Full Contact performing at Season’s Beatings in Manchester. Credit: instagram.com/dvm.jpeg
Full Contact’s Elliott Pittard discusses his hardcore journey with feature writer Heidi Adam.
Believe it or not, Leicester has a hardcore scene. It’s easy to assume that such a small city – with hardly a mainstream music scene to begin with – would have no place for underground hardcore, but it does. It’s continuously growing and it’s violent as hell.
One of the most important contributors to this scene and its riotous spirit is beatdown quartet Full Contact, whose arrival in the scene made Leicester the beatdown capital of UK hardcore.
Beatdown – which means “a violent physical beating” – is a sub-genre of hardcore punk which takes influence from heavy metal, incorporating elements such as down-tuned, palm-muted guitar chugging and heavy, slow-paced breakdowns. It’s often dubbed a “tough-guy” genre due to the strong focus on violence in its lyrics and live shows.
Following the departure of Full Contact’s original vocalist, Elliott Pittard took over as the band’s frontman, and he recalls his introduction to the scene while sat in his second home, Duffy’s Bar, in Leicester.
It’s only 1pm and he already has a pint of Carling in his hand, but since we’re at an Irish pub on the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day, it seems perfectly acceptable.
“It probably started when I was about 12 or 13-years-old,” the frontman says. “My best friend at the time’s older brother used to put on gigs around Leicester. They weren’t purely hardcore – there was metalcore, deathcore, a variety of heavy music that people still flung their arms to, and then it just all grew from there.”
It’s hard to believe that there was a time when the Leicester scene wasn’t as violent as it is today, considering it’s carried by beatdown bands whose music is built around encouraging people to knock each other’s teeth out in the pit.
It is, however, easy to believe that Full Contact were the ones who laid that foundation. “There wasn’t really much on the violent side of things until we started putting on shows ourselves and things just got more aggressive,” Elliott says. “We started putting on a different variety of hardcore compared to what it used to be.”
The band’s most recent show was a big deal for them, as they opened for the godfathers of beatdown and the band they wouldn’t exist without – Bulldoze. Having sold out a 100-capacity Duffy’s, this marked Leicester’s biggest hardcore show to date.
“It was crazy, to be honest. Bulldoze are the band that started the genre we call ourselves, so it was just a surreal moment,” says Elliott.
Hardcore, especially beatdown, is best known for its live shows which consist of aggressive moshing and the controversial act of crowd killing, where members of the audience intentionally hurt those who are standing on the edge of the pit.
Having been involved in the scene for such a long time, Elliott has had his fair share of danger in mosh pits. “A lot of weapons have been used,” he says. “I’ve seen a guy with a broken leg at a show – and he used his crutch to smash it in people’s faces.
“I was once watching Higher Power and they set a flare off in the room. That was f*cking horrible,” he added.
At the start of each Full Contact set, Elliott has a routine of drunkenly singing cheesy ballads on-stage with a bottle of Captain Morgan in his hand, and it’s clear his taste isn’t just limited to tough-guy music with IQ-lowering riffs. “I’m sick of hardcore,” he jokes. “I listen to a lot of Motown, ska, grime… I like a bit of country as well.”
When he’s not on-stage screaming with his shirt off while holding a bottle of rum, he’s a trainee bricklayer, and there’s no doubt that balancing his work life with his band is physically demanding. “It’s horrible,” he says. “I’m just tired 24/7.”
In October, the band released their first EP in six years, East Mids Kings, and they recently stated on their Instagram that they have already made plans to head back into the studio in May to start recording the next one.
“From State of Unrest to East Mids Kings, the sound’s changed a bit, and it’s gonna be changing again,” says Elliott. “We’re gonna take a bit of influence from Prowler, Brutality Will Prevail, different bands, changing it up, bringing back the two-step as well.”
The hardcore scene, as a whole, isn’t perceived kindly by outsiders, from online performative activists who think crowd killing is an act of toxic masculinity, to metalheads who promise to beat the living daylight out of anyone who tries spin-kicking at a Pantera show.
Leicester’s bands, in particular, have actively hinted towards their scene being disliked within their own community, and there’s a trend of writing songs about keyboard warriors spewing hatred on the internet, which begs the question: What is it that people don’t like about this specific scene?
“Everyone is genuine here,” says Elliott. “We don’t just follow what other people tell people what to do. There are a lot of double standards out there. People in our scene get chastised for saying sh*t that other people, because they’re in the popular bands, get away with it.”
Hardcore fans have a reputation of gatekeeping, which often puts people off getting involved in the scene, and Elliott isn’t opposed to the idea of it. “I’m not gonna tell people: ‘F*ck off, you ain’t welcome here’ but hardcore is for everyone to try, but it’s not for everyone,” he says.
“People shouldn’t be new into the scene and then start trying to dictate how things should happen, how moshing should happen… If you wanna be involved in hardcore, shut the f*ck up and get on with it.”
As we’re currently living in an era where the music industry is carried by TikTok, there have also been endless debates and divided opinions over whether the app is good or bad for music scenes. Elliott has well-defined views on this.
“TikTok can f*ck off,” he says. “It’s not even the music side of things. Even away from music, f*ck TikTok.”
Alongside TikTok and hardcore dictators, he also hates when people in the scene cause drama online. “It’s rich coming from me when five to eight years ago, I was the king of internet drama,” he smiles. “I just can’t be arsed. Everyone needs to chill out.”
“The internet is the worst thing in hardcore,” he added. Luckily for him, the internet isn’t real life – regardless of what people are furiously typing on their keyboards, Leicester’s hardcore scene is thriving, and it will continue to thrive with each live show.