Interview: Scare - Philip Roy talks Québec heavy band's remarkable 'In The End, Was It Worth It?' LP
The band stick out for the ferocity paired with focused, locked in songwriting. Crust, metalcore ((not the goofy kind) and other influences collide in a sophisticated blender of social uprising.
It was a pleasure to talk to Philip Roy about the record, PMA , upending capitalism and more. It is also inspiring the band is against industry exploitation and self-released!!!
1.Despite being so formidably bleak and intense, I find your music also has many anthemic parts that could rally a crowd or mentally feel like "motion", if that makes sense. There is a great and determined restlessness to the compositions. You feel like whatever each song is about that it is something you can't sit still about. Was that conscious or just part of the energy that comes with conviction in what you do? I also feel that in a band like Rid Of Me, where you know the music is really being "lived", just by hearing it.
Yes, we are not
ashamed to be a band with conviction and a political message. We want to speak
out loudly against injustices and rally as many people as possible to fight for
the right causes—whether it’s the place of womxn in the scene, the environment,
or human rights in general. The energy and urgency in our music come naturally
because these are issues we deeply care about—we can’t stay still in the face
of what’s happening in the world. If our music feels like movement, it’s
because that’s exactly what we want: to push forward, to resist, and to inspire
action.
2."Thrash Melrose" is becoming a popular track. I
was watching The Lost Children on Netflix about the Mucutuy siblings who
survived a plane crash and before they were rescued lived for many days in the
jungles of the Amazon when they were very young. There are parts where
indigenous and modern belief systems or techniques both play an important part
in the rescue attempts. "Thrash Melrose" is about the environment, so
I wondered if I could ask you why do you think people so quickly discount the
wisdom of indigenous people? And I don't mean like some tokenizing Native
wise-man trope, I mean like the real trip...true knowledge and practices of
living better with the rhythm of the Earth. Another example would be how
'Prisoners Of The American Dream' or 'Ecology Of Fear' author Mike Davis
basically predicted the recent L.A. fires in some of his writings and didn't
think Malibu should keep getting rebuilt. Controlled burnings to replenish,
practices. Etc.
That’s a great question, and it really
cuts to the heart of the problem with industrial civilization’s approach to
nature. The reason indigenous wisdom is so often dismissed isn’t because it
lacks validity—it’s because it challenges the very foundation of how
capitalist, colonial societies operate. Indigenous knowledge is deeply rooted
in an understanding that the Earth isn’t something to be conquered or
exploited, but something we exist within, in balance. That’s the real
trip—deep, generational knowledge that comes from actually living in harmony
with ecosystems rather than trying to dominate them.
From a green
anarchist perspective, this dismissal is deliberate. The logic of capitalism
thrives on extraction and destruction, not sustainability. If people truly
listened to indigenous practices—controlled burns, respect of natural cycles,
regenerative agriculture, non-hierarchical ways of living—it would undermine
the power structures that profit from environmental devastation. That’s why we
see governments and corporations co-opting environmentalism while still
clear-cutting forests and pushing pipelines through sacred land. It’s not about
ignorance; it’s about control.
Tracks like Thrash Melrose speak to that urgency—the
need to reject the artificial systems that disconnect us from nature and
instead fight for something real, something rooted in respect for the land.
Whether it’s the Amazon, California wildfires, or anywhere else, the Earth has
always had ways to regulate and heal itself. Indigenous people have known this
forever. The question is whether we’ll finally start listening—or if
3.Was "Crowned In Yellow" inspired by the King In
Yellow cult from True Detective or the earlier Hastur tales? Or is it more
along a Fear Factory "Piss Christ" kinda sentiment? Haha. Or both?
Good catch! Crowned In Yellow was directly inspired by The King in Yellow and all of its promises—both the allure and the dread that come with them. The idea of something that offers enlightenment but also brings ruin, that temptation to seek forbidden knowledge despite knowing it might consume you—that was a huge influence. It’s about the way faith, power, and deception intertwine, and how the things we long for can sometimes be our undoing.
Absolutely! Self-releasing isn’t just
about control—it’s about rejecting the exploitative structures of the music
industry. The industry thrives on stripping artists of their autonomy, turning
music into a product instead of an expression. By doing this ourselves, we’re
making sure everything we put out is exactly how we want it, without compromise
or corporate interference. It’s a direct result of our hard work, and no label,
algorithm, or industry gatekeeper gets to dictate how or when people hear it.
This is music on our own terms, for the people who truly connect with it—not
for profit-driven middlemen.
Thank you—that really
means a lot. Jeanne Dark is very much about that tension: the weight of
history, the rage at injustice, but also the bittersweet truth that resistance
is both necessary and exhausting. You’re right—if the world
A mutual friend of
ours ( our first guitar player) made a post online asking if anyone wanted to
start a band in the vein of Converge or Cursed, so we all jumped on it. We
jammed together for the first couple of months, but something felt like it was
missing—what we really needed was Gab’s guitar playing. At that time, two of
her bands had just broken up, so the timing was perfect. It all came together
without any
I was the one
bringing the bleak themes and lyrics to the table, and I can only write about
things that evoke strong emotions, whether they’re positive or negative, so
that usually leads me to explore anger and activism in my lyrics. We were all a
mix of people who listened to a lot of different genres—when I say different, I
mean sometimes total opposites, haha! FNF on drums was always a big Foo
Fighters fan, Gab was digging down the old-school death metal rabbit hole at
the time we were composing the record, and I was deep in a weird
noise/ambient/black metal and even folk phase during that period. Everyone
wanted to bring a part of who they were into the mix, and I think that helped
us break the paradigm of what people might expect from a band like ours. We’d
take a black metal tremolo-picked riff and layer it on top of a drum part that
had absolutely nothing to do with black metal, and that kind of experimentation
was something we really
Scare has always been about this deliberate mix of genres. Thanks we are not on
Encyclopaedia Metallum because we would be a pain in the ask to describe!
It’s terrifying to see political trends
unfolding, especially with figures like Trump, whose tariffs are part of a
destructive pattern that sacrifices the global working class for the benefit of
the wealthy few. While these policies are sold as ways to "protect
jobs," they only exacerbate inequality and pit workers against each other.
Quebec losing 160,000 jobs is a stark reminder that everyday people bear the
real cost, not the billionaires who profit from the chaos. Even more disturbing
is the rise of authoritarian, fascist-like tendencies in Canada with figures
like Pierre Poilievre, especially with his anti-trans politics. Like Trump, he
uses fear and division to rally support, targeting marginalized communities for
political gain, while ignoring the real issues like inequality, climate change,
and workers’ rights. This kind of rhetoric taps into a dangerous nationalism
and bigotry already present in Canadian politics, threatening our rights
The real issue is
that both Trump and Poilievre are part of a system that exploits us all to
benefit the few, treating us as pawns. Whether it’s through tariffs, trade
deals, or environmental destruction, these leaders show a disregard for the
interconnectedness of our global
Seeing people get
inspired by what we do—whether it’s fans picking up instruments or starting
their own projects—always reminds us why we do this. It’s that kind of
connection, that sense of community and mutual support, that really keeps us
going. Being able to have that impact on others, to see our music create a
spark in people, is what really fuels us to keep moving forward.
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