Upchuck Are Rewiring Modern Hardcore

Why the Atlanta outfit’s new era—produced by Ty Segall—feels more vital than ever.

By Khagan Aslanov

Published on November 13, 2025

You might have heard about Upchuck. The hot-headed Atlanta hardcore band have been on an unstoppable rise since 2018, pumping out a steady stream of nervy, petulant songs that speak to daily life in a country and world edging ever closer to the brink. After their recent signing to Domino, a support slot for Amyl and the Sniffers, and the release of their scorching new album I’m Nice Now, the buzz around the band has reached ear-splitting levels.

A common thread in conversations surrounding their climb is that they are bona fide. After all, they got here the old-fashioned way — through sharp writing chops, hustling for shows, DIY ethics, relentless touring, and the kind of word-of-mouth that comes only from high-voltage live sets that become instant scene lore.

RANGE caught up with the band’s vocalist Kaila “KT” Thompson as Upchuck continue their globe-spanning tour, with Oceania next in their sights.

It’s strange to think, especially given how seamlessly her voice fits into Upchuck’s fold, but at the beginning, Thompson actually had to audition to become the band’s vocalist.

She bristles ever so slightly when I mention that aside from hardcore, post-punk, newgaze and a few other subgenre twists, there’s a solid pop heart beating under Upchuck’s shuddering blasts. Then she laughs and admits the band do call some of their songs “pop.”

“It all just kind of happened. We’re individually so different. Us coming together trying to make a song was just testing the waters of what hardcore is.”

Still, for all the stylistic tangents on display, the sonic guts and lyrics of I’m Nice Now remain faithful to a hardcore scaffold. Which is why the band’s choice of Ty Segall as producer may seem, on paper, unexpected. The ever-prolific artist — who has roughly fifty releases to his name — has largely plied his trade in garage, psych, and fuzz-drenched revivalism.

“We played a show with Fuzz (one of Segall’s side projects) at Terminal West in Atlanta. We got to talking backstage, and he invited us to come with them to North Carolina. And we just kinda followed them,” KT says of how the relationship first began.

At the time, Upchuck were signed to Famous Class Records, a Brooklyn-based indie imprint owned by Cyrus Lubin. Lubin, now the band’s manager, was good friends with Segall. That connection brought the band to Sonic Ranch, a famed studio complex in Tornillo, Texas, known for its meticulously assembled recording rooms that have hosted At the Drive-In, Swans, Gogol Bordello and countless other iconoclasts of loud guitar music.

“We learned a lot from Ty. How to work with what we’ve got, and with the time we have. We had only ten days to do everything. It’s an experience,” KT says, shaking her head incredulously as she remembers the compressed timeline that yielded I’m Nice Now.

Upchuck’s time at Sonic Ranch was a wild moment. The complex sits in a small border town in El Paso County, out in the remote flatlands of the Chihuahuan Desert. Adding to the desolate landscape was the fact that Sonic Ranch is constantly in demand — dozens of artists rotate between rooms at any given time, each space custom-built for specific instruments. This was also the year it snowed in Texas, adding yet another surreal layer to the band’s surroundings.

Upchuck’s knack for earning their hardcore stripes the old-fashioned way carries into their tour stories. Alongside their incendiary performances, there are legends floating around about rogue pits, busted eyebrows, and biting incidents.

“There was an altercation with some French guy who robbed Chris (Salado, the band’s drummer). He pulled a knife. They were holding him down to grab it from him. And that man just bit Chris,” KT muses, half-amused but still seemingly in disbelief.

As she laughs about it, the scar running across her eyebrow catches the light streaming through the hotel window. The now-infamous injury came from a collision with a shopping cart that an overexcited fan pushed into the mosh pit at their show. The scar — in all its hard-earned, Iggy Pop-esque glory — would eventually appear on the front cover of the band’s debut, Sense Yourself.

Despite the maelstrom of chaotic, positive change swirling around them, KT and Upchuck seem to be taking it all in stride. It’s perhaps a necessary adaptive mechanism for a politically minded band navigating the current atmosphere in their home state.

As we speak, Atlanta — and Georgia at large — is facing a continuous series of ICE raids, and the state’s National Guard is being deployed to DC to strong-arm peaceful protests. Layered into this are all the usual Republican trappings that define the South. But even as part of the Bible Belt, Atlanta remains a paradox: a city that has long been a stronghold for people of colour, despite the state’s conservative governance. That push and pull is felt intensely by a young, politically engaged band whose members are largely African-American and Latinx.

“It’s really fucked up. It’s cooked everywhere in America. No matter where you are, ICE is outside. It’s fucked up for people of colour. I’m surprised it’s not even worse in Atlanta though, because we are a Black Mecca,” KT says.

So it goes for Upchuck — bootstrapping, bruises, booming volumes, and brushing elbows with the top of punk’s food-chain. The band, a much-needed addition to the genre’s echelons, is full of the best things this music has to offer: righteous, agitated, self-aware, unafraid of hard work, and in possession of an unmatched vitality.