In late may of 2023 a few musicians from the greater Toronto area formed a new Ontario hardcore band. As the founder of the ONHC page (@ontarioxhardcore) I was obligated to check out their sound and was pleasantly surprised by their fresh take on the genre, I’m always a big fan of bands that don’t write their songs to be solely based around breakdowns, no, they didn’t reinvent the wheel but a lot of hardcore bands have run their tires bald with a lack of creativity and Iodine is not one of them. I had the opportunity to interview their guitarist and vocalist, Shawn & Paul recently and today we’re hyped to be debuting their third single “No Future (for you)” from their upcoming Forever Cursed EP.

FIRST OFF, WHAT BANDS INFLUENCED YOUR SOUND?

“Earth Crisis, Leeway, Rage Against The Machine, Death Grips, Beastie Boys, as far as the OG’s. There’s too many to name in the current scene, but it is alive and well and we fuck with it all. Our vocalist is a serious hip hop head as well, and I’m sure that shows.”

HOW WAS YOUR WRITING & RECORDING PROCESS?

“Paul and I (Shawn) are the core writers, I will typically send Paul the demo arrangements for writing purposes. We work on dynamics together from there until we feel they are sitting right to track everything properly. We record at our DIY space and cut the edits and samples before shipping the tracks off to Kyle Marchant to mix. We prefer to track ourselves so we are not pressed for studio hours and can have time to really sit with the parts and re-track or change parts that aren’t working. This as well as our first EP was mixed by Kyle Marchant, and mastered by Luc Chiasson at Room 21 Sound. Your work is in good hands fucking with those guys. Trust that.”

WHENS THE EP DROP / WHERE CAN WE COP ONE?

“We are dropping this latest EP in September under The Jaded Collective which is just our tag as far as publishing, merch, design etc. If you see that name on anything, it’s sort of a quality assurance thing on our part. Since everything is done in house, we don’t feel the need to sit on anything. If an indie label was interested in it, so be it.” 

“THIS EP SERVES AS SORT OF A LYRICAL COMPANION PIECE TO OUR FIRST RELEASE. IF THE PREVIOUS ONE IS SOMEONE COMING TO TERMS WITH THEIR ISSUES AND VENTING, THIS IS ONE WHERE TEHEY’VE HIT THEIR BOILING POINT.”

- PAUL @IODINE

“I would say they compliment the previous release, but they definitely have a larger sense of urgency. We are proud of these records.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR IODINE?

“Wax, limited merch drops, unique pop up show experiences for our listeners. As far as goals, we don’t have any lofty ones. It’s simply make good music that we would listen to, and hope it connects with as many people as it can. I think we would rather be pleasantly surprised by any success, as opposed to being extremely gutted by having high expectations. The music scene in 2024, folks.”

ANY CLOSING WORDS AND SHOUTOUTS?

”We hope our music helps get our listeners through that long shift at work, shitty commute home, or a rough patch in life like so many bands have done for us. The world can be a dark place sometimes, let’s do our best to take care of each other out there. Shout out to everyone keeping the scene alive, and all the DIY venues and promoters for putting their blood, sweat and tears into this thing we all love. “