Interview: Banged Out Get Real About the Austin Hardcore Scene

Underground newcomers Banged Out have only been performing together for about a year now in the Austin hardcore scene, but they’ve made quite an impact in their community since they’re inception. The band is only composed of three members, drummer and vocalist Ulises Chavez, bassist Xavier Keller, and spearhead of the project, lead vocalist and lead guitarist, Leah Miller, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from their commanding, chest stomping sound. The DIY spirit and the art of creating something from nothing are the core foundations of this band, which is why they continue to strive and prosper in a scene that’s built on such values. Just over the past year, Banged Out has performed at Rickshaw Billies Burger Patrol’s beloved Big Dumb Fest, Don’t Mess With Texas Women: an all female fronted benefit show with proceeds donated to fund women’s reproductive rights, and are set to play Levitation Fest: a four day music festival showcasing some of Austin’s best local talent. On top of all these significant bills, Banged Out released their debut LP, Heaven Sent. Off Record got a chance to sit down with lead vocalist and mastermind behind the project Leah Miller to discuss the formation of the band, the Austin music scene, and the challenges they faced along the way.

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ORB: How did the concept of this band come to life? What made you all decide you wanted to play in a hardcore band and how did you find each other?

Leah Miller: I hadn’t made heavy music for like a seven year span. When I was 19 or 20, I did this band called Threads, it was like melodic hardcore. It was like weird heavy music. It was trying to be somewhere between like a Touche and like a Code Orange type of thing. And then I didn’t make music for seven years, and then I moved here with my indie pop band, and then COVID happened and the indie pop band broke up, and then I met the drummer for Banged Out a Guitar Center on the southside of Austin. Ulises is sick nasty, you know? I could tell he was going to be tremendous in a heavy band but he only played in pop bands so he never got to shine, only got to like sit in the back.  So I was like hey, we should do something. It would be amazing if you were in a band where people could really tell you’re a shredder. And I was like, I would like to write one heavy record that specifically uses Kurt Valou from Converge, he’s the guitarist from Converge. He has all these drum samples, because he makes all these records at his studio in Massachusetts, God City. But he did Nails, Converge, and Code Orange, and a bunch of other sh-t. I was like dude, these drums sound f-ckin’ insane. If I ever get back in the heavy space, I’m going to use these drum samples, I’m going to have a drummer who can play circles around me, and then I’m going to try and make it as catchy and as fun as possible. So I tried to do that with Banged Out and like actually be like oh there should be a chorus structure, there should be a verse, there should be a bridge, not just like heavy riff A, heavy riff B, heavy riff C. So that’s kind of the foundation of Banged Out, like let’s try and make it catchy, like a pop song, but fun and heavy, like a real heavy song. It feels like it makes so much more sense with Banged Out than it did with my previous band, Threads, where I was trying to figure out riffs and I was just like ‘I don’t know, I guess that sounds like a riff.’

ORB: Do you still have your indie project going? And do you ever bring elements of that style of music into Banged Out or is that just a completely different space for you to express yourself in other ways?

LM: For the most part I feel like it’s completely different. It’s like Banged Out is catchy, riffy, in my head, it’s very danceable. I took a lot of the Banged Out tracks and put them in a trap production, where it’s just like a bass synth and just like a simple trap drum kit you would hear on the radio, and it worked like a charm. That sh-t sounded like Cardi B meets Meg Thee Stallion. It was awesome, it’s almost cooler than Banged Out. Honestly, I was like ‘Oh my god. Maybe I just did Bnaged Out to learn this type of production. This is so crazy. This has all the stuff I love from Banged Out. It feels dancey, it feels heavy, but it felt digestible, you know? So there’s a little bit of crossover from the indie pop sh-t that I do and the Banged Out stuff because some of that is like R&B/heavy, or hip-hop heavy on certain tracks. But a lot of that is just like drug music, like feel good drug music. Which is where I spend most of my time enjoying music. If I could just go up there and play Frank Ocean and SZA covers all day, I would, but with Banged Out, I get to sprinkle in a couple little happy licks in and people just go, “Wow, what the f-ck! I haven’t heard a single happy chord all night!” And then we switch it back to the heavy sh-t. It comes off as like a cool easter egg type of moment, but I don’t think we could just go up there and play just like a whole happy and melodic song for two minutes. People would be like, “What the f-ck, this sucks”. But like structure wise, I totally think, even though it’s a heavy song, it should have a call back, all these things that give people the sense of conclusion, or oh that was a whole ass roller coaster ride. That all comes from pop music, none of that comes from heavy music. But bands like Slipknot were like doing that sh-t. They were like the first heavy band I heard, I was like 25 when I went back and relistened to Slipknot, instead of being like 12 or 13, and I was like ‘oh my god, they’re doing key changes? They’re doing callbacks to this, that, and the other? There’s all these reasons why it all works, like on a music theory level. Most heavy music I think is just randomly heavy. There’s not like this underlying structure to fall back on. You can’t do a key change in a heavy song and it’s cool, but Slipknot does it and it’s cool. So it’s like sh-t like that really made me think, oh I have learned a bunch of sh-t from working on pop music the last seven years. I think if I use those same rules to write songs, I can write heavy songs that I f-ck with, and so far people have been f-ckin’ with them. So that’s been affirming to be like, people like it when you do this storytelling within a song, even if it’s with respect to just the music in general, not even the lyrics. It feels like something has happened. Little stuff like that seems to be getting picked up by the audience.

ORB: Totally like that one track that you have with the whistling intro at the beginning. It’s like something you’d get from an indie tune but then it’s really heavy at the same time.

LM: For sure, and I think a lot of people were like, I’ve never experienced that, you know? Even though it’s only a fifteen second whistle track. But it does kind of feel like you’re putting you’re hair down. I love the idea that you’re on a rollercoaster and I get to control when you fall and when you go back up. When you get to feel like you’ve made it up to heaven for a second and then you’re back in hell, and you’re like god f-cking damn it, this is relentless!

ORB: As an openly trans front woman, do you talk about your experience in your lyrics and music at all and do you think that has an effect on how that band is received? How has the local scene in Austin embraced you and do you think your support is impacted by that fact or do you think it doesn’t matter as long as you’re making great music?

LM: I do think it makes an impact. I just thought with Banged Out, I was like yeah I’m trans and that could be an angle but if the whole thing is there’s this band with a trans-girl but they suck, no one’s going to give a sh-t. So we had to actually be the best band you see that night, or else no one’s going to care. If I don’t give you goosebumps, you’re not going to remember my name, it doesn’t matter how pretty I am or how bad we are. If I don’t give you goosebumps, you’re going to be like, what the f-ck, and just get on with your life. So it’s always got to be pound for pound, good as f-ck. But then on top of that, I would say being openly trans in the band, and I try not to make it too political because I’m not trying to preach while I’m up there, but yes the lyrics are about like dealing with dysmorphia, not feeling good enough, some of our songs are about people who have died because of shame and everything else involved, you know, I struggle with a lot of suicidal thoughts, I’m still beating myself up some days, I still have bruises when I go to work and sh-t like that, so even I’m trying to work through all my bullsh-t. But shows here in Austin have been crazy because time and time again, people will come up to me, lgbt folks, trans folks, and they’ll be like “I just started taking HRT like 2 weeks ago” , “I didn’t know you existed, this means so much to me”. And I’ll be like, oh cool, thanks, blah, blah, blah. And then they’ll be like I know Banged Out, I know Julia Dream, which is that indie project that I was telling you about, my other thing that I do on the side to let the happy, joy music out, and I’m like oh, you’re like a real fan. Some of these people are like, yo, I’ve been to all of your shows. Before our record came out they were like can I just like listen to your Youtube live set and put it on a CD and like me and my friends will just listen to that? And I was like, oh my god you legit love this band, and I like to think it’s because I write great riffs but at the same time I know it’s because like part of you sees yourself in me, and that’s awesome, I’m happy to do that, you know? Like f-ck yeah, give it up for the girlies. Let’s riff, give it up for anyone who’s feeling it. I do think there’s that excitement on that level of it. And definitely when they come up to me and they’re so excited. Like people are so excited they don’t even tell me their name. They’re like oh my god you’re amazing (random gibberish), which is super validating, like f-ck yeah, thanks, I’m super glad I didn’t off myself this year and I’m still here to hang out and have great moments like this. And when they tell you real sh-t like that, I’m like wait what was your name? And they’re like oh my god, I almost forgot, my name is such and such, I’m like yeah you matter, you’re awesome. That feels dope, that feels super dope. It feels like a little garden that’s starting to get planted, overtime maybe I’ll get a little bit of clout, as like maybe she’s the queen of trans metal, I don’t know, whatever, that’d be cool. But yeah, it’s cool that it means something to these people because I’ve never been in a band where people adored the band. I feel like I’ve always been in a band that’s like half gimmick, half talent and I feel like Banged Out is actually super talented and happens to be with a trans girl and people perceive our drummer as super hispanic and people see our bassist as like a white guy, even though he’s hispanic. So even right there we cover our bases. People come up to me, they can barely speak english and they’re like your band’s f-cking incredible, your drummer’s amazing. I’m like dude, I think you see yourself in him, that’s awesome. And then there’s people who are scared to talk to trans people, who have never met a trans person, especially a talented one or whatever, so they’re kind of threatened and I’m taller than them as well. So I can see dudes kind of hold back a little bit. They’re like yeah, yeah, or they just say dude, dude, dude, which is fine. But, anyway, I can just tell they’re trying to give me compliments and not put their foot in their mouth or they’re just nervous to talk to me, and they felt way more comfortable talking to my drummer and my bassist, but they told my drummer and bassist how amazing I am, but then they felt nervous when they talked to me. So it’s weird, because like some of it is actually making people face a trans person for the first time and be like wow, maybe they were kind of transphobic and now they’re like not only is she hot but she f-ckin’ rips, what the f-ck? And I think that may be intimidating at first as well, but usually they come around and they’re like my girlfriend likes this band, I like this band, this is sick.

ORB: That’s really cool because it’s like a testament to just how people genuinely enjoy the music whereas even if they come from a homophobic or transphobic background, you can’t even deny this band is awesome, which is a really cool thing to see.

LM: Amen, I totally agree. And there’s still a part of me that’s like, I know that’s the ultimate thing that defuses this ignorance towards us and part of me is like can we go on a DIY tour from here to FL and back? F-ck no, dude. Someone’s going to try to make an example out of me. Like when we set up, I swear to god, most of the time, unless they know who we are first, if it’s a fresh crowd, fresh spot, they do not like us. The sound guys don’t like us, the crowd looks at us like what the f-ck is she up there for? I don’t play the right guitar, I don’t have the right gear, and then we sound check and they’re like hold on, what’s up? Play some more of that sh-t and by then end of the set, they’re usually comfortable giving it up. But I’m not trying to be in some backwoods  f-ckin’ town and then someone tries to make an example out of me because their dad has been mean to them their whole life, and they finally see a trans person who’s better at guitar than them or some bullsh-t, and then their like you f-ckin’ blah, blah, blah. I’ve already had enough bad things happen in my life, I’m not trying to have anymore, but I do have that dilemma where I’m like we rock so f-ckin’ hard that we can change people’s minds. And that’s kind of powerful isn’t it? Because like some days I think even as a person, not even as a musician, I’m like what is my goal today? I’m like well, if I go to work and I just show people how cool trans people can be, I think that’s a good thing. Like if you met ten trans people and I’m one of them, you’d be like damn, this b-tch is dope. She hooked it up, gave me free queso at work, or whatever. As long as I try to be as cool, as awesome, as nice to everyone I guess that has a cumulative effect hopefully over time that shows trans people are dope. Because a lot of trans people are very quiet, very autistic, very removed. They feel like they’re a burden in the room, and I feel all that as well but in Banged Out I can’t be hiding in the corner, crying. I have to actually act like I’m confident, like I know what the f-ck I’m doing, because everyone’s going to give it up once they see me on stage and think, oh this b-tch really knows what she’s doing. But yeah, I’m also really introverted and feel like I have to apologize at a lot of our shows because I’m like oh, not enough people came, I can’t believe I invited these people, I’m so sorry, blah, blah, blah. Then it turns out to be a banger, like an hour later there’s like a hundred people, and I’m like nevermind, this show’s sick. But I’m always like oh this show sucks, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I feel like I’m forcing myself on to people, I don’t know. There’s all these things about being trans where you think you’re a burden, you’ve been conditioned to think that you’re a burden in so many situations whether your family rejects you, or mean customers at work, or it’s just like people looking at me because I know they don’t f-ck with trans people and they just happen to be at this heavy show, and I gotta get through that awkward phase of like yeah, but check this sh-t out, and hopefully I can win them over. I feel that and I feel that for other people in the room, and I think of them in that way like oh, is this person doing alright? I’ve been getting better at trying to talk to people who are too nervous to talk to me, because they come from that same struggle of oh, I feel like a burden. A lot of them are younger than me and they just feel like “Oh, you’re a rock star, I just saw you play and now I’m scared to talk to you.” I’m like no this band is for you, like check this shit out. Please grab as much sh-t as you can.

ORB: What do you think makes the Austin hardcore scene special and how do you think it compares to other hardcore scenes around the state or country even?

LM: The only thing I can really compare it to…I did a lot of east coast touring and midwest touring in my last band, Threads. I came to Texas with that band and we were just trying to DIY tour as much as we could. Back then it would have been 2014-2017 and then I took a long seven year sabbatical where I’m not going to hardcore shows, I’m not even listening to heavy music, I’m just marinating on pop sh-t for seven years, and then I came back. By the time I came back I’m in Austin but the big difference between those two eras in my life is like back in 2015/2014, there was not the level of inclusivity that I see here. Like I be seein’ a lot…I guess Bnaged Out happens to fall into a lot of categories of this where it’s like we get asked to play a lot of fem heavy bills, where it’s like everyone on this bill is like a fem singer of some sort, blah, blah, blah, or we fall under some sort of lgbt category, or we just fall under some sort of sick f-ckin’ metal category, which is cool. I just see bands with so many different types of people in it, whether it’s plus size people, trans people, gay people, more people of color, which is probably because I moved from a town of 15,000 people to a town of 2 million people here, but it went from house show vibes where there’s a few people here who have the courage to be themselves, but you saw a lot more posturing, a lot more self censorship back in 2014/2015. There was a lot more pressure to be tough and cool. And maybe that’s because I was young and I experienced it that way where I wasn’t even confident enough to be myself back then. I was trying to find an identity as someone who plays guitar and trying to be cool. This time around, it’s amazing to be here in Austin because there’s so many great venues that people take for granted, I guess, but here in Austin it’s f-cking awesome to have. Literally we’d have to drive f-cking hours to get to a venue that has subwoofers so that you can feel the kick in your chest. That was terrible! Two hours each way just to get to a venue and play for twenty kids because you’re this band from out of town that no one f-ckin’ knows. So to be here in Austin, to be twenty minutes away from Rainy St. or Red River and be like yo, we ripped half of these venues, not only that but the sound guys love us, we’re just simple easy to mix, and we can give you goosebumps from the floor up, that’s incredible. It’s like we’re movie makers and we get IMAX presentations to go around and display our product. It’s like, when we’re playing house shows it’s like I’m showing you the album through speakers on the phone sometimes. It’s like it’s there, it’s raw, but I wish the drummer was pushing it through your f-ckin’ chest. I wish we were 110 percent demanding via sonic audio, and when we play really good venues, that happens. It’s like holy sh-t, you want to be a drummer after you see Banged Out. You want to play guitar after you see our band. F-ck, you might even want to get into a metal band and a lot of people will come up and be like we don’t even like metal, but we like your band, and I’m like that’s what’s up. I think that’s once again, our presentation and being able to lean on a scene that actually is funded. I used HAAM health care the first couple years I lived here. My first apartment complex here in Austin was a place where I could practice in my apartment, which was dope to save on a practice space and all that sh-t. And even here in Austin people are so chill, you end up working with so many musicians that I’ve literally just been like hey, I got to go play a show. I can’t clock out but I’ll be back in an hour then I just leave my job, go rip a gig, and come back and everything’s chill. You don’t find that in most small towns or just regular cities. That’s definitely like an Austinite heavy…like you might be in Austin if you can do this type of vibe. That sh-t’s all been dope.

ORB: If there’s one message of feeling that you want people to get out of your music, what would that be?

LM: It’s a little campy but really it’s just you can do this. Whether that means oh I don’t want to kill myself, I just want to f-ck with a heavy song and just scream at whatever and just get over it, I think that’s how people initially interpret it, but I mean it down to the gear. I mean it down to the point that I made the record for less than $300, mixed, mastered, tracked, everything. My guitar costs less than $200, super f-ckin’ cheap. You can get that guitar, you can rip. I tried to make the barrier for entry for this band so low, while also just not spending money to be in a f-ckin’ band, because that’s another thing when people get super wrapped up in bands, they just start spending thousands of f-ckin’ dollars. Just to get a decent recording is about a G per song. You do a music video, you’re talking 3-4 Gs. You promote a music video on Facebook or Instagram, you can easily put 2-5 Gs into that. Some people put 20 grand into their advertising. People get CARRIED away by the idea of their dreams coming true. So with Banged Out, I was like I’m almost kind of done with music, I don’t know if I really want to do this sh-t. I just want to get my surgeries and finish up my transition but, I happen to rip and I have all these songs that I think are really cool, and I have this drummer who’s f-ckin’ amazing and we have this bassist, Xavier, who sounds like me on the bass. There’s a whole lot of good things going on here, I guess we should just see it through and see what happens, and so far it’s been two thumbs up. But my thing is people always ask us, “how did you get that tone? How did your drummer learn how to scream?” I never even screamed until I got in this band. I was thinking about getting a homie from the East Coast to do vocals via  the computer and we would just never play shows as Banged Out because we could never find a vocalist. And I was like, well that’s stupid. And then I was like well what if I give myself three to six months to figure out how to scream? And I was like, yeah, do that, believe in yourself, what are you doing? So I did that and it sounded pretty f-ckin’ good, and then six months from then it sounded even better, and then everything was fine. Originally we didn’t have our drummer doing any vocals. We were going to get our original bassist, but then that didn’t work out, so then it was just me and the drummer and I was like dude, I know you’ve never played in a metal band like this where you’re just blast beating like crazy, but I need you to do vocals on top of it. Like don’t freak out, just try it. Like, what if, you know? Then we tried it and it worked. Like holy sh-t, okay turns out, you can just do this sh-t. Even my gear, my guitar head, it’s like a $200 head. I buy all Guitar Center used, every f-cking time. I went through two of them because they’re cheap, but it’s super cheap. I leave all my settings at noon. People don’t even understand how I get the tone out of my guitar, it’s a cheap ass head, but I don’t even understand it, but you can do it, because I’m doing it. And the tuning that I use, it’s kind of like a tricky tuning, and guitarist, it always blows their mind I guess, but for all the nerds that are listening, that are reading this interview, however it comes out, it’s drop tuning, open whatever, so it’s like a half step lower than Slipknot, but the bottom two strings are tuned to a panic chord. So when you hear me hitting those really high pitched squeely wheelies, I can do a power chord with this finger (pointer), and then I just switch to my pinky and I can do the really high ones, so it’s like do do do, beeeee, do do do, beeee. But once you get that tuning, it’s like oh, my god, this is so easy. You can look like you know how to shred on guitar if you just f-ck with this. But that’s something I learned from the Rolling Stones. F-cking Keith Richards doesn’t even play with five strings on his f-cking guitar. Or he only plays with five not six. He cuts the big E string off of his guitar. He puts it in the tuning of a G chord, not an E chord. So when you strum it, without fingering anything on the chord it rings a G chord as if you were doing a cowboy G chord. And once you do this fretting, you find that all these chords are just two finger chords and you can play like forty five Rolling Stones songs, and it’s bananas. It’s like the ultimate cheat cut and I thought, what the f-ck, and that got me thinking about this band and someone showed me a tic-tok. Our old bassist showed me this metalcore tuning and thought that’s crazy. I’m pretty ambitious as a guitar player. I’m not going to take an easy way out. I bet you I can do some crazy sh-t with it, and it led to this which is my favorite band I’ve done so far. But even that, the barrier of entry is even lower than people expect. It’s like dude with three or four ideas you could be up here ripping as hard, or harder than us, and I hope you f-ckin do because the scene only gets as good as the bands that are in it. And we’ve been getting the nod from a lot of the bands that we’re like one of the best bands to come on the scene this year, which is dope. And we love it when the energies are matched because you can tell the crowd loves it, the bills love it, and the scene loves it and it’s like oh sh-t, here we go. So yeah it’s fun to volley off of eachother and be like oh, I’m fuckin’ jealous of this sh-t y’all did, that new song is crazy, that breakdown, blah, blah, blah, I’m jealous I didn’t write it, and I makes me want to get more hungry where it’s like yo let’s see who can do this the fuckin’ biggest and baddest. Let’s push ourselves to be the biggest scene because if not people just end up leaving Austin like well we’re a legit band because we don’t play in our hometown anymore or whatever. But we haven’t done any touring or anything like that. Once again, going back to our earlier sh-t, I don’t know where we should go. Should we go super progressive? Should we just be like f-ck lets just go anywhere and hit it? I think 2025 we’re going to try and at least do some Texas dates, if not, a ten or twenty day tour here and there and see where it goes.