Introducing: ENGINES OF AGGRESSION

Arizona-based ENGINES OF AGGRESSION are shaking up the industrial rock genre with a gritty, bold post-punk and nu-metal leaning sound that they describe as “heavy, melodic and honest.”

The band first emerged in the early 1990s Los Angeles rock scene, when Tripp Holland was, in his words, “a frustrated drummer who’d been in every band in town for five minutes and decided in order to really get any momentum and have a real say in my future I’d need to take the wheel and be the leader/singer.” He changed his name, wrote a batch of songs and sketched out the vision for the band he wanted to be in.

Based in a tiny apartment in Hollywood, armed with a cheap drum machine, a pawn shop Strat, a four-track cassette deck and a head full of ideas, Tripp got to work, including modelling his look on Bow Bow Bow guitarist’s tribal-looking mohawk. The band started out as Angry Injunz, which evolved to Engines and, after pulling a dictionary off the shelf, it didn’t take long to land on Aggression.

Tripp placed ads in the weekly LA ad paper, The Recycler, which the likes of Metallica and Motley Crue used to find members before the Internet. He discovered Rik Schaffer, who had enthusiasm, but Tripp considered him and his girlfriend to look too “high maintenance and very posh.” Undeterred, Rik went away, cut his hair off, changed his look and apparently ditched the girlfriend, returning the next day and instantly had himself a new band. They soon recruited drummer Craig Dollinger and killer bassist Douglas Van Dyck, and the band shared a big practice room with a group of metal kids from Glendale, who’d barely left high school… and ended up calling themselves System Of A Down.

25 years on from their last record, Tripp has reformed the band after his girlfriend kept telling him about people still leaving comments about it online. As Tripp explains: “After about a solid year of her harassing me and also me getting in touch with fans, I was convinced to put on my cape and try and be a superhero again. My wife passed away a few years back, which was devastating. My daughter left home to get married. So I have nothing to lose. I tried to get some of the old band back but they were retired… out to pasture. I sing better than ever and am in great shape. So I said ‘Fuck it! LET’S GO!'”

And on the newly reformed band’s sound, Tripp told us: “These days, people always associate music with things they’ve heard that resemble it. If I was to go that route I’d say… Well first off it’s original. Never setting out to sound like any one influence in particular. I never liked bands that were a spitting image of say… how Stone Temple Pilots sounded like Pearl Zeppelin y’know? We’re not a cookie-cutter band. I’m out to make art, and it’s what’s in my head. If people dig it (and many do), that’s fantastic. If they don’t, no biggie. But I don’t make music to pander to what I think people want to hear. I make what’s in my head for better or worse. But at the end of the day, it’s song-oriented hard rock music. It’s not what most would consider ‘metal’ by today’s standards because that would entail me vocalising like the Cookie Monster and I don’t do “cookie monster” vocals. I know that’s what everyone in metal seems to be doing these days, but it ain’t for me.”

ENGINES OF AGGRESSION returned with their EP, The Black Deluxe, in March, and just sent us their second follow-up single Nightmare in Pain Town, released at the end of last month. It opens up with a delicious stabbing guitar riff that’s joined by a screeching guitar sound and drops into spoken-style vocals through the verse. A big riff kicks in as the pace increases through a catchy chorus, which drops into stabbing guitars that continue through a verse and build up to another big chorus. The pace drops and a stabby synth sound tees up a big final blast of the chorus.

On the track, Tripp said: “People say it reminds them of Rob Zombie meets Alice Cooper with a bit of Marilyn Manson thrown in. I never deliberately try to sound like anyone. But I have to admit I have been a fan of Alice Cooper since birth and I dig Rob Zombie as well. The White Zombie band were fans of ENGINES OF AGGRESSION back in the day, so if anything, he sounds like ME.

“It’s been mostly positive, but there are several playlisters and stations that liked the chorus but not the vocals in the verses. Which I actually agree with! We worked with our long-time producer Lamar Lowder, whom I reconnected with after 20-some years, and we worked on Start a War (which was VERY well received) and Nightmare. He had these vocal lines written for the verses. It was the first time I’d ever used anyone else’s lyrics or vocal melody in a song, and I wasn’t really sold on the vocal treatment he had me doing. We went back and forth about it and then I thought, ‘maybe it’s just me having trouble breaking out of my comfort zone.’ So I sang it how he wanted me to, even though I didn’t love it. Turns out much of the negative reaction from playlisters was that they didn’t like the vocals in the verse. Lesson learned. Never compromise.”

That follows on from the aforementioned Start A War, which starts out with chunky guitar chords and lively vocals “Can I get a fuck you for all the haters from all the outcasts, from all the skaters, Can I get a hell yeah from all my people up in the back row down in the pit.” While the EP is packed with more industrial rock and metal goodness, including the superb opening track The New Shanghai, the feisty Moto Psycho and the raw Go Fanatic.

An obvious issue to consider is the difference the band has seen between creating music and the 1990s and in the present day. As Tripp explains: “Back then, we did it all D.I.Y. until we got signed to a record label (it took only 6 months). But then, when the record label restructured and put all their artists on ice, our careers were halted, and there was nothing we could do about it.

“Now it’s back to the D.I.Y., and I’m going to be very careful before diving into another record deal (if one presents itself). The big problem is that in order to compete these days, you either HAVE to be on a major label OR you have to have a large bag of money to promote like a record label. Currently, we have neither, so we rely on publications such as yours to help spread the word (and thank you by the way, we’re very excited to be featured by you).”

The ENGINES OF AGGRESSION sound is shaped by a wide range of musical influences, including artists like Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ministry, Quicksand, Fugazi, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera and The Beatles.

And on what inspires them to write music, Tripp said: “The noise in my head. The topics are all over the place. New Shanghai is something I wrote 20 years ago about seeing the future and how China would rise to be the industrial super-power it has become. All from mass-producing simple gadgets that Americans can’t get enough of.

“Start a War was written initially about how my girlfriend just likes to poke the bear when it’s not a good time. She knows how to get under my skin and so I would say, ‘look do you really want to start a war over this?’ but it’s mostly about… If you’re going to go to war over something you’d better believe strongly in what you’re fighting for. Too many people who believe what they hear on the news are marching under a blue flag or a red flag. And I caution you better do your homework before being so convicted about which flag you’re marching under.”

You can follow ENGINES OF AGGRESSION on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube. You can also check out their Spotify playlist ENGINES OF AGGRESSION ESSENTIALS.

We discovered ENGINES OF AGGRESSION on Groover – submit your music to GigRadar!

And listen to all the bands we’ve found on the platform on our Spotify playlist GigRadar Groover