Atreyu vocalist Alex Varkatzas has stirred the pot a bit, claiming in a recent interview that his band “invented metalcore”.
If you were to ask any metal fan about the origin of any given subgenre, you’re bound to get a wide variety of conflicting answers. In fact, trying to nail down the origins of any genre is a task in and of itself, with various artists and styles coming together so gradually, that it’s hard to say when a new genre officially begins.
While acts like Meshuggah have taken credit (and apologised) for creating the djent genre, Atreyu frontman Alex Varkatzas has now claimed that it was he who is responsible for the metalcore genre.
Speaking to Rock Sound recently, Varkatzas explained that he finds it hard to categorise Atreyu due to their varying sound.
“This is going to sound a little cocky but I’m a singer in a band. I don’t think we fit into any genre,” Varkatzas explained. “I think we are hard to pin down.”
“When we first started it was a little easier. We were a metallic hardcore band with singing parts. There wasn’t any else like that when we were doing it.”
“People get confused and say ‘you’re a metalcore band’, but we invented metalcore,” he continued. “That may sound cocky but I don’t care.”
“We pre-date Poison The Well and Killswitch Engage and all those bands. I’ve been doing this since I was literally 12 years old.”
Of course, while purists of the genre might disagree with Alex Varkatzas’ claims, the timeline does sort of make sense. While Wikipedia notes that the genre kicked off in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it also points out that bands of this era tended be categorised as ‘metallic hardcore’.
As the genre progressed, it wasn’t until the early ’00s that metalcore started to become a widespread term, and while bands like Atreyu, Bullet For My Valentine, and Trivium are often considered leaders of the genre, Atreyu are indeed the ones who have been around the longest.
Any discussion in regards to the origin of a musical genre is bound to upset a few people, so while it’s hard to say if Atreyu did actually invent metalcore, they were certainly in the right place at the right time.
Check out Atreyu’s ‘Bleeding Mascara’:
