Sean Kennedy seems in our Summer time 2024 Situation with cowl stars Wallows, Drain, Maya Hawke, the Linda Lindas, and Winnetka Bowling League. Head to the AP Store to seize a duplicate.
Sean Kennedy’s physique seems to be just like the Fruit Roll-Ups tattoo tongue print of a Scorching Matter bin sale (in a great way). Of their Chinatown tattoo studio, the vocalist of the five-piece emoviolence outfit OLTH walks me via the marks (each bodily and psychological) that music has made on their life.
A shaky-handed portrait of Ronald McDonald lovingly administered by OLTH’s guitarist Danny Evans stretches horizontally throughout Kennedy’s calf, a work-in-progress blackout swallow by bassist Dean Violante soars over their forearm, and the whole lyrics to Neil Younger’s “Movement Photos (For Carrie)” scratches throughout their ribs — to call a couple of. If I have been to catalog every scribble, inside joke, and absolutely shaped anthropomorphic motion determine etched into their pores and skin from head to toe, I would wish a for much longer phrase rely. And by the point I completed, there’d be additions, overlaps, and new layers of private which means to unlock. As Younger as soon as mentioned three verses beneath Kennedy’s proper nipple, “I’d relatively begin over again.”
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The swallow is their most up-to-date — except for the free Ilegal Mezcal brand they received on their inside arm on the Neil Younger and Loopy Horse present in Forest Hills earlier that week. The live performance marked Kennedy’s first time seeing their musical/tattoo idol stay. “I used to be skeptical if it was going to stay as much as what I imagined. I really like Neil Younger, and I do know he’s getting up there, however it introduced tears to my eyes. It was actually candy.” The mezcal brand, nonetheless, is much less heartfelt. Three loosely formed bunnies stack one on prime of the opposite in an obtuse reference to the Goddess Mayahuel, the Aztec personification of agave, who gave delivery to an “infinite quantity” of rabbits on the finish of a chilly winter or, merely put, three bunnies mating. The which means lies the place you make it.
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The attractive bunny brand tattoo could also be solely random, however tucked inside the define of the swallow’s soon-to-be-filled silhouette, it serves a goal past the procreation of its species — to speak the impermanence, irony, and self-imbued which means that kinds Kennedy’s model in tattooing and music.
Kennedy spent their teen years taking NJ transit from their residence in Bergen County into New York Metropolis — the place they attended all-ages hardcore exhibits at venues like ABC No Rio.
Simply forward of the arrival of TikTok, and COVID-19, the scene of Kennedy’s early maturity was nonetheless comparatively IRL, and, with out the algorithmic push towards area of interest communities, proportionally homogeneous, however Kennedy adopted the beat of their very own drum. The wall of their studio is a formidable cornucopia of their explicit cultural tastes, with horror film collectibles, star-spangled sketches, Howdy Kitty stickers, and band merch collaged throughout it.
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In keeping with Kennedy, an ideal band tee must be “filthy, very well cherished, and easy like a tattoo. One thing you need in your physique on a regular basis.” Just a few examples are strewn across the studio — Homicide in a Minute’s “i’ll cease stabbing once you cease screaming” hoodie and the enduring insignia of Black Flag’s My Struggle tour merch. “Raymond Pettibon, superior artist,” Kennedy says of the person behind punk imagery from Sonic Youth’s Goo to the Black Flag brand, which is allegedly probably the most tattooed image of all time.
Although Pettibon wasn’t all too happy with the cultural saturation of the four-barred insignia, which got here to look on T-shirts and tattoo sleeves from the U.S. to Latvia, Kennedy’s method to trend is much less uniform. “I all the time felt like there was such a uniform for no matter area of interest it was. Indie children appeared like indie children. Punk stuff for probably the most half was identical to cosplay, and it by no means labored. It was all the time like hitting a wall for me. There wasn’t something I may do or change in my model or look that will make me slot in.”
Now, 28 years previous, 6 toes 3 inches tall and twirling a lock of lengthy black hair, it may be shocking to some that becoming in was ever a part of Kennedy’s MO. However between working at LVMH via most of their early maturity and looking for their footing inside a no-tattooing household, Kennedy’s early self-expression was steeped in compromise, and the confusion that comes with exploring gender and id. Nonetheless wrought these years could have been, Kennedy took them in stride, permitting their upbringing to information them to who they’re in the present day.
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The kid of an Irish Catholic Deadhead, Kennedy was destined to tattoo. When the skull-and-crossbones, lightning-bolt-laden visible language of their household’s sensibilities collided with the Marvel comedian books they collected all through their youth, a brand new universe was born. “I actually prefer to develop on Jack Kirby’s artwork. Actually shiny pop-y stuff was all the time tremendous enjoyable to me. It’s additionally sort of psychedelic and suits all these completely different classes of photos which can be burned in my mind.” The ensuing model seems to be one thing like a biblically correct angel and the solid of Braveness the Cowardly Canine put in a blender whereas on LSD, and it’s lovely.
It’s the sort of model you solely come upon via the uncommon mixture of experimentation, self-awareness, and chemistry generally misconstrued as “dumb luck” — the identical combine that makes OLTH so particular. OLTH’s five-piece outfit got here collectively by the use of adolescent debauchery and divine intervention within the New Jersey-to-New York hardcore scene. Every of its members — Kennedy, Evans, Violante, Ben Finkelstein, and Malcolm Hoyt — have hung out out and in of different bands earlier than coming collectively in 2022 to type OLTH. Six months later, the band’s debut album, daily is sOmeOne’s speciaL day, was born, and it’s been nonstop since.
“After we shaped as a gaggle, it was like, ‘OK, go give up your day job. Give all of it for this shit,” Kennedy recounts.
The title “OLTH” was cast within the hell-fires of a band group textual content. By the following morning, every member had marked the fated 4 letters throughout their arms, legs, or knuckles. Since then, the nonsensical monosyllable has taken on a profound, metaphorical significance for followers.
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“It means nothing. It’s only a sound. It’s interchangeable. What’s that known as? Onomatopoeia? It’s what it seems like,” Kennedy confirms. “I really like how followers have simply run with it. We’ll present up in locations like Boston or someplace random, they usually’ll present us that they freshly tattooed OLTH on their arm or their inside lip. That’s fucking cool. It’s all surprising, however it’s dope.”
Band members have additionally gotten intelligent with inventive license. Most lately Violante received an OLTH/THC tramp stamp tattoo the place a weed leaf and a bong make up the O and the L ala stoner rock meets hardcore within the basement of your native bodega.
Although every member performs with the ironic, heterogeneous hodge-podge of digital tradition, their reverence of the legacies of punk, hardcore, metallic, and screamo music carries via.
“The scenes look so completely different now than the exhibits I used to be going to as a child,” Kennedy says. “It’s lovely. It’s so fucking cool to see all kinds of individuals simply absolutely be themselves in no matter means. I couldn’t be like that after I was 16 going to exhibits.”
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In case you go searching at an OLTH present, you’ll see a large swath of punks, scene children, tweakers, LARPers, normies, crowdsurfers, and nose-bleeding headbangers. Band members have famously sustained accidents, from ribs damaged within the pit to faces break up on guitar stems. Surprisingly, the one factor that’s stayed intact is the candy lyrical stylings of Kennedy’s whistle-scream.
Kennedy’s shriek registers simply contained in the 20K hertz of the human listening to vary and is equidistant between Addison Rae’s “Von Dutch” remix scream and the early howls of Orchid. “No sore throat. No dropping my voice,” Kennedy boasts. “I used to play on this grindcore band after we have been children. After we performed a pair exhibits, one thing simply switched in my mind — [I realized] doing the vocals that means didn’t have an effect on me. It was identical to, ‘Yeah, hold going up.’ So when it got here time to begin this venture, I used to be like, ‘Effectively, I assume that’s what I can carry to the desk.’”
OLTH’s model of screamo is equal elements self-sacrificing and satirizing. Essentially the most heart-wrenching flip of lyric precedes probably the most unintelligible sound you’ve ever heard: “I’ve wasted a lot time/All of it pondering of you.” With out shying away from sentimentality, OLTH mood suits of terror with the sort of instrumental tenderness normally reserved for kicking rocks throughout an deserted car parking zone in Western Massachusetts. From the rubble emerges a sound riddled with non-public jokes, private histories, and the will to make much more nonsense from the mayhem of recent existence.
