It didn’t take long for things to click. Justin and Nate were coming off a dead-in-the-water project. Tyler had just moved back to Arizona. Jordan happened to be a drummer. One jam session in Phoenix turned into a fully formed band in a matter of weeks. Nine months later, Petalpusher dropped For Who We Used To Be — a six-track EP that hits like 2003 never left the room.
“We all had a love for late ’90s, early 2000s melodic hardcore,” Justin explains, citing Shai Hulud, Killing the Dream, Suicide File, Have Heart, Bane, and Poison the Well as cornerstones. “We want to recapture that sound — the type of hardcore that has melody and speed but could hit you in the face with a breakdown at the same time, while having hook and groove.”
Formed out of longtime friendships and years of shared shows, Petalpusher isn’t trying to reinvent anything.
They’re trying to make sure it doesn’t disappear. “We feel like it’s a style of hardcore that’s been sorta left in the dust,” Justin adds. “We love how the heavier side of the genre is thriving, but we don’t want to see the style we grew up listening to die.”
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That urgency lives in Tyler’s vocals — raw and emotional, cutting across songs about straight edge, purpose, grief, and resolve. “The songs were heavy, had a groove, and were melodic,” Justin says. “Tyler’s vocals are emotional and hard-hitting with lyrics to match.”
Every track sounds like a basement show with no barricade — dog piles, circle pits, two-steps, stage dives, and scream-alongs built in.
The band recorded For Who We Used To Be once they had six tracks that felt right. Since the release, they’ve already played two local shows, DIY screen-printed their first run of shirts, and started getting the EP into as many hands as possible.
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This is hardcore by people who mean it. You can hear it in every riff, every lyric that bleeds conviction. Petalpusher are here to remind a scene what it means to stand for something. Straight edge and unswayed.
