Florida's 90s Hardcore scene, was not as famous as the local Death Metal scene.

Question: I had to ask this since morning again (pictured) are reforming and earache has your demise on the books. When you were looking at the death metal bands from tampa in the 90s did you pay any attention to the heavy hardcore scene that was going on in florida at the same time? by that i mean the bands such as culture, shai hulud, morning again, poison the well, remembering never etc, im curious that there were two very heavy music scenes going on in the same state but they never seemed to interact. From:

Answer: Glad you appreciate Your Demise, its a straight-up heavy Hardcore band which is making waves right now- the album also has thunderous Drum n Bass interludes which actually the band are dropping we think, as it was the idea of old singer George. The CD was issued by Earache in the USA under license from Visible Noise.

But back in the 90s, yes you are right, it wasn't common for Death Metal kids to mix at all with Hardcore kids back then, in fact they were two seperate scenes, with different cultures and "rules". Ha ha its funny that a scene which declares it abides by "no rules" sure had a LOT of them- like how you dress, what music you play, even - this is the vegan hardcore and straight edge hardcore scenes I'm talking about- the food and drink you choose to enjoy. Luckily things are more relaxed these days in Hardcore.

But by far most heinous crime for a Hardcore band at the time was to play metal - that was a total no no and indicated a willingness to 'sell-out' which marked you down as a traitor to the very values of hardcore.Notable HC Bands of the 80s like Gang Green, DYS and SSD all started playing a sort of streetwise rock/metal and within a few years their fanbase had evaporated and the bands split up.

To answer your question, I visited Florida tons of times during the explosive rise of Death Metal 89-94 and I was vaguely aware of a coming HC scene in Florida during those years, but the bands you mention really formed and hit their stride a good few years later in mid-90's, so most of them signed with pure-play HC labels like Revelation or Good Life in Europe. To be honest the scene was tiny and didn't really compare in size to the Death Metal scene, which was also fresher sounding to my ears.

I do remember coming across EARTH CRISIS - Scott Burns of Morrisound gave me the demo tape he'd recorded by the band and I did like the band, the militant straight edge stance of the band was cool. I assumed they were a local Florida band, and so kept an eye out for their later activities- but never made an offer to sign them.

If you want the lowdown on the Florida 90's HC scene bands try this great blog xSTUCKINTHEPASTx

Heres Earth Crisis 10 year Documentary: