The immediate success of a brand-new local band proves the desert has an obsession for sick riffs and breakdowns.
Built to Break, one of the Coachella Valley’s newest hardcore bands, played their first show in December 2024, and in the months since, the band has become beloved by the 760. The group performed a handful of shows before releasing CVHC DEMO ’25 on April 24—and at Built to Break’s release show, many fans of the desert’s hardcore music scene were shouting and moshing along.
Built to Break is TJ Jackson on vocals, Alex Whyte on bass, Nick Riccio on guitar, Sebastian Waggoner on guitar, and Marcus Velarde on drums. I spoke with the band, minus Waggoner, following their set at their demo release show.
“When we started, we wrote eight songs within the first three days, and we were getting asked to play shows by Sage (Jackson, Hot Stuff Booking and Face Facts) immediately,” Jackson said. “We kept being like, ‘Uh, we’re working on them,’ and it just wasn’t working. I had the genius idea of basically stealing my old band’s demo and redoing it, while putting our own little spin on it, so we at least had something to play shows with and to get going with. That band only existed for a couple of years, and all the dudes gave me permission. It gave us enough of a platform to start playing shows. The Wednesday before we were going to do the demo, we wrote ‘It’s About Time,’ so that’s our actual, full Built to Break song. … We didn’t practice it once together. We just recorded it, and it went pretty cool.”
“It’s About Time” and some as-yet-unreleased tunes showcase the tight-knit nature of Built to Break’s writing process.
“Whenever I get with Seb, the writing process is pretty fast,” Riccio said. “We want to start writing our next release already. We already have an album’s worth of material. … We’re going to work on it hopefully ASAP.”
Added Jackson: “The writing process with all of us is fucking unreal. The joke Sage made is that we’re a craigslist band, because none of us are the same. We’re all just so fucking different. We’re just mushed together, and it somehow just works. I write dumb, angry, caveman lyrics, and then Nick and Seb write riffs and breakdowns, and then Alex and Marcus are like, ‘Oh, cool, I got that,’ and it all just meshes together. It’s pretty tight.”
Whyte said he’s equally amazed at the success of the band’s writing process.
“Part by part, we’re writing each song, and adding our own little parts to it, especially with Marcus and I,” Whyte said. “I always feel like, for a hardcore band, a good rhythm section makes the band so much better. As long as Nick and Seb are throwing us riffs and breakdowns, we’re immediately like, ‘Dude, I know exactly what to do with that.’”
CVHC DEMO ’25, as the title suggests, is all about the Coachella Valley hardcore scene. Built to Break summoned the ‘CVHC Avengers’ for the project: Each song, except for the intro and outro, features a guest vocal performance by another local hardcore band, including Bronca, Face Facts, KILLFLOOR.
“Bronca and Face Facts and KILLFLOOR have been putting on for this shit forever, especially Bronca,” Jackson said. “… They’re very hardcore punk, and they’re badass. Sage is just building and molding the scene day by day and year by year, and it’s incredible. The KILLFLOOR dudes, they get it, and they’re doing it right. They’re conducting themselves in the way a hardcore band should. They’re about the ethics; they’re about the ethos, the life; and they’re about all the positive good, things in hardcore.”
Each track on the demo features Built to Break exploring their style, mixing hardcore with grunge and sludge metal. In a way, each guest performance serves as a seal of approval from respected bands in the scene.
“Being older and coming from an older scene, features are the shit, and having those dudes doing so much for Coachella Valley hardcore, with me being the transplant now, I’ve never felt more at home in a hardcore scene in my life,” Jackson said. “I’m riding hard for it. These guys grew up in it. I just wanted it to be like a love letter to Coachella Valley hardcore, and how it is now.”
While the guest performances and live shows have helped the band grow closer to the community, Jackson noted the intense connection he has formed with his bandmates.
“It’s wild how we all clicked so well,” Jackson said. “Me and Nick, the first time we met, we’re like, ‘So we’re best friends now.’ Same thing with Alex, with Marcus; these dudes are, like, my brothers now, and Seb is our truly obnoxious little brother who we all love.”
TJ Jackson is indeed much older than the other members of Built to Break, causing him to be the target of hilarious yet loving jokes. “It’s borderline elder abuse, and, like, I’m pretty sure it’s a felony. You will be hearing from my lawyer,” he said.
Jackson is indeed much older than the other members of Built to Break, causing him to be the target of hilarious yet loving jokes.
“They’re incessantly calling me ‘Unc’ and saying, ‘Oh you’ve never heard of TikTok; you’re an old guy,’ and it’s fucking ridiculous,” Jackson said. “It’s borderline elder abuse, and, like, I’m pretty sure it’s a felony. You will be hearing from my lawyer.”
As of this writing, Built to Break has garnered close to 400 monthly listeners on Spotify, following just a handful of shows and the recent demo release. The band members said they’re shocked at how quickly the local scene has supported them.
“It trips me the fuck out,” Jackson said. “At our first show, there were people moshing. Before our first show, our Instagram already had people following and saying, ‘When are you guys playing?’ Anytime we were at any of the other shows, people were like, ‘Where’s the music?’ That’s kind of the beauty of this. I’ve never in my life seen a hardcore scene develop predicated only on local bands. … Scenes don’t start off of local bands like that, and it’s so fucking cool that this one did.”
Special things are happening here in our desert, between the local talent and the shows being booked by Sage Jackson and Hot Stuff Booking. A lyric that sums it all up can be found on Built to Break’s “It’s About Time”: “Coachella Valley is up next / Bitch we might be.”
“The scene is growing. The scene is pumping out amazing bands, and these kids are starting to branch out of the valley and go to other shows,” Jackson said. “We have Face Facts playing Mosh for Youth (a hardcore benefit show in Pomona). Shit like that is going to put this valley on the map, and it deserves to be. All of these out-of-town bands are so stoked to play here. Everyone knows the scene is growing, and the fact that we get to be even a tiny part of this means everything. CVHC for fucking life, straight up.”
Finally, Jackson wanted to give a special shout out to his wife.
“My wife is the most supportive, badass fucking woman on Earth, and lets me run around at almost 41 with a bunch of 20-year-olds, and yell at a bunch of even younger kids and call them pussies and tell them to hit each other harder.”
Learn more at instagram.com/builttobreakcvhc.
