photo/courtesy Misery Whip
The Portland hardcore band is making noise
The first time I went to Squashed Warehouse in Windsor, Maine, I was surrounded by the finest assortment of Central Maine metalheads and a little gaggle of baseball-hat-wearing bros. We stood waiting in the parking lot outside this sober, all-ages garage-cum-venue until we heard the sound of feedback leaking from the amps. Everyone filtered in for the first act of the night: Misery Whip.
I was excited about them immediately. Their sound is classic hardcore punk, with pounding drums, thumping bass lines and speedy, jagged guitar riffs, all tied together by a frontwoman’s intense vocals. They egged on moshing and hardcore dancing in that sweaty industrial space.
Since the Squashed show last August (their second gig), whispers of Misery Whip have filtered through the Southern Maine Hardcore scene. When they opened for Come To Grief at SPACE Gallery in November, friends and fans arrived wearing Misery Whip shirts and hyping their debut, self-titled album, which had just been released.
It’s all come together quickly for vocalist Hayley Kafer, bassist Jesse Hoefer, guitarist Mike Mancuso and drummer Alex Page. Some members have been in dozens of bands before; others only recently became musicians. The project started with Mike and Jesse having “riff offs” with each other during lockdown. When quarantine eased, Alex joined the group and started turning riffs into songs. The guys have known each other since they were kids. Then Haley joined the team, bringing the lyrics and a monstrous stage presence to round it all out.
In their practice space, the group is casual, energetic, and a little goofy. Musically, Misery Whip is most interested in mean riffs, a fast beat, and creating the conditions for catharsis. “Hardcore right now is cooler than it’s been,” Alex said with a smile, tapping his hands on his legs. “It’s so fun. Shows are sick, people are willing to host better shows, the turnout is incredible.”
“As much as isolation sucked for everybody, it did kind of create this thing where people who are turning eighteen or twenty-one didn’t have anything to do except watch YouTube videos of old shows,” Hayley said. “So once shows started happening again, the people who were there before weren’t so jaded. They were just excited to be out there.”
The revived hardcore scene is more welcoming to women, people of color and queer people who are interested in getting tossed around in a mosh pit. “As long as you’re helping the person you knocked down get back up again, I’m happy,” Hayley said with a laugh.
After a fantastic freshman year on the scene, the gang are looking forward to their first tour this month, new songs and records, and, above all, more antics. “One of the things we’re most excited about this tour is that there’s pools in all of our hotels,” Haley said, eliciting laughs from her bandmates.
Jesse described their camaraderie best: “I wanna say we’re like four people in a horse suit.”
Misery Whip plays a record-release show at Geno’s (625 Congress St., Portland) on Jan. 13.
