Anyone who’s seen Drain live has felt it. The electricity coming off of the stage. The communal energy of the fans singing upfront. The primal thrills of fists flying in the moshpit. The uninhibited joy emanating from every banging head, screaming lung, and airborne foot in that room. There’s nothing like a Drain show. There’s no other hardcore band like Drain. The Santa Cruz band is an institution in their genre and an affable neighbor to their adjacent ones. Punks love Drain. Metalheads love Drain. Haters can’t help but love Drain. Drain is for everyone. Well, venue security guards might not love Drain. But to everyone else: Drain…Is Your Friend. Drain -- frontman Sammy Ciaramitaro, guitarist Cody Chavez, and drummer Tim Flegal -- formed back in 2014 and cut their teeth in Santa Cruz’s fertile DIY hardcore scene. COVID lockdown couldn’t stop their 2020 debut, California Cursed, from making waves, and their 2023 follow-up, Living Proof, hit the hardcore scene like a Cali beach during hurricane season -- a torrential classic. Since then, Drain have blazed through hundreds of shows worldwide: headlining festivals, taking their friends and heroes on tour, and even playing arenas with Blink-182. Regardless of whether they're opening for pop-punk jukeboxes like Neck Deep or grabbing the stage-dive torch from Terror, Drain’s only goal is to make the crowd go buckwild.
The Casualties are the voice of the disenfranchised, the disillusioned and the dispossessed of this planet. The band originally formed in 1990, but these street fighters are still angry, still political and are still keeping the heart and spirit of punk alive. Founded on a mission to revive the sound of punk pioneers like The Exploited and The Sex Pistols, they lyrically weave in scathing denouncements of authority into frantic anthems of resistance, totaling to eleven studio full-lengths, three EPs and three live albums so far. The Casualties are David Rodriguez (vocalist), Jake Kolatis (guitarist), Marc “Meggers” Eggers (drums) and Doug Wellmon (bass).