Two of Baltimore’s premier hardcore punk bands will cross paths in Richmond next week as the normally underground scene emerges in a potentially watershed moment for the genre.

On Monday, End It will appear at Canal Club in support of its new album “Wrong Side of Heaven.” Two nights later, Grammy-nominated Turnstile will play along the riverfront at Brown’s Island on the first leg of its international Never Enough Tour.

Both shows are coming to Richmond on the heels of Turnstile opening for blink-182 on a global stadium tour, a critically acclaimed album release and an NPR Tiny Desk performance that featured the public radio series’ first-ever desk dive. Meanwhile, End It has ascended as the standard bearer for Baltimore’s vaunted hardcore scene, wearing the city’s visceral reputation for unrest and violence on its sleeve.

Bobby Egger, owner of the punk rock record store Vinyl Conflict, says their rise mirrors the success countercultural bands like Green Day and Nirvana achieved more than 30 years ago, prompting major record labels to seek out punk bands that traditionally rejected corporatism. “We’re just kind of taking this leap of faith right now,” Egger says.

David Foster, a local entrepreneur and co-founder of United Blood, a formerly annual Richmond hardcore punk festival that returned this year after a hiatus since 2019, says Turnstile’s mainstream crossover and level of success is unprecedented for a hardcore punk band. “I literally couldn’t compare it to anyone else,” Foster says.

Baltimore’s tough reputation

While bands like Gut Instinct and Next Step Up shaped Baltimore’s hardcore scene in the late ’80s and ’90s, Foster and others said the group Trapped Under Ice elevated it to a new renown in the late 2000s.

On Trapped Under Ice’s first EP and LP releases, the band blended the influences of its predecessors, New York-style hardcore and elements of hip-hop and metal in a pastiche featuring lyrical themes of violence, poverty and drug addiction in Baltimore. The band’s signature track “Believe” from the album “Secrets of the World” skewers a since-abandoned slogan for the city, describing feelings of lurking danger and agonizing hopelessness.

Foster, who moved to Richmond from his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 2006, says Baltimore at the time built a reputation as one of the most intimidating hardcore communities in the mid-Atlantic region. “I played in a band that played shows in Baltimore,” he says. “There was always this element of scariness in Baltimore.”

Over the last few years, End It has modeled a similar approach with its music and aesthetic. The band named its 2022 EP release “Unpleasant Living,” a play on the old-school motto of famous Baltimore lager National Bohemian.

In the same way Trapped Under Ice paid homage to cultural Baltimore touchstones by using clips from filmmaker John Waters’ movie-musicals “Hairspray” and “Cry-Baby,” End It’s music video for the single “New Wage Slavery” features references to HBO’s Baltimore-set crime drama “The Wire” and footage of men performing death-defying stunts on dirt bikes through the city’s poverty-stricken streets.

Though Turnstile in recent years has eschewed the menacing bravado of its musical peers, the band remains intimately tied to the city and music scene that helped establish them.

Before the release of their new album “Never Enough,” the band drew a rippling sea of 10,000 frenzied fans for a free concert at a city park in May. Donations collected at the show were given to a charity supporting Baltimore’s homeless population.

Strong connection between cities

Baltimore’s blood-in-mouth flavor spilled across the country as Trapped Under Ice toured relentlessly in the early 2010s.

As the band’s profile rose, TUI drummer Brendan Yates formed Turnstile with friends from other bands. Many of them, including other spin-off projects like Angel Du$t and Diamond Youth, performed in Richmond frequently, booking shows at DIY-venues and now-defunct clubs like Alley Katz and Strange Matter. They often appeared on the bill for United Blood each year.

Che Figueroa, founder of Flatspot Records, the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Baltimore hardcore label that released Trapped Under Ice’s first demo and the new End It album, explains that the bands and scenes spanning the mid-Atlantic region are all closely connected.

“They all identify with each other, we all get along,” Figueroa said. “Even if we go down that way [to Richmond], it kind of feels like a hometown show.”

Foster says that many of the bands throughout the region hold the same DIY values and work ethic. Richmond hardcore band Down To Nothing, he says, often played and toured the East Coast and much of the country with Trapped Under Ice, effectively putting both cities on the map in the world of hardcore.

“Richmond used to be a non-stop hub,” Foster says. “It was really common for bands from Baltimore or D.C. to come down to Richmond on a short three-show, mini-run.”

More than a decade later, Richmond bands still influence Baltimore, says End It drummer Chris Gonzalez. When the Baltimore scene quieted a bit at the end of the last decade, he often traveled to Richmond for hardcore shows.

The link is one of the reasons End It approached Richmond hardcore band Bracewar to join them on their first US headline tour this fall, he says.

“Bracewar was playing a lot in the early 2000s, so they had a huge influence on my playing and my taste in hardcore,” he says. “I was, like, ‘Let’s go to these places where you guys haven’t been in a while.’”

Ticket prices rising

Foster, also the co-founder of the High Point barbershop brand, says he started to notice Turnstile breakthrough with the release of their 2021 album “Glow On.”

The tell-tale sign was clients who seemed unfamiliar with hardcore asking him what was playing over the speakers in the shop, comparing Turnstile’s sound to more well known metal and alternative rock bands. “I think Turnstile has been able to marry things that feel familiar from a popular standpoint with the high energy of punk and hardcore,” he says.

Vinyl Conflict owner Egger says there are some who feel alienated by Turnstile’s evolving sound, but that it’s opening both hardcore and independent music to larger audiences.

Experimenting with electronic-heavy hip-hop, R&B, pop and other punk contemporaries, he says, has kept people hooked.

“Genres have been kind of blurred. There’s not so much gatekeeping, for better or worse, as there was in previous years. And people are just really hungry for a really cool live experience in hardcore,” Egger says. “While it may not be for everybody, it is an undeniably incredible live experience. And I think people are being exposed to it at a rapid pace that maybe they weren’t before.”

He adds that there are some downsides to the growth.

While the punk rock notion of “selling out” may not be as intense as in past generations, Egger says the notoriety has led to rising ticket costs as bands hire managers and demand higher pay. In the last three years, he went from struggling to find a venue and suitable pay for some touring bands to turning down agent requests for contract signatures and firm $25 door prices.

“I’m completely disheartened by that side of it,” he continues. “I don’t think growth is bad, but I don’t think you’re going to get as much grassroots involvement when they’re not going to come at it from a grassroots level. ”

Still, he says fans can choose what they want to support, and that it’s creating opportunities for young newcomers to more easily discover underground scenes where the next coolest bands are getting started.

Figueroa dismissed the idea of Turnstile selling out. So did Gonzalez and Foster. All three say the band hasn’t compromised its artistic vision or values, noting that many of its members remain part of their old bands and are passionate about their roots.

“I think anybody that’s a musician or has actually done anything of substance in hardcore is rooting for Turnstile, and probably will forever,” Foster says.

End It plays The Canal Club on Monday, Sept. 22 with Soul Blind, Ends of Sanity and Dead & Dreaming. All ages. $22 in advance. 6 p.m. doors. Go here for more info. 

Turnstile brings its Never Enough Tour to Brown’s Island on Wednesday, Sept. 24 with support from Blood Orange, Speed and Jane Remover. All ages. Doors at 5 p.m. Go here for more info.