A new band is introducing a more melodic edge to the desert’s hardcore scene.
Materia is a six-piece group that taps into the metalcore genre, consisting of Santiago G. (vocals), another Santiago G. (drums), Christian R. (guitar), Isai H. (guitar), Matt B. (guitar) and Miguel A. (bass). (Initials were used instead of last names at their request.) They use bright, shredding guitar tones to elevate heavy, loud instrumentals and growling vocals.
Their five-song debut EP, Fine Lines, released on July 10, features glimpses of thrashy mayhem (“Rebirth”) and explosive headbanging (“A Fine Line Between Genius and Insanity”) while showcasing the band’s ability to mix aggressive tones with haunting melodies (“Sin”).
During a recent Zoom interview with Christian R., Isai H., and Santiago G. (the drummer), they explained how Materia was formed.
“I’ve known Santi since middle school—since, like, seventh-grade—so we’ve always been friends,” Christian said.
Added Isai: “We were always mentioning starting another band, and then we were all like, ‘Oh, let’s do metalcore,’ because we all really liked the genre. Just randomly, we would start jamming a little bit, and then it kind of just happened.”
They quickly moved from jamming to structuring songs.
“I think it was just me and Santi the first time at Miguel’s, and we just practiced or messed around writing,” Christian said. “Then Isai came, and then for a while, it was just the three of us—because we just didn’t know anyone else, really.”
The desert is filled with bands and musicians performing in a multitude of music genres–but not metalcore.
“It was really hard to try and find people who (were interested in) the stuff that we were trying to go for,” Santiago said. “Two of our members are from out of town. Our singer’s from Blythe, and one of our guitarists is from Fontana.”
Then came the band name.
“I just remember Santi had the band name ‘Materia,’” Christian said. “I was like, ‘Dude, that’s fucking dope.’”
Materia is a reference to the Final Fantasy video game series; it is the name for the crystal orbs that players use to level up.
“My cousin had shot it at me two years ago, way before Christian and I started jamming,” Santiago said. “Like Christian said, I just brought it up to him, just like, ‘Yeah, if we ever started something, it should be called this.’ Christian really liked it, and I’m glad. … I think it’s cool; it falls off the tongue; and we all like Final Fantasy. We’ve all played the games. We’re just big nerds.”
Materia is a reference to the Final Fantasy video game series; it is the name for the crystal orbs that players use to level up. … The love for Final Fantasy follows into the band’s lyrics.
The love for Final Fantasy follows into the band’s lyrics. “Alone for a while, I’ve been searching through the dark / For traces of the love you left inside my lonely heart,” from the Final Fantasy IX song “Melodies of Life,” becomes “Alone for a while, I’ve been searching through the dark / For traces of the light left inside,” on the Materia track “A Fine Line Between Genius and Insanity.” Other song titles, like “Ifrit” and “Sin,” refer to characters within the games’ universe.
Materia’s lineup features musicians from other well-known area bands, including beatdown punks Killfloor (Christian and Miguel), maniacal mince-core outfits MxMxM and Chainsaw Emasculation (Santiago G., the drummer, and Isai), and Inland Empire pop punk group It’s Always You (Matt). Somehow, Materia sounds completely different than all of those other bands.
“I’ll say it’s way more thought out in terms of song structure,” Santiago said. “It’s so much more different from what Isai and I used to play, but I think that’s also a part of the reason why we really like it, because it’s just something completely different for us to try and tackle.”
Added Christian: “For Killfloor … I naturally write more melodic stuff, and there’d be so much stuff I’d write, and just be like, ‘Oh, this doesn’t really work for Killfloor. I’ve always wanted to write more melodic stuff, so this kind of worked out perfectly, and it’s a lot more thought out than Killfloor. We (in Materia) have three guitar players, so there has to be three booming guitar parts that all work together and don’t mush and just sound good together, and sound fat—in a good way.”
The aforementioned bands helped spur other heavy bands to emerge in the desert. The members of Materia hope a similar pattern emerges with metalcore.
“We all like hardcore, but obviously there’s a lot of hardcore out here, and I feel like it’s super uncommon to run into more bands that lean into the sound that we do,” Santiago said. “We’re hoping people also want to try to listen to similar bands that we based our sound off of, and try to make their own thing with it. It’s not a knock on hardcore—we all like hardcore—but we’re just really hoping to see more variety out here.”
Learn more at materiamc.bandcamp.com.
