WhatsApp.
