Blacklisted broke up in 2018, but now vocalist George Hirsch (also of Harm Wulf), bassist Dave Walling, and guitarist Jon Nean have a new band, Staticlone. They recently digitally self-released their first demo, which they plan to put out on cassette soon too, and George spoke to No Echo about the band. He admitted that there was some hesitation to form a new band because "hardcore is completely ageist," but that he just ended up getting back in touch with his punk and hardcore roots, wrote about 20 songs, and went ahead with it. He says:

I was just obsessing over what I loved about punk and hardcore. A band that would please my 15-year-old self. Some would vouch that I’ve been a moody person my entire life. I wanted to make something that reflected that. Doomy-gloomy-hardcore punk, whatever. Dave, the bass player, is the person I bounce most ideas off of, and we speak everyday.

Discharge, Motörhead, Nausea, Misfits/Samhain (if you know Dave this is a big talking point) are all things we spoke about. Random Japanese stuff like the band Ghoul. When I first showed the songs to everybody, there was a moment where Jeff and I looked at each other and he just said “Amebix," and I said, “Uhhh, fuck yea."

But also, something like Victim of Pain-era Agnostic Front may as well be tattooed on my soul, ya know? Its my favorite hardcore/punk LP of all time, so it would be hard to say it wasn’t an influence, even if none of us in the band talked about it specifically.

Things I was thinking a lot about while writing that no one else in the band cares for like Celtic Frost and Dream Death/Penance, even Shades of God-era Paradise Lost. Some of this stuff will reflect more in future releases, I think?

You can definitely hear all of those influences coming through in Staticlone's demo, which is a little rawer and grimier than Blacklisted, and George's rasp is perfect for this kinda stuff. Listen below.

George also mentioned in the interview that the band plans to self-release a 2-3 song flexi next year, and live shows are possible but nothing's been talked about yet. Stay tuned!