“Straight up, no one is having more fun than me when we’re up there!” beams DRAIN frontman Sammy Ciaramitaro, whose face is perpetually glued in a grin. For anyone that’s seen the Santa Cruz hardcore firebrands live, there’s no mistaking that fact. Drain isn’t just a good time as Sammy presides over the chaos of stagediving bodies and mic-grabbing frontline; it’s a party—and everyone is invited. (Dolphin shorts and boogie boards are optional but encouraged.) “The vibe of it is, enthusiastic, hectic,” says the vocalist. “Five people deep singing and stagediving, then kids going berserk behind that. It’s a great vibe and I think people pick up on that.” That, in a nutshell is DRAIN. The quartet inject a serious dose of relatability—not to mention catchiness—into hardcore’s penchant for toughness and brutality on their Epitaph debut Living Proof. Ciaramitaro’s desperate, snotty howl rides roughshod over thrash-leaning riffage as rhythms bounce in a big way. If you’re picturing the Pacific Ocean waves that rise and fall along the coastal town, occasionally violently so, you’re not far off.
In January 2023, Sleep Theory’s first song (“Another Way”) hit 500k views on TikTok within 36 hours of its release. But what seemed like an overnight success was years in the making. Since retiring from the US Army several years ago, vocalist Cullen Moore’s dedicated his entire life to carving his own path in the music industry. Officially starting Sleep Theory in 2019, the current incarnation of his musical journey began as a studio project to fuse his love of hard rock, funk and R&B. Now a four-piece band, Sleep Theory’s first two tracks both reached #1 on SiriusXM’s Octane, played their first run of shows to massive crowds, and signed to Epitaph Records for the release of their debut EP. Combining metalcore-like breakdowns with bluesy grooves and a pop sensibility made for modern radio, they’ve also racked up 13M global streams in 6 months and saw “Numb” crack the Top 40 on the Active Rock chart.