Moneybag 1327 come from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and “Hate & Vanity” landed with the weight of something already decided. Released via Greedy Dust Records in Indonesia and GetMoney Records in Malaysia, the three-track promo is framed by the band as their most likely final release. A short record that closes a loop they’ve been drawing since the early days of COVID.
The band officially started in 2020, but the idea goes back further.
Vocalist Leo says he and drummer Zaim had been talking about it since 2018, long before there was a lineup or songs. They were already embedded in the local show circuit, watching bands, standing in pits, feeling that familiar urge to contribute instead of only consuming.
“We were always going to shows and felt like we wanted to also be able to give back and express ourselves at the same time,” Leo explains. By 2022, the lineup locked in, and they moved fast, writing their first album and, in his words, “just started grinding from there.”
From the start, Moneybag 1327 never pretended to be anything other than a hardcore band built for physical release. Leo describes their sound as “heavy fight tunes,” which is less a genre tag than a use case.
He talks openly about loving moshing and wanting to write music that gives his friends space to do the same. Laid 2 Rest, Detain, Xibalba, and Sunami are cited as inspirations, not for aesthetics or hype, but for how direct and functional their music feels in a live setting.
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Before “Hate & Vanity,” the band released “Money. Power. Pain”, an EP with five tracks and guest appearances from friends in Wreckonize and Bleach.
They started writing it in October 2023 and wrapped it by December. Leo describes it as an important moment for the band, partly because of the collaborations, but also because of what it represented geographically. “We wanna also be able to help put SEA on the map,” he says, adding that there are strong bands in the region and that he feels lucky to be part of that community.
That regional context matters throughout Moneybag 1327’s story. Leo is blunt about the extra friction that comes with being a band from Southeast Asia.
“Being a band from South East Asia makes things 10x harder,” he says. The process involves constant learning, especially when bands from outside the region come through. Rather than imitation, the focus is on observation and adaptation, picking up what works and reshaping it. He points to Losing End as a key inspiration in this sense, a band that managed to break beyond regional borders and show that SEA hardcore could resonate elsewhere. More recently, he mentions Whispers as further proof that attention is shifting, slowly, but meaningfully.
“Hate & Vanity” narrows the scope but deepens the tone. It’s the first release after the band transitioned from a five-piece to a four-piece lineup, and lyrically it leans more personal than anything they’ve done before.
The clearest example is “Suicide Season,” which Leo describes as only the second song they’ve written that directly confronts his own mental health. He talks openly about anxiety and depression as long-standing forces in his life, and about hardcore as both an outlet and a contradiction.
Early on, he felt pressure to maintain a tough persona, even when that didn’t reflect what was happening internally. Over time, that tension shifted. Hardcore became less about hiding and more about support. “Hardcore is understanding and it’s always a support system I could rely on,” he says. He’s careful not to overstate the song’s impact. “Our music might not be the save your life type music,” he adds, but for him, the act of putting those emotions into a song matters because they’re now fixed, documented, and real.
The promo also includes a guest appearance from Dalton of Three Knee Deep. That collaboration came about through a practical connection rather than a grand plan. Leo was trying to book Three Knee Deep to play in Southeast Asia, knew that Dalton spent time in Thailand, and conversations grew from there. Having him on a track felt natural and strategic at once. It was a way to connect scenes, to pull listeners from outside the region toward what was happening locally. Leo describes Dalton as someone he now considers a brother through hardcore, and the feature reflects that closeness rather than feeling like a marketing move.
Asked to pick a favorite track, Leo hesitates, saying all three feel equally strong, but if pressed, he lands on “Cold Luck.” The reason isn’t subtle. It’s the song with Dalton, the one they’ll play together at Concrete Jungle Fest in April, and the one that best captures what this final chapter means to him: heavy riffs, mosh-driven structure, and a sense of shared experience that extends beyond the band itself.
That sense of closure is explicit when Leo talks about why “Hate & Vanity” feels like the end. He describes it as the furthest they could go as Moneybag 1327, creatively and practically.
Pushing further, knowing the limits, felt unhealthy. “Trying to do more when you know you can’t leads to insanity in a certain way,” he says. Every project, show, and tour took something from them, and at this point, stepping aside feels like the responsible choice. There’s no bitterness in how he frames it. He talks about giving space to newer bands, about having helped build a path rather than needing to dominate it. He emphasizes that Moneybag 1327 never felt like just a band, but like a family, one that supported each other through personal problems as much as through music.
Even as they step back, Leo remains vocal about the broader scene. He rattles off bands he believes deserve attention: Danella, Centipede, Homicide, Rumpleskin, No Title, alongside others from across Southeast Asia like Wreckonize, Bleach, Renegade, Keep It Real, Limbo, Mystique, Honey, and Losing End. The list feels less like a recommendation and more like a map of relationships built over years of shows, tours, and shared floors.
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For now, Moneybag 1327 still have shows lined up, including Concrete Jungle Fest and Kickback in June, organized by Blacklisted Productions, whom Leo credits heavily for pushing Southeast Asian hardcore forward.
“Hate & Vanity” reads more like a document of where they landed after years of effort: three songs, no excess, personal without being theatrical, and heavy in a way that reflects lived experience rather than image.
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