For musical inspiration, vocalist Josh Taylor looks to people you wouldn’t usually read about in the pages of Metal Hammer. “I love Robbie Williams, he’s a proper showman,” he enthuses, recalling how the pop singer’s dramatic entrance at his legendary 2003 Knebworth shows were a lightbulb moment. “When he came onstage dangling upside down… I’ve got to do that!”
Josh doesn’t spend live shows suspended in mid-air – not yet, anyway. But in the nine years since The Hara formed in Manchester, they’ve built a rep off the back of silly TikTok videos that bring their dry sense of humour to the fore, plus whirlwind performances anchored in angsty punk rebellion, anthemic choruses and bouncy metalcore.
Completed by guitarist Zack Breen and drummer Jack Kennedy, their early days were all about visual excess; Josh would perform in skirts and capes, often stripping down to boxers and boots. The message behind their glammy, ostentatious sound was one of inclusivity.
“Because I’ve struggled with accepting myself so much, I’m giving myself permission and other people permission to not judge each other,” he explains. “I want to be free of that.”
That statement remains at the core of the band’s second album, The Fallout, although they’ve switched things up both musically and aesthetically. It’s much heavier than their previous material, stripping everything back, they say, to capture The Hara in their “rawest form”. The music video for recent single Easier To Die sees the band in leather trousers, shirts off, on an abandoned rooftop in London, the camera circling them in one shot as Josh screams over electrified riffs.
“The idea behind it was to capture the energy,” says Josh. “The whole album is about owning up to the vulnerabilities we feel as people and as musicians, and we wanted to show that in the sound and outfits. We wanted to simplify it so the music speaks, and be like: ‘Here we are. No fancy shit. Just have it.’”
While Zack and Jack grew up listening to bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Dream Theater, Josh is a newcomer to our world. His bandmates introduced him to metal, and he’s found the metal community “daunting” at times.
“People can be very like, ‘You’re not heavy enough,’” he says, although the band maintain there’s a place for them in today’s dynamic scene, haters be damned.
“There’s so much flavour now in metal,” adds Zack. “We just do our thing and I think we belong and full stop.”
“We always want the music and the shows to do the talking,” Jack continues. “Similar to with our TikTok videos, we joke around, we have a bit of fun, but we play sick music and that’s what we’re about: having sick music that we believe in, that we love to do.”
For Josh, discovering vocalists like Architects’ Sam Carter and Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes has been a revelation. “The first proper scream I did was completely by accident on our debut album on a song called Jesus,” he remembers. “This sound came out of my mouth and I was like, ‘What the fuck was that?’ I had no idea how I did it and I couldn’t replicate it for ages, but I’ve definitely progressed and started to use that as a tool for the new sound. If you listen to the first EP to the new album, it’s a completely different vocalist.”
It’s a technique he’s had to hone to do the new songs justice. Underneath the swagger and bravado, songs like Easier To Die and the slick, powerful Trophy reveal the band’s vulnerabilities like raw skin. In the former, Josh sings: ‘Too much time inside my head… Where flowers used to grow, bullets fly instead.’
After a few buzzy years which had seen the band hit most of the major festivals, including a packed tent at Download Pilot in 2021 and Main Stage appearances at Leeds and Reading, as well as releasing their 2023 debut album, Survival Mode, they parted ways with their label, Scruff Of The Neck Records. Although they relished the independence, the move also left them feeling exposed and adrift. It felt like their momentum was stalling.
“There was a lot of fear, doubt and anger,” says Josh. “That feeling of, ‘What the fuck are we doing?’ It feels like you’re pushing and nothing is happening. We’re saying, ‘We’re not OK, but we’re OK with that.’”
For new album The Fallout, the band signed a deal with Mascot Records, the home of Black Stone Cherry and Fozzy, and now they’re looking to the future. Last year they supported Ice Nine Kills on tour, and there’s a sense of rebuilding momentum again with the new music. Not only is it heavier, the band have experimented with electronics – like on recent single Violence, a synthy collab with genre-mashers As December Falls, letting the sound take them where they want. It’s been freeing and the sky, they say, is the limit.
“It’s got this chaotic spirit,” Zack says of The Fallout. “If you listen from track one all the way to the end, it’s a journey. There’s fire underneath it.”
“Since day one, we’ve always wanted the moon – tour the world, crack America. We’ll see where it takes us,” adds Josh. “And I would love to dangle upside down at a stadium.”
The Fallout is out now via Mascot.
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