Jivebomb exploded out of boredom and friendship — and the most disruptive global health crisis in a hundred years.
When COVID hit in early 2020, Kat Madeira and her music-loving friends in Baltimore found their lives suddenly, and indefinitely, put on hold: no gigs, no outside forms of entertainment, no outlets for distraction beyond the confines of home. With nothing to do, they got together when they could, made some noise — and accidentally created one of the most ferocious new hardcore bands in the scene.
“It was very bleak,” Madeira recalls over Zoom this past February. She’s seated on the floor of her home, taking occasional puffs from a vape. “We weren’t seeing most of our friends that we would see regularly through going to shows. Writing music was the closest thing we could get to that. We didn’t really have any goal or expectations in mind. We were just passing the time, so to speak, and trying to replicate the feeling of normalcy.”
The definition of normalcy has radically changed for Jivebomb since the pandemic passed. In just a few years, they signed to Flatspot Records, dropped their attention-grabbing 2022 EP, Primitive Desires, and racked up touring slots alongside modern hardcore luminaries, from Angel Du$t, Harm’s Way and Scowl to Soul Glo, Fleshwater and Zulu.
Their take on hardcore skews heavy and scabrous, pushing the genre’s boundary into grindcore territory — a sound fully realized on their debut full-length, ETHEREAL. In the space of just 13 scorching minutes, the album isn’t so much a statement of intent as it is a controlled detonation — brief, violent and impossible to ignore.
To get there, Madeira had to find her voice. And that took work. Her mononymous bandmates — guitarists Harper and David, bassist Ethan and drummer Nick — had played in bands before, but Jivebomb marked Madeira’s first time grabbing the mic. With time, determination and a willingness to watch and learn from others, she molded herself into the frontwoman she envisioned.
“It took a lot of practice,” she acknowledges. “I was losing my voice really quickly when I was screaming and I was like, I’ve got to figure this out if I want to keep touring. I don’t want to lose my voice on the first day and then sound like shit the rest of the tour.”
Kevin Baker
Being a great vocalist, of course, doesn’t guarantee being a great frontperson. Madeira needed technique, but she also needed energy — and she was especially conscious of bringing more than just aggression to Jivebomb’s live shows.
“I want to have fun,” she says. “I want the crowd to be having fun. In this world, the music is so driven and fast, and I can’t imagine not letting that take over my entire body.”
That magical, fiery, all-consuming feeling is what first seized Madeira’s attention when she discovered hardcore. While a fan of many musical genres — jazz, hip-hop and R&B among them — she was particularly captivated by punk and hardcore shows. Something about guitar music just felt different.
People engaged with it unlike anything she’d seen before, throwing themselves violently into the action at the front of the stage. She found bands like Title Fight, Citizen, Gorilla Biscuits and Rival Mob, and was enthralled. It also helped that Baltimore was a hardcore hotspot, home to Turnstile, Trapped Under Ice and End It, among others.
“[Baltimore has] always felt very diverse in every sense of the word — the people, the visual style, the music,” she points out. “That breeds a different sort of creativity. You can feel it just in the camaraderie of a show. We’re all supporting this one thing, and I think that’s what makes it so special.”
With Jivebomb, Madeira and her bandmates are pushing hardcore beyond its traditional bounds, fusing it with a wild mix of influences — sometimes from the unlikeliest places — to create something unmistakably theirs.
The sledgehammer-heavy “ESTRELA” draws inspiration from jazz icon Billie Holiday’s rendition of “Gloomy Sunday,” while the music video for the raging “SURVIVAL AIN’T TAUGHT” taps into the aesthetics of ’90s hip-hop and lowrider culture. Elsewhere, the video for “SERAPHIM (MARINA’S SONG)” embraces the eerie visual language of ’80s horror.
For ETHEREAL, Jivebomb enlisted producer Ben Greenberg of Uniform, recording at Brooklyn’s Circular Ruin studios. The goal: keep it raw and real. “I just wanted it to be authentic and true to what we do — an accurate representation of everyone’s personalities at once,” says Madeira.
They also didn’t force it, and let the album happen naturally. “We weren’t really putting any pressure on it and just let it happen organically, which is what I wanted,” she explains. “If we weren’t touring so much for the first half of the process, we probably would have had it out sooner. But I don’t think you can rush art.”
Eventually, ETHEREAL took shape. While its title might feel like the polar opposite of Jivebomb’s brutal sound, beneath its whirlwind sonic assault lies a dreamy meditation on spirituality and the yearning for something beyond tangible reach. Many of Madeira’s lyrics began as lines of poetry taken straight from her journal.
“I never have a shortage of things to write or say, even if they don’t all exist for other people to read or be a part of,” she says. “It just keeps my brain creative and constantly flowing with more ideas.”
Outside of music, Madeira works as a tattoo artist and relishes balancing two different, yet complementary, creative pursuits.
“I feel like I lucked out,” she says. “I’ve been tattooing for about three years now, and no matter how long I’m away for, I’m still going to have this skill. It doesn’t expire. I’m just letting Jivebomb do whatever it has to do — and see where that takes me.”
She continues: “People ask if I would tattoo on the road, and right now the answer is a hard no. I like leaving them be their own things. It gives me the opportunity to miss them. If I’m gone for a month, I’m like, ‘Damn, I can’t wait to be in a more calm environment and tattoo and see clients.’ Then if I’m tattooing for a month, I’m like, ‘I really miss performing.’ I think it keeps things special.”
Noelle Steele
With no expectations, everything that’s rolled Jivebomb’s way so far has felt like a gift. From here, they’re happy to let the universe grab the wheel and steer them where it will.
“This already went further than any of us could have expected,” Madeira says. “I just want to see where it goes. People I’ve spoken to are like, ‘Rock & roll is not forever, one day it’ll all be gone.’ That’s such a bleak way to look at it. If that’s true, why not see it through until you can’t anymore?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know what this year is going to bring us. I don’t know how the record is going to resonate with people. I know that I’m really proud of it [and] want to share it. That’s where my expectation caps off. … It feels kind of silly to give anyone something with the expectation of a return. The goal, I guess, is just to keep chasing whatever is available for us.”