The HIRS Collective, formerly known as simply +HIRS+ (pronounced "heers"),[1] is an American queer punk musical collective based in Philadelphia. Founded in 2011 by vocalist Jenna Pup and guitarist Esem, the group are known for their long list of prestigious guest collaborators and abrasive grindcore sound fueled by outspoken anarchist and queer liberationist politics. The group's name is derived from the eponymous third-person neopronoun, commonly used by non-binary people.[1] They are currently signed to Get Better Records, of which Pup is co-owner
JP: "I've been calling it a collective as of recently because we're not the only people that make this shit happen in the band. And sometimes we're not the only people who make the music."
album features Converge's Nate Newton, who had praised the group's music and was recruited via Instagram
"The organizing of everything was the most difficult part but everything else was pretty simple. On this record, myself and Scott wrote pretty much half of the songs, and getting the layout of the songs was pretty simple."
Full of Hell's Dylan Walker, Anti-Flag's Chris Barker
album was recorded in Esem's studio and at Permanent Hearing Damage Studio in Philly
JP: "We did either close to or over sixty hours of mixing - only mixing, not including recording."
"Active since 2011, the collective has amassed over 50 releases"
"From modern metal auteurs Thou, The Body, and Full of Hell, to hardcore heads Soul Glo, Damian Abraham, and Escuela Grind, to genre-benders Ghösh, poet Lora Mathis, and actual living legends like Shirley Manson, Melt-Banana, and Justin Pearson"
" The two-person core of the group is vocalist Jenna, a trans woman, and guitarist Scott, who identifies as queer (both prefer not to use last names). "
"We're Still Here which features 35 guest musicians"
"The group formed in 2011, and its first notable unique musical approach was to release 100-song albums (they've put out three such albums, though the majority of those tracks clock in at under a minute). But after Jenna was recovering from surgery while the band was working on a 2015 split with Peeple Watchin', the duo decided to invite friends to make the process more comfortable. And from there on, HIRS Collective was open for collaborative business."
"While Jenna and Scott still split core songwriting duties, once the base of the tunes are completed, the process begins of figuring out which friends or musical heroes (Jenna particularly freaked out about having Japanese noise rock act Melt-Banana on the new LP) might be willing to add layers of sonic color to the mix."
""It's almost like there's a framework — the body and the muscles — and then there's like the clothing. And then to make the whole outfit work, so-and-so might put like a cute little hat on. And, like, that looks really great. And sounds really great. And goes with everything else that we're wearing," Scott says."
Musical style and ideology
The HIRS Collective are most commonly identified as
JP: "I wouldn't even call it grind. It's punk. I understand, there's blastbeats and people want to call it grind and all these other genres, but we've always just agreed that any band that we're ever in is a punk band."
"The idea of the ethics… I don't know, it's a word that doesn't have the same definition or meaning any more. We're just aggressive, fast, and trying to be better people and burn the bridges of all the awful people and make sure to leave them behind."
"There's two reasons we use samples: one, I should never have a microphone, ever. I talk into them like an idiot. So we use samples that go with the song. The sample explains the song. Two, I feel like we're at the point where enough people know what we're about."
"We never did [get booked with pornogrind bands]. Those are the people… it shouldn't even have a fucking subgenre! If anybody's ever, like, "I really love pornogrind" just stop talking to that person!"
"I think that there are very few bands that have our sound or have the same kind of setup or anything that we do that want to support any kind of queer or trans community. One of my favorite things about playing queer shows rather than a more standard metal show is that nine times out of ten the shows we play are really fucking diverse. We're not just playing with the same sounding bands with the same shitty dudes."
"The HIRS Collective has a unified purpose: to defend, examine and extol the survival of trans and queer outcasts."
"Hard to Get" has a "a jagged, Blood Brothers-style skree"
"To simply call HIRS' extreme coalescence "grindcore" does the band a bit of an injustice. During their 30-second songs, there are sludgy punk spitballs shot from Iron Lung and His Hero Is Gone, the euphoric digital-grind of Melt-Banana, Nasum's death-metal-grooved grind and hints of Converge's chaotic hardcore roots. Like a dive bar's midnight mystery cocktail chased with a Schlitz tallboy, it is a ruthless mixture, only made more brutal interspersed by this album's special guests."
"Love," is "about us celebrating our existence and being excited to share love" according to Pup and is "an absolutely ferocious blast of grindcore that manages to feel crisp, accessible, and tuneful without sacrificing any of the genre's usual brutality" according to BrooklynVegan
""The title track does what The HIRS Collective does best: slam together several metal styles like sour candy — riffs and blast beats blaze by at hyperspeed, but with a moshable groove."
"But more importantly, the track honors the band's foremost purpose: not only the survival, but the extremely loud joy and visibility of trans and queer outcasts."
"a slow and sludgy riff that becomes a metallic mantra of defiance"
"The songs shimmer with rage, joy, despair, humour, and hope as the Collective explores mental health, living in a capitalist society, the importance of being there for each other, and much more."
features sample of NPR emergency broadcast Pup recorded during the George Floyd protests, as well as sirens and a burning house
"We write stuff, we send it to each other, and we go from there. We already have so many songs written that we could probably do another LP. We love writing and when we have something we go for it. For the more thought-out albums, like ones that we want to be something more than just an EP or a fun little split, we’ll pick out the songs that we’re really into and we try to have it be half and half with half songs I wrote and half songs Scott wrote. On this record, we actually collaborated for the first time ever on a song. He was having a hard time finishing something and it was the first time beyond adding different drums to something where we collaborated on the actual formation of the song."
album closer “Bringing Light and Replenishments” features choir, piano, and cello
"I wanted to make a Hot Topicsampler-meets-hip-hop record where every single song has a feature, not just consistently doing the same thing over and over and over again."
"their traditional unrelenting queerness, abrasive sound, and absolutely stacked with features"
JP: "Many of us love hip-hop and have always wanted to do a record that had a feature on ever track similar to some of the records we grew up listening to. Yet being a DIY group means doing all of the communication ourselves."
JP: " It was nice to have 808drops that weren’t just a bass drop for a hardcore breakdown. honestly we can’t wait to have more genre-bending tracks like this more often."
JP: "Our bodies aren’t eternal, but The Collective can be. We look forward to doing this as long as possible and being able to pass the torch whenever needed."
"grinding, stomach-churning, bite-size anthems in response to the injustices of daily life"
"overdriven guitars, blast beat drums, and fry-heavy screams"
We're Still Here brings "increasingly vicious riffs and diatribes to their signature sound."
"In the face of an increasing culture of transphobia and homophobia; ever-present racial violence; and the general untenability of daily life under late capitalism, the HIRS collective assert their presence as “never-ending, infinite.”"
"While HIRS frequently works in response to the social and political ills of daily life in the U.S. they avoid the double-edged sword of either preaching to the choir or otherwise reveling in suffering by appealing to communal strength and uplifting one another. Instead, HIRS reach for catharsis by focusing on moments of strength and joy and the simple glorious act of survival."
"With 17 tracks that barely clock in at 30 minutes combined, it's a frenetic barrage of grindcore noise blasts. Jenna's throat-scraping screams brawl with Scott's heavy riffs for a combative, clobbering concoction. It's pure snarling energy that never relents. But under that abrasive exterior are lyrical messages of community and acceptance. While oppressed rage has certainly been a driving force on past the HIRS Collective releases, We're Still Here finds Jenna leaning hard into finding joy and celebrating survival in these tough times."
"We've been doing this band for 12 years now," she continues. "And it started off with so much angst and aggression and anger, which we still have, but when I had the 'We're still here' part in my head... I just don't want to forget about compassion for humanity and speaking more about supporting folks rather than demonizing or canceling or like violence against folks that come after us or whatever. Instead of talking about those people that are so negative, more trying to talk about the positive things and just celebrate that."
" The HIRS Collective live setup is just Jenna singing and Scott shredding on guitar over backing tracks (having a Polyphonic Spree-esque, 37-person tour isn't exactly feasible), but it's still an invigorating live experience. And in true punk-rock spirit, the pair thrives on going to the places where trans folks are unwelcome and creating a scene for their fellow outsiders."
""The EP we put out, You Can't Kill Us, I was in... whoof. Sorry, I just got emotional. I was in a really rough place when that happened. And if you go back, there's literally a song where the lyrics are, 'No one's gonna kill me, not even myself. I'm gonna live forever.' And that was me writing it almost as like... I can't be another trans woman that takes her life. And I want to be very clear, I'm not shitting on anyone that dies by suicide. We live in, like, an intense, terrible place that makes it hard for everyone to live, regardless. Obviously, specifically speaking of oppressed folks.""
""When we were in Texas folks came up and were like, 'Hey, thanks for, like, coming through here and playing these places that are specifically shitty to trans people.' And like, I would rather play these places than spots that have way more support. Like, I want to play them all, but it's cool to come to those places and be like, 'F—- all of your anti-trans bills! We're going to fill up this place with like all the trans folks, all the allies, all the people that need an outlet and a nice dance party. 'Cause we love to play dance music. It's nice to offer a place that hopefully is safer than others, or, at least, more celebratory. Just like, come and have fun with your freaks.""
