For decades, aspiring bands were given the same advice: If you want to get noticed, play as many shows as possible. But in the algorithm-driven era, does that wisdom hold up? Haywire would say yes. In 2024, the Boston punk band issued its debut LP, Conditioned for Demolition, and the For Better or for Worse EP, but it took until the following year, when they embarked on a grassroots DIY tour that hit all 50 states, for wider audiences to hop on board. As the tour trekked on, they added impromptu guerilla shows in unconventional, not-always-legal locations and viral footage ensued. Regional covers stirred up even more buzz: Title Fight in Wilkes-Barre, Trapped Under Ice in Baltimore, and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (with the Bosstones’ Dicky Barrett) in their shared home city. From there, the word-of-mouth excitement made way for tours and a split release with hometown heroes Dropkick Murphys, slots on major music festivals, and, finally, their signing to Roadrunner for their second album, I Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye.
On “Flex Your Head,” a 79-second hardcore song with a title that nods to the classic Dischord compilation, bandleader Austin Sparkman points a finger at newcomers on the scene—“You think you know what’s good? You been around a week!”—before referencing the adage that hardcore is “for anybody, but not everyone.” In the context of I Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye, where the song’s scene politics and old-school sound make it an outlier, it comes off as a disclaimer, and Sparkman is right to believe that I Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye could be a gateway for a whole lot of people. He’s no newcomer himself, having spent over a decade playing in hardcore bands including Buried Dreams and Rude Awakening, but with Haywire, he’s cooking up something a little sweeter.
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Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
