This article brought to LEO Weekly by Arts Angle, a not-for-profit elevating high school students’ voices and connecting them to local arts and issues through journalism. See how you can support Arts Angle here.
By Vivian Schnuerle, Arts Angle Reporter
Louisville Collegiate School, Class of 2028
The kids just might be alright. Two nights before the Kentucky Derby, a group of young people got together at the Louisville all-ages music venue Camp Spaceman to host a show to raise money for the Democratic Socialists of Louisville (LDSA).
“I think that hardcore in general is political,” said Lucas Higgins, the frontman of Gun Leash, a band from Columbus, Ohio.
Gun Leash and four other bands played to a crowd of about 150 who came out to see the headliner with performances by All Talk, Slumber, Total Flesh and Conniption. The show marked Conniption’s first live performance.
Their efforts helped LDSA raise $1,100 to purchase a new meeting space to keep up with its growing membership, according to LDSA member Daniel Candee, who helped organize the show. Following the 2024 election, LDSA membership increased by 15% to 426 members.
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That evening, LDSA also aimed to gather signatures to support The Trans Safe Haven Ordinance, a Louisville Metro Council proposal written by Councilman JP Lyninger, District 6, a local Democratic Socialists of America chapter member. The proposed ordinance would designate Louisville as a sanctuary city for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals and prevent Metro Government from using public resources to detain those seeking or providing gender-affirming healthcare.
Candee collaborated with his childhood friend and Gun Leash’s frontman, Lucas Higgins, to make the benefit show happen.
“[Higgins] said, let’s do a DSA and Gun Leash show. Let’s get people in here and show a lot of these young people that there’s an option to get organized,” Candee said. “Already this scene is very anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian. But a lot of that energy isn’t directed into an organization with an acronym.”
In the past year, in light of recent events in Minneapolis, the war with Iran, and growing economic inequality, these bands said they have seen the hardcore scene grow, while LDSA also reports a spike in membership.
“A lot of things get really bad when the wrong people are in power,” Higgins said. “But the one thing that always gets really good when the wrong people are in power is the hardcore music.”
Higgins cites hardcore’s history as starting in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was president.
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Youth voices have often played a role in shaping public opinion, and at Camp Spaceman there was an evident anti-establishment attitude among the bands and the audience. During the event they expressed frustration and rage about a political system they believe never helps those who need it.
“People, when they consume their art, even if it’s not explicitly saying (expletive) Trump, (expletive) ICE,” Candee said, “it’s got this ambient screaming sound that I think people who are pissed off about what’s happening really resonate with.”
The bands’ songs reflect their political and social convictions. Total Flesh performed a song called “No Exception” expressing that nobody is safe from the war machine, and even the privileged will be killed eventually. Conniption’s song “Shoeshine” depicts their view of how disgusting the system is, run by whoever donates the most money to get what they want.
“It’s really cool that these spaces give kids and young people a place they can come and air those grievances,” Higgins said, “[To] voice those concerns, talk to each other and try to figure out things they can do to rectify the situation or just to dance really hard.”
While the show embodied Louisville’s hardcore scene, it also sought to connect people.
“We definitely create our music with the intention of kind of bringing people together to an extent,” said Rex Adair from All Talk. “I want everybody from every part of every scene, every state. I want us all to be together.”
These bands see their art as a beacon of hope. For those at the show, the raucous music inside Camp Spaceman created a shield from the outside world. The performance reflected how art can be emotional and rebellious. Historians have documented art responding to social and political tensions and injustices including the Brutalist movement after World War II and the 1990s grunge movement and
Today, everything has become intensely political. The price of eggs, billionaires, companies that build the world we live in, and the work artists create to reflect what we are living through. In Louisville on a recent April night, the kids’ reactions to the world were loud in the city’s hardcore scene.
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This article appears in May 8 – May 21, 2026.