‘Swallow my lies, as I obscure my emotions, why must I contest myself, always against myself, embody another likeness, death of true spirit’ (D4, Unbroken)

With Unbroken having just announced a show for London in November, only their second in the UK and their first since 2010, it was apt timing for Rob Moran to be a guest on the Cult & Culture podcast.  The show is hosted by Justin Pearson and Luke Henshaw, both of Planet B, whose new record, Fiction Prediction, will be landing with us next week.  Rob, of course, is Unbroken’s bassist, and also played in a myriad of other excellent bands, including Narrows and Some Girls.

The strength of the interview, as with the majority of those featured on Cult & Culture, is the shared personal and musical history between Justin and his guests, who more often than not also hail from the San Diego scene.  Justin and Rob’s friendship was born in the early 1990s through their mutual collaborations with the late Eric Allen (who played with Justin in Struggle and Swing Kids either side of Unbroken), Unbroken and Struggle playing shows together, and Justin’s Three One G label releasing Unbroken’s 1994 7-inch, And b/w Fall On Proverb.

Thoroughly recommended, the interview is really insightful and benefits from the warmth and, indeed, easy charm, that only friends chatting away can really generate.  The conversation is a wide-ranging one and you sense that it could have spun off in any number of directions, fuelled by Rob’s continued passion for music, taking in everyone from Sepultura to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin by way of Blacklisted and Judge.  One of the most intriguing recurring themes was that of ‘space’ – how it shapes human interaction, and vice versa, spanning the city of San Diego itself, to music venues, such as Iguanas in Tijuana, and Rob’s own coffee shop, Heartwork (named after the Carcass song of the same title).

But the real thrust of Justin’s and Luke’s questioning, is to try and pin down the characteristics that have ensured that Unbroken’s music has both stood the test of time, and also seen the band’s popularity soar since they initially broke-up in 1995.  After all, as Justin says, Unbroken’s is a pretty special legacy: ‘A unicorn, some rare ass shit’.

The first aspect they touch on is that the band’s aesthetic – again in Justin’s words, ‘A bunch of Morrisseys playing Slayer’ – is a pretty unique one.  It certainly helped to fundamentally broaden what it could mean to be a hardcore band, especially bearing in mind that Unbroken emerged from a Californian straight-edge scene that was prone to a certain militancy.  Rob talks about how the band were shaped by introducing their love of British indie and post-punk bands, such as The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Joy Division, to their existing hardcore and thrash metal influences.  At the time, The Smiths were hugely popular, particularly amongst the Latinx community, in Rob’s hometown of Chula Vista.  This connection he believes was shaped by how their songs evoke a sense of not belonging, of being ‘the other’, which spoke to the lived experience of many second-generation Mexican immigrants to the US.

These influences were to impact Unbroken’s music well beyond their pompadour haircuts and t-shirts.  Firstly, lyrically the band tackled issues that were far removed from many of their contemporaries, focusing primarily on the desolation and isolation that can define our daily lives.  Rob is cognisant that on some levels this reflected their own emotional struggles as teenagers, as well as being a conscious attempt to bring genuine empathy and emotional depth to their songwriting.  Similarly, as their sound developed, it increasingly exhibited a bleak melodicism that reflected some of the band’s wider influences.

The second aspect explored is whether the longevity of Unbroken’s impact stems from how influential their music was to become on the future directions of hardcore.  And without doubt, their legacy in this regard is significant, forging a musical template that served as foundational for many of the great metallic hardcore bands that followed, and also a lyrical expression that inspired future emotional hardcore bands with the confidence to explore more personal themes.

Yet we have all at some point returned to listen to bands who were hugely influential for us, only to find that their music has paled a little over time, lost that sense of searing vitality that first defined it.  Perhaps, they were very much of that moment in time, or those that followed reimagined those inspirations that much more powerfully.  But that certainly isn’t the case with Unbroken.  Why?

The answer lies in the simple fact that the quality of their music, some thirty years on, is as viscerally engaging as ever, and when this is combined with the other factors discussed, you begin to get to the heart of the matter.  Whether it is the raw, bristling metallic barrage of Ritual (1993), or the darkly melancholic brilliance of Life. Love. Regret. (1994), you experience music that is essentially timeless, as impactful now as the day you first heard it.  This is a very rare achievement indeed.

Rob talks of how disconcerting this enduring popularity can be, not least in the context of Eric Allen’s death.  When they first reunited in 1998 to play a memorial show for Eric’s family, an 1800-capacity venue was booked.  Remembering nights playing to thirty people at the Che Café in San Diego, Rob was genuinely petrified that they would be playing to a half-empty room at best.  It turns out that he needn’t have worried!

Ultimately, Rob characterises the aim of his musical endeavours as being to recognise that we are ‘hopelessly stuck in this machine’, but to ‘make pockets of beauty’ that offset this often-grim reality.  Definitely an interview to check out, and I for one can’t wait for one final opportunity to witness a truly great band in action.

‘If it was real progression, greed would not dictate our souls, if it was real progression, we’d give back what we stole, if it was real progression, we’d burn these lies all down’ (In The Name Of Progression, Unbroken)

‘Cult & Culture’ is available on most podcast platforms, including ruinousmedia.com/cultandculture.