DIY benefit label Silence is Death Music is set to release the 3rd outing from Philadelphia’s punk band PENETRODE this Friday, February 5th, and today we’re stoked to give you an early listen of this freaky, punchy, yet catchy, off-kilter hardcore punk delivery, along with the story behind their project.
The proceeds from all sales are donated to radical organizations fighting for black lives.
Back in 2010, in Florida, 2 hardcore punk bands started to tour together and ended up doing 3 US tours together over the years to follow, always sharing a vehicle and rolling as a pack sometimes 11 deep. Those 2 Orlando bands were called No Qualms and Knife Hits.
Already friends, their bonds grew closer and interests in other types of punk was prevalent among the group. Over time, each member of both bands starting setting their sets on getting out of Florida. The first move was No Qualms bassist / Knife Hits guitarist Jake Smith who followed a close friends to Philadelphia and started up some new bands. With the Orlando bands still together, Jake made frequent trips back to the south to work on music and play shows/start tours. During this time, Knife Hits Vocalist Alex Harrison had begun writing music on guitar which is not something they had been doing previously.
Taking influence from Nervosas and Jay Reatard, Alex wanted to start a catchy but nihilistic punk band. Jake who had started to taking playing drums more seriously after his move to Philly had been trying to convince Alex and some others to move up as well. Alex asked about starting this project with Jake playing drums and it was agreed, “get up here and we can do this!”. Alex was also playing bass in a fastcore/powerviolence band called Past Tense (with other members of Knife Hits and No Qualms, including Zach Bailey’s scene-famous soiree into being a vocalist and basically a performance artist) and as more of this crew moved north, the more pieces fell into place.
After Alex made it to Philly, Penetrode was born as a 2 piece.
Named after a quote at the end of the movie Office Space, their first show had them dressed as if they were working office jobs and jokes about being clocked in and taking water cooler breaks ensued. Over the course of the next couple years Penetrode would write songs, jam, take months off, played a bit with Daniel Cox on Bass (Also from No Qualms, now of Dark Thoughts). Until one day in bathroom at a shitty bar, Daniel and Zach were pissing in neighboring urinals and Zach said “hey man, I wanna play bass for Penetrode” to which Daniel replied “Perfect”.
This is the point where Penetrode started to work harder and take the band more seriously, minimum weekly practices and a demo recorded….the Trode started getting put on a lot more shows in Philly area. Throughout this time, Zach and Alex were splitting vocal duties and were not exactly happy with doing it…they wanted to make the riffs weird and not have to sing over them, a vocalist was sought but it had to be the perfect fit. Then during a short tour in Florida for Jake’s band Backslider, he was hanging in Miami with friends when one of them mentioned that a mutual friend and amazing musician, Bootsie Castillo was planning to move to Philly. It was suggested bluntly by a friend “Bootsie should sing for Penetrode” showing Jake a video of the band they used to play in together called Drül. Blown away, and already a fan of some of the other music Bootsie had made, he was convinced that’s what needed to happen.
Upon returning to Philly after the tour, the other members of the band were alerted about Bootsie’s plan to relocate and quickly it was agreed that they needed to ask Bootise to join the band. Bootsie agreed to come to a few practices and try it out….but basically right away after the first jam it felt like the perfect fit musically and personally.
Between the amazing dance moves, no bullshit attitude, and love for “dad-cold” beers, the puzzle was complete and Penetrode basically changed over night into the band it is today. With a short tape and split 7” (with C.H.E.W. from Chicago) under their belts, they are very excited to share their first full length release.
The self titled album will be out this Friday February 5th, 2021 on Silence is Death Music.
