HardLore – The Best of HardLore 2025

Hosts: Colin Young & Bo Lueders
Release Date: December 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of HardLore, titled "The Best of HardLore 2025," serves as an energetic and colorful year-end retrospective. Hosts Colin Young and Bo Lueders guide listeners through a curated assortment of standout clips and memorable moments from the year’s episodes. The episode is a patchwork of stories, iconic quotes, legendary scene lore, and candid (often hilarious) anecdotes collected from guests who shape the punk, hardcore, and metal touring circuit. Longtime fans and new listeners alike receive a whirlwind tour through backstage mayhem, onstage chaos, and everything in between—capturing the heart and humor of hardcore culture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Major Label Gamble & Industry Lore

• Choice of Dreamworks Records:
  Discussion about how Dreamworks (not Shrek-related) became the label home, stemming less from strategy and more from relationships—particularly with A&R guy Luke who had ties to other pivotal acts like Elliott Smith (00:30).
  • “Every major label and every major manager wants us based on Art of Browning. ...They have no idea what's coming, which is what's so crazy. It's like a weird way of gambling.”
    – Guest (approx 02:00)
• Departure from Record Label:
  "He sat us down and said, I think it's time for you to leave. Right? When he knew we were going to say, hey, can we please go?”
  – Recounting label owner’s frankness (03:30)

2. Tour Antics & Tour Games

• The Splash Zone:
  Insider lingo for tossing extra sauce from a car—often resulting in accidental “self-splashing.”
  • “I entered my own splash zone, man.” – Guest (10:46)
• Moonings on Tour:
  Discussion about the tradition (or non-tradition) of mooning from the tour van, eliciting boisterous laughter and kinship—“You show your ass. I don’t show my ass. Let’s try.” (16:14)

3. Hardcore Scene Infamy

• Earth Crisis & The Floorpunch Yogurt Incident:
  Legendary retellings of the notorious 1996 show derailed by a “yogurt carpet bombing”, blending humor and reflection on hardcore’s aggressive, prankster roots.
  • “You can't destroy the spirit in this machine, my friend.”
    – Carl (Earth Crisis), (39:44)
  • “People are throwing yogurt and they're unplugging our gear...our fans kept singing even without the guitars.”
    – Carl, (41:10)
• Facing Adversity Onstage:
  The crowd’s unity in unfriendly circumstances. “They actually got up on stage and made a little wall around us. So it was amazing, man.” – Carl, (43:20)

4. Legendary Band Name Debates

• Goo Goo Dolls & Mighty Mighty Bosstones:
  Playful critique and punk banter about confusing or cringey band names.
  • “Goo Goo. Why did it have to be twice, you know?” – Colin, (29:20)
  • “Mighty Boss Tones. Genius. You add mighty, Mighty...it’s Vince McMahon falling off the chair. Like, unreal.” – Bo, (30:00)

5. Crossover Moments: Hardcore X Celebrity Culture

• Speed & Kourtney Kardashian:
  Australian band Speed shares a surreal LA show story—Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian in the wings, Kardashian declaring, “I reckon I could do this,” about performing hardcore vocals.
  • “...I went and spoke to ...Courtney was there and she's like telling me they just had a baby called Rocky. ...And Travis was like, oh, you. You should try being like a hardcore vocalist. You sound like the guy from Speed.” (32:40)

6. Tour Mishaps & Legends

• The Tale of 'Shark' the Incompetent Tour Driver:
  Hair-raising and comedic retelling: car accidents, near misses, culminating in firing the “worst shark in the world.”
  • “He almost gets us hit by a train. I'm not kidding.” – Bo, (1:02:10)
  • “You gotta be a driving wizard to be shark dude. ...You're the worst shark in the world.” – Colin, (1:03:30)

7. Sing-along Etiquette & Pile-ons

• Expounding stage-diving, sing-along tradition, evolving etiquette, and crowd behavior.
  • “You gotta climb the mountain to get to the singer. ...They're cheating now. Yeah. They're going to the drums. They're coming right up to you. Just no etiquette.” – Colin, (1:08:44)

8. Lyrical Depth vs. Primal Outrage

• Songwriting Insights:
  “All my songs are just a primal outage. All. Every Peeling Flesh song is about a different way of beating the *** out of someone. Just primal. Caveman. Just bunga bunga.” (1:12:50)

9. Scene Debates & Favorite Records

• On-the-Street Fan Interactions:
  Candid interviews with South Florida hardcore fans.
  • “Could you name your top four favorite hardcore records?...” – Colin — Rapid-fire, encyclopedic scene knowledge by teens (1:26:20)
• Warzone vs. Sick of It All:
  Playful, heated bracket debate.
  • “I think longevity has to be a factor here, and that's a huge part of my thinking.” – James, (1:47:30)

10. Personal Stories – Vulnerability & Humor

• Home Intruder Paranoia:
  A host’s naked (literally) misadventure, gun in hand, searching for a would-be burglar in his home, only to discover a loose screen door.
  (55:30)
• MySpace Arrest Story:
  Guest recounts being arrested for a MySpace joke, handed a printed comment by police, and enduring “no Internet” probation.
  • “They printed out the MySpace comment...They slide it across the table, ‘Did you write this?’” – Guest, (1:30:15)

11. Behind the Scenes: Live TV & Hardcore on Screen

• Mayans TV Show Performance:
  HardLore alumni recounts performing “Skinhead” live for a fictional white power gang scene in Mayans—a “dream come true” for a hardcore band, even if the shoot felt endless for seconds of screen time.
  • “I was there for 13 hours. ...But dude, it's like this pinnacle... People are getting murdered. Mexi is beating a man half to death with a baseball bat...” – Guest, (1:19:10)

12. Ghost Stories, Venue Lore, and Scene History

• Haunted Venues:
  A tour of Chicago’s Metro and Fireside Bowl venues—part history, part urban legend, part scene nostalgia.
  • “Now, where you are currently watching us from ...is the point of view of every artist that ever played the Fireside bowl because you are currently on the very stage...” – Colin, (1:58:00)
• Swedish Hardcore Origins:
  Discussion of discovering Umeå’s Demon System 13, showing the international web of hardcore influences.
  • “My homie gave me a record of...DS13 and it was just so, like, dope for me...That's where it went hard for me.” – Guest, (2:12:20)

13. Brutally Honest Reflections

• Circa Survive Hiatus:
  Frontman’s deeply personal account of the emotional dissolution and aftermath of Circa Survive.
  • “When that went down, talk about things I wish I would have done different...such a heartbreaking thing. I never imagined it going away the way it went.” – Guest, (1:52:40)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You can't destroy the spirit in this machine, my friend.” – Carl (Earth Crisis), (39:44)
• “You show your ass. I don’t show my ass. Let’s try.” – Tour Antics, (16:14)
• “I entered my own splash zone, man.” – Tour Mishap, (10:46)
• “Goo Goo. Why did it have to be twice, you know?” – Colin, (29:20)
• “I reckon I could do this.” – Kourtney Kardashian (as relayed by Speed), (32:40)
• “He almost gets us hit by a train. I'm not kidding.” – Bo, (1:02:10)
• “All my songs are just a primal outage...Just caveman. Just bunga bunga.” – Peeling Flesh vocalist, (1:12:50)
• “They printed out the MySpace comment...They slide it across the table, ‘Did you write this?’” – Guest, (1:30:15)
• “When that went down, talk about things I wish I would have done different...such a heartbreaking thing. I never imagined it going away the way it went.” – Circa Survive frontman, (1:52:40)

Key Timestamps

• 00:00-03:00 — Year-in-review intro, setup for clips, holiday greetings
• 10:30-13:00 — Splash Zone explanation and story
• 16:10-18:00 — Tour mooning antics
• 29:15-30:30 — Band name discussion (Goo Goo Dolls, Mighty Mighty Boss Tones)
• 32:20-34:40 — Speed, Travis Barker & Kourtney Kardashian backstage story
• 39:30-44:00 — Earth Crisis, yogurt incident and response
• 55:30-57:40 — Naked home-intruder story
• 1:02:10-1:04:20 — The saga of Shark, the worst driver
• 1:12:50 — Peeling Flesh primal songwriting insight
• 1:19:00 — Mayans TV show hardcore band feature
• 1:26:20 — South Florida teens rattle off top hardcore records
• 1:30:15 — Arrested for a MySpace joke
• 1:47:30 — Warzone vs. Sick of It All bracket debate
• 1:52:40 — Circa Survive’s painful hiatus & aftermath
• 1:58:00 — Fireside Bowl legend and lore
• 2:12:20 — Discovery of Swedish hardcore

Tone & Style

The episode is brimming with the signature HardLore tone—irreverent, knowledgeable, affectionate, and raw. Hosts and guests oscillate between deep reverence for hardcore’s history and pure, self-mocking storytelling. They’re unafraid to reveal the absurd, sticky realities of scene life or to probe community-defining moments with honesty and wit. The style is rapid-fire, conversational, and peppered with in-house references and lingo, democratizing the genre’s mythos for insiders and newcomers alike.

Conclusion

"The Best of HardLore 2025" is a rollercoaster through hardcore, punk, and metal history as filtered through the laughs and scars of its torchbearers. The stories collected here animate legends—of stages packed beyond capacity, moonlit pranks, yogurt warfare, fleeting relationships, and star-studded surrealism. Pulled together by two scene veterans with a keen eye for what keeps hardcore alive, this episode is both a love letter and a comic zine to what makes the culture special: chaos, camaraderie, and always, lore.