They’re Clean-Cut--but With an Edge : Their Music Is Hard-Core--So Is Their Stand Against Meat, Drugs, Racism

While punk rock’s caustic stylings have served everyone from liberal urban philosophers to Aryan skinheads, it’s in its evolution as “straight-edge hard-core” that this genre has been able to surprisingly succeed where many drug education programs have failed.

Corona del Mar High juniors Gabe and Jon Bowne started listening to this brand of hard-core through their older brother when they were still in seventh grade. The twins, now 18, were aware of their brother’s drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle and that the aggressive, thrashing sounds he listened to was called straight-edge. They even gave an ear to the lyrics, which rally against drugs, meat, racism, sexism, homophobia and apathy.

“But I wasn’t at a point where I could take it all too seriously,” recalls Jon. “It wasn’t until about seven months ago that the whole drug thing started to bug me. I was with friends who were smoking. I wasn’t. I just watched them and it really bugged me.”

For Gabe, it took the embarrassing “Animal House”-type antics of some wasted classmates last year to question the goings-on at typical high school parties. “I still cared about the whole society thing at school. I was at this one party where people were getting pretty drunk, and I thought: This sucks. Who are they fooling? I just started thinking more about how stupid drinking was.”

Although both had already been attending gigs featuring straight-edge bands for a couple of years, it wasn’t until their individual epiphanies that they both bought into the music’s message and re-evaluated their concept of what’s cool.

“Most of the people I know I used to be friends with because they partied,” says Gabe. “They were the popular ones at my school. I’m not really friends with a lot of them anymore. I don’t like what they do, but I can’t tell them what to do. They ‘row’ us a lot about being straight-edge and they say sarcastic stuff--like because I don’t drink I’m a loser with no life. I just sit back and laugh. Since I got away from all of that, my self-esteem is so much higher.”

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Self-realization and the confidence that comes with it is a natural side effect. Straight-edgers note that since getting into the scene they’ve become less concerned with what their peers say and more aware of their inner strengths. The discovery has led to respect for their own bodies and minds. This along with the many indulgences sacrificed are concepts borrowed from Hinduism. In their search for cleaner living, some veteran scenesters have even become practicing Krishnas.

“Austerity builds strength,” says long-timer Ray Cappo, whose current band, Shelter, counts both a straight-edge and Krishna following. “If everyone else is indulging and you’re renouncing, it makes you strong.” Cappo’s former band during the mid-’80s, Youth of Today, is credited with spreading the word and its raucous soundtrack from its Washington, D.C., base out West. Although the band broke up in 1989, records released on an independent label are still being pressed, and bootleg tapes of live shows are still circulating.

The scene’s label, according to Cappo, came from a 1982 Minor Threat song “Straight Edge.” Says Cappo: “Hard-core is not that different from punk. It’s fast, energetic, loud. But kids into straight-edge don’t look punk. They’re clean-cut.”

Albeit not by preppy standards. Mostly white teen-age boys, many of them are skateboarders, so their clothes and overall style reflect that subculture. The only identifying mark of their allegiance to straight-edge is a large X on the back of their hands like those inked on minors at club gigs. Bartenders know not to serve anyone with an X. The self-made brand, however, is something that has become less in vogue because most don’t want to face the flak they get for denouncing partying.

Girls constitute a tiny percentage, while ethnic diversity is even less existent. This is one of the ironies of straight-edge. After all, the lyrics tout unity and equality for everyone.

“I guess white males are the ones that need the preaching to the most,” notes Cappo. “But it is open to everyone. The harder stuff (music) seems not to appeal to most girls. It’s like slam-dancing is an all-male sport.”

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More than a decade since the release of the Minor Threat anthem, the scene is still very much underground, still untouched by corporate marketing. Straight-edge bands, like most hard-core, usually appear on independent record labels and the product is distributed through alternative record shops.

Orange County has long been home to several such labels, some fly-by-night, and others that have been around since the late ‘80s, such as New Age Records in Mission Viejo and Conversion and Revelation in Huntington Beach. (Cappo was instrumental in Revelation’s early years). Band names, like those of the record companies, are also symbolic of straight-edge agenda: Ressurrection, Inside Out, Unbroken, Function and Uniform Choice.

Even ‘zines take on such titles as Focus or XaloneX (take away the Xs and you understand the authors’ teen-age Angst). High-schoolers on the East and West coasts communicate through ‘zines, covering everything from the virtues of veganism to the those of a lost girlfriend. They’re definitely a revealing study for anyone interested in finding out what makes a teen guy tick. These crude publications are typed on a home PC and copied and stapled at after-school jobs (some even thank their bosses in the editor’s note). Their mags are then sold in independent record stores.

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With all the pressures to party in high school, it really is the ultimate sign of rebellion to just say no.

For straight-edgers, such as Foothill junior Jeremy Sirota, rejecting a cigarette or a hamburger is also resisting taking part in the corporate world. “If you’re smoking or drinking, you’re not really rebelling against society, because the cigarette and alcohol companies are among the biggest controlling industries in the nation. So is the farming of animals, which I do not want to be a part of. (He does consume eggs and milk products, which he eventually wants to cut out, too.) So by doing it, you’re supporting them. Doing it is so mainstream.”

Jeremy, 17, admits he got drunk maybe 10 times before renouncing alcohol, drugs and meat late last year. “I didn’t like having hangovers. I didn’t like not being in control. I like doing things where I don’t have to worry about driving, what I’m saying or what I’m doing to other people. I just don’t want to be addicted to anything.”

By his definition, addiction includes thirsting for a beer after work in order to relax. A glass of wine with dinner also gets a frown. So his parents’ occasional decision to have a cold brewski with pizza doesn’t go over too well. “I specifically told my mom that I would never, ever get a beer for her,” Jeremy says. “If she’s too lazy to go get it, well, I’m not going to support her by getting it for her. There’s no need for her to do it even if she’s tired.”

Ouch. But what’s most admirable about this righteous talk is that it’s born out of rage and channeled through a lifestyle that’s as healthful as it is unconventional. And, there’s expressing it by slamming in a pit to hard-core tunes. It’s a rage for what’s going on among their peers who get trashed just to be accepted. A rage for the confusing changes they’re personally going through. Not to mention the planet’s problems; the environment they have to contend with.

If straight-edgers had a book of rules--which they don’t--it would probably include the one about how if you want something done, you do it yourself.

“Kids aren’t going to do what adults tell them,” notes Jeremy. “That’s why those drug-awareness programs are worthless. We’re not going to listen unless we want to. But the leaders of straight-edge, the bands, the people at shows are people my own age. We can associate with the music. The scene is saying, ‘You don’t have to do drugs or drink. There are people your own age not doing this.’ ”