Formed in Richmond in 2017 out of shreds of disbanded hardcore and punk bands, ENFORCED quickly found their calling between the undying support of regional punk/hardcore scenes and their respective record collections.

Whether it’s Sacred Reich and Integrity or Bolt Thrower and Amebix, “Pure Crossover Death,” as ENFORCED call their devastating din, speared its way through two demos (“Demo 2017” and “Retaliation”) and their no-holds-barred debut, At the Walls.

Lead vocalist Knox Colby joined us to chat about mosh pit injuries, purging his collection, being in a young band appealing to an older crowd and more, read and video below.

On being a young band appealing to an older crowd....”I guess it is now that’s something you weren’t really expecting but people who, the demographic of people who you know, like personally remember the hey days of thrash, the late eighties, early nineties like those are our core people now cuz they’re like, yes, this brings me back to the times when it was it was all life consuming and stuff like that like, back when they were in High School just being thrash metal heads. And so it’s nice that it gives a whole demographic of people who I personally know I don’t necessarily relate to as a younger person something that feels fresh to them but also gives them a nice sense of nostalgia. I don’t think that was intended but it’s nice that it’s had that effect for a lot of people.

The difficulties of sequencing.….”Yeah, that was difficult. The finished one is probably like the 60th order that we went through. Because we tried so many different track list and nothing seems to be flowing all that well, it was kind of a lull at points. And so we were like how do we fix it. So I literally just kept randomizing it. And Will and I worked on the track listing that’s on the official record now and I think Hemorrhage was always supposed to be first and I think that was our problem. And then once we put The Doctrine in first, and then UXO, everything to start in the fall into place a lot quicker and lot easier. Side A with like solid concrete for a long time but getting those sequencing down to the last four tracks took a couple days of just really hard working on it constantly.”

On being a sick collector.…..”There was this song 7 inch compilation called Sweet Vision comp that this record label called Lockin’ Out Records put out and they only put out 500 of them. And for whatever reason I made it like my life’s goal to find and own them all, which is the dumbest thing ever and I got up to like 15 before I did that whole purge, of like yeah I’m getting rid of 14. I’ll just keep one. This is no need to have 15 in the same record, no variation same record, 15 of them. It was ridiculous.