Episode #1 – Rob Watson of LIONHEART
On our first episode of Reverberations with Ramar, Antihero’s Greg Ramar talks with Rob Watson, the charismatic frontman for the Northern California hardcore group, Lionheart. Check it out!
“We honestly, truly, do it for fun. There’s a lot less pressure now than there was back when we were really trying to make it happen. Ironically enough now, we’re actually bigger than we were back then when we really were trying. I don’t know if that has something to do with it, especially me. I’ve relaxed so much in the writing process. I just write exactly what I want to write, period. I say whatever the fuck I want to say. That’s it.”
“The first real hardcore band that I ever got into was Blood for Blood. When I first got into it, I didn’t even know the difference between hardcore, punk, or whatever back then. I just thought they were … I was listening to punk stuff, AF, Blood for Blood, all that type of stuff. I didn’t even realize it was hardcore really. I just thought it was a better version of punk. I just thought it was a heavier version of punk. The lyrical content of it stuck out to me. I was probably ten, eleven, twelve years old or something.”
“I feel like every year it gets so much more marginalized, and there’s so many more sub-genres for it that you can’t even. I don’t even know what punk is anymore. Frankly, I don’t even know what hardcore is anymore to some extent. There’s bands like Turnstyle and Blood for Blood. Both “hardcore” bands, but you couldn’t be farther apart in terms of style and sound and lyrical content.”
“…That we were honest. I don’t know if that’s even the type of answer you were looking for, but that’s all I really want. It would be fine with me. I think we’ve always been an honest band. Never really tried to be anything that we weren’t. Never really switched up our style. Been singing about the same shit since day one. I still mean it. People liked it, and people have not liked it, but it’s been the same.”
Photos by Greg Ramar
