California hardcore punk bandits, STOP BREATHING — a tight knit union of friends hailing from such acts as Glass & Ashes, The Fucking Wrath, The Missing 23rd, Young Livers and more — have completed their second LP for release this Spring. Stream the music video for “What I Want” here, as well as past material here.
Straight out of the strawberry fields of Oxnard, California comes STOP BREATHING. Comprised of longtime friends with a desire to play fast tunes blending the fun of early 80s skate punk with the aggressiveness of late-80s hardcore, they blasted onto the scene with their 2009 demo CD followed by their self-titled 7″ in 2010 which was met with rave reviews, after which they landed some great shows opening for bands like Adolescents, Youth Brigade, Subhumans, Ceremony, Nails and more.
Sure they have members of other well-known acts, but STOP BREATHING didn’t want to rest on the laurels of past endeavors and set out to do something different than they had done in the past. Var at No Idea Records took notice and in mid-2012 the label released the band’s self-titled debut LP. The release of the LP saw them playing at the Punk Rock Bowling Festival in Vegas, a run up the coast with Suicidal Tendencies and Strife, and landing gigs with bands like Municipal Waste, Dr. Know, Good Riddance and The Dwarves. Their punk energy and ethics mixed with their musical chops makes it easy for them to play on punk, hardcore and metal shows. While in Santa Cruz on a day off of the Suicidal run, they went into the studio with longtime friend Joe Clements (Fury 66) and recorded their Santa Cruz EP in only six hours, which was released by Rotten To The Core Records in mid-2013.
Once again they got rave reviews and played some amazing shows with legends like FLAG, Stalag 13, Ill Repute, SNFU and more. You even saw them heading south of the border to play in Tijuana and Tecate, Mexico. STOP BREATHING’s newly completed sophomore LP was recorded in two sessions, the first was back in 2013 right before bassist Mike Carter moved to Portland. The second session was recorded nine months later with everything but bass. They sent the songs up to Portland, where Carter would lay down sick bass lines and backing screams, then send it back home to mix everything, after which it was sent to longtime friend Paul Miner at Buzz Bomb Sound Labs (Death By Stereo, H20) for mastering. This being their fifth release, in their fifth year together as a band, and most likely the last time all five original members will be on a STOP BREATHING record, the record was more than aptly titled V. With the departure of Carter to Portland and Jesse to school commitments, the band enlisted some more players into the STOP BREATHING family, and after recruiting Chris Goodrich from Catholic Spit on bass and longtime friend Kile Garcia on second guitar, there’s now no stopping their sonic assault! V will be unleashed to the world through a joint release between Burning Tree and Rotten To The Core Records in April 2015, with the album’s final details and confirmed street date to be announced in the coming days.
STOP BREATHING Live:
Mar 06: Borderline – Thousand Oaks, CA (w/ 7 Seconds, Channel 3)
Mar 14: Velvet Jones – Santa Barbara, CA (w/ La Vasa!)
STOP BREATHING:
John Crerar – vocals
Chris Goodrich – bass
Justin Dempsey – drums
Ben Hament – guitar
Kile Garcia – guitar
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