“We always say that slam is gangster rap — rap and slam are hand in hand.”
This is the commandment Oklahoma’s PeelingFlesh live by, according to vocalist Damonteal Harris. Throw on “Perc 3000” off their debut full-length, The G Code, and you’ll hear Project Pat sampled over an ignorant, guttural breakdown, before a record scratch sends everything into a fever pitch — and it’s hard not to have an aha moment.
The fusion of ’90s Southern rap samples and chugging riffs feels so perfectly natural it’s surprising it hasn’t always existed in such a way. In PeelingFlesh’s hands, that pairing is weaponized — and pushed to its absolute extreme.
Like most great accidents, none of this was supposed to happen — including PeelingFlesh even forming. During the isolated early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Harris and a few of his musician friends were bored and restless as hell, with no real outlet to distract or entertain themselves. So they figured, why not make something heavy? The guys looked at what they wanted to hear out of music — as well as what they felt was missing — and then “vomited out” the idea of PeelingFlesh: a modernized slam band that could fit just as comfortably on a death-metal bill as it could a hardcore matinee.
At first, the band’s goals were modest — no plans to tour, no ambitions beyond making a ridiculous band happen. But after a series of mixtapes and EPs, 2024’s The G Code changed everything. The album’s fresh, chaotic sound and crossover appeal sparked a groundswell: They were soon sharing stages with artists like Knocked Loose and Suicide Silence, making their mark on Sonic Temple and earning co-signs from peers including Escuela Grind’s Katerina Economou, who hailed them as “the heaviest band right now.”
EDM superstar Marshmello even played their SVDDEN DEATH collab “Midnight” for a massive European festival crowd. Without question, fans online and IRL have latched onto the band’s no-rules ethos and hard-hitting sound.
With a new EP, PF Radio 2, dropping later this year (and a supporting slot on Lorna Shore’s fall North America run), PeelingFlesh are poised to bring slam to new, unexpected stages — all while staying true to the chaotic vision that emerged from those first creative sessions in Oklahoma. But the story starts further back — with Harris himself, growing up in a musical but quite conservative household.
“I was raised in a good ol’ Southern Midwest church family,” Harris says of his upbringing. “All of my family are some sort of musician, whether they’re a guitarist, bass player, drummer or singer. I was the only one that was in the metal or hardcore side of things.”
Harris came of age right when Myspace was hitting its apex for scene-y slam and -core bands with unreadable logos. He immersed himself in the genre, devouring the sounds of progenitors like Waking the Cadaver. Before he ever fronted a band, he was strictly a bassist — his screams were reserved to howling along to YouTube music videos and freaking out his family.
“[The rest of the PeelingFlesh] actually didn’t hear the vocals I was bringing to the table until we sat down to record our first EP,” Harris says. “They handed me the mic, I let it rip, and [guitarist Mychal] Soto turns around and looks at me and goes, ‘Oh yeah, this is going to work perfectly.’”
Beyond their love of hip-hop samples, what sets PeelingFlesh apart from a million other slam bands is simple: every member can really fucking play. What you hear on the record is exactly what you’ll get live. Drummer Joe Pelletier pulls off mind-melting blast beats with ease. Those unga bunga, caveman slam riffs? They’re intentionally ignorant offerings from Mychal Soto and Jason Parrish — who can just as easily rip a twisting, technical solo to show how deep their talents really run. It’s all held together by expert production that strikes a rare balance between brutality and fidelity.
“We try to find that groove where it still has that rawness — it hits — but the most important part is that clarity,” Harris says. “We’re in very low tunings, my vocals are low, the drums are machine guns going fast — it’s good to hear everything.” It’s true. That push-pull is crystallized on the upcoming PF Radio 2, especially on tracks like “Flesh Cathedral” — a seamless meld of slam, head-rockable samples and straight heaviness.
PeelingFlesh’s sound isn’t just innovative and authentic — it’s culturally resonant. Slam and Southern rap share deep similarities in vibe and fan culture. Cult followers for both genres love the rough edges and embrace gritty production and DIY mythology — be it a Memphis rap cassette that sounds like it was buried in the deepest pile in Shangri-La Records or a grind demo that a guitarist recorded on his older sister’s 2007 MacBook.
“I was thinking about that the last time I was actually in Memphis, listening to Memphis music,” Harris says. “I was like, ‘I don’t think this was ever supposed to make it out of the city.’ Honestly — I think Memphis rap as a whole is that cassette that that weird friend gave you and said, ‘Check this out.’” He laughs. “The first slam albums I heard were random cassettes and it sounded like complete ass… That’s how Memphis and slam go hand in hand.”
Somehow, by smashing these two worlds together, PeelingFlesh have cracked open a bigger one. “I feel like everyone knows who Marshmello is,” Harris says, reflecting on the moment when the EDM DJ dropped their “Midnight” collab with dubstep producer SVDDEN DEATH on a sea of unsuspecting ravers. “You know, the kids on Fortnite know who Marshmello is — I never thought that our groups would cross.”
The crossover was unexpected — but it’s just the beginning. With their upcoming Lorna Shore dates (which also feature the Black Dahlia Murder and Shadow of Intent) and PF Radio 2 pushing their no-holds-barred formula forward, PeelingFlesh’s mission is only gaining steam.
“If we end up being the biggest slam band or the band that makes slam big, completely fine,” says Harris. “Project Pat, Juicy J — if you want to do something for the culture, we’ll take it.”