Guts And Glory

On their latest, and perhaps most important record (for about a million reasons), every time I die truly open up. Keith Buckley lifts the lid on ‘Radical’.

- Maddy Howell

Honesty and creativity are vital traits for anybody in this game. To produce music that alters people’s perceptions of art whilst channelling your authentic self is a rare talent, and one that Buffalo hardcore titans Every Time I Die have been demonstrating for the last 23 years. Connoisseurs of innovation, in 2016 the five-piece released their eighth studio album, ‘Low Teens’. Dark, chaotic, and mournful, on a surface level, it was a band at the top of their game - but for frontman Keith Buckley, it wasn’t that simple.

An album coloured by his personal experiences of mortality, helplessness, and fear, its overarching story was reflective of a momentous shift within the 41-year-old’s own mindset.

“A part of me died long before ‘Low Teens’ was written, and that record was an extension of how I felt terrible for not being the person that I used to be. I felt like I’d had my fun stolen,” he starts.

“Hardcore music is aggressive and angry, and I had lost that anger and replaced it with some sort of plea. I wasn’t yelling because I was angry anymore, I was yelling because I was trying to get attention to things in my life that I needed help with.” Reflecting and recognising the often-negative spaces in his mind that had brought an album as deeply harrowing as ‘Low Teens’ into existence, Keith knew that to keep moving forward, something had to give.

“I was missing my courage. I knew what part of my soul ‘Low Teens’ came from, and not only did I not want to go back there, but there also wasn’t anything there anymore. Things worked out well for me, all of that hopelessness and nihilism was answered with kindness and tenderness by the universe at large,” he explains.