Malachi Monroe is an American musician and former stage actor based in Cleveland, Ohio. Disillusioned with theatre life early on, his primary output became, and remains, music.
He is also the son of Kevin Monroe, bassist for the seminal punk-blues bands Laughing Hyenas and Mule who has, since the dissolution of those bands, withdrawn from the limelight to dedicate himself to his family.
Malachi currently fronts the Akron-based hardcore band Run Your Mouth. Boasting one self-titled, self-released EP; with an LP forthcoming. His previous projects include Shmux and La Femme Fatale – Staples of Akron-DIY during their tenure.
I first met Malachi after a La Femme Fatale set at Little Rose Tavern in Cleveland a few years back. Tattooed on his bicep is the cover of Mule’s ‘Wrung’ EP – A blue Mr. Potato Head looking devil with its tongue lashing out like a striking copperhead. He was pretty astonished that some rando recognized the source of that ink. We became immediate friends.
Malachi’s erudition and gentleness is as pronounced as his brutal and commanding showmanship onstage.
We conducted this interview at Phoenix Coffee in Cleveland Heights. Sipping rich, eldritch lattes that strongly resembled Korean BBQ sauce in taste.
In it we talk primarily about his life and work, but also in-depth about Ohio hardcore and punk as it currently stands – Both gaining traction.
Check it out, below…
Colby: A/S/L?
Malachi: 23.
I guess male.
Right here, right now.
Describe your upbringing – You’ve mentioned growing up in Philadelphia, USA; and that it lives up to its reputation?
Well, I was only in Philly for three years. I was born in Philly, but hadn’t lived there for very long.
Yeah, I love the city, I’ve got a lot of friends there, I love the Birds… but I wouldn’t really consider myself a Philly person.
I’m definitely a Clevelander at the end of the day, but Philadelphia has a special place in my heart.
Any other places besides Philly and Cleveland?
Pittsburgh is one of my favorite cities.
If you’re just talking about cities that I’ve gravitated towards and connected with, I spent a summer in Pittsburgh doing theatre studies at Carnegie-Mellon, actually. And then the few times I got to go back and play were awesome.
We played at The Deli with my first band, La Femme Fatale, and that was a really, really cool spot. It didn’t last super long, unfortunately.
Yeah, Pittsburgh’s another Rust Belt city like Cleveland that’s like blue-collar, tough, good food, welcoming; but also hard-ass. That’s the kinda cities that I gravitate towards most with, you know, friendly assholes? (chuckles)
When you were studying theatre for that summer, what made the most impression on you – whether it be playwrights, or production, or…?
I was an actor for a long time, and what I did was musical theatre-based.
That whole summer program, which was 6 to 8 weeks thereabouts, it was pretty divided too… You weren’t really doing a lot of stuff altogether, so you were doing a lot of workshops like being a director and doing a bunch of Boal theatre – Augusto Boal was this Brazilian anarchist playwright whose work relied on a lot of improv, incorporating a lot of revolutionary and anti-war stuff, so we studied and put on a big performance of one of his works. That really opened my eyes towards more expansive theatre, expansive art, and revolutionary art.
But eventually I realized that theatre just wasn’t for me. I went to New York, I had an agent, a headshot, the whole nine to pursue a Broadway career, but just not the ambition. Lost interest pretty hard suddenly.
We first met at a gig at Little Rose Tavern in Cleveland.
You were fronting La Femme Fatale then, which was a wild set, especially considering you were wearing a crop top and an adult diaper during the show. A homage to Tommy Pickles from Rugrats?
(laughs) I wish.
I don’t even know where I got the idea for the diaper from other than a ‘wouldn’t it be funny?’ kinda thing.
After you guys tore down I saw several women dry-heaving over the sight of it.
…Well that’s a little mean. (chuckles)
Anyway, I recognized your tattoo of the cover from Michigan hick noise rock band Mule’s ‘Wrung’ EP and turns out Kevin Monroe who played bass in both Mule and Laughing Hyenas is your dad.
How extensive is your relationship with people who were either in those bands (RIP Larissa Strickland) and/or their general sphere?
I can’t really speak for my dad on this, but seems like after he married my mom and she had me he was like: Alright, this punk shit? Let it be.
Of course I’ve met John Brannon, and P.W. Long… it’s been a while since I’ve seen either. It’s cool that those kinda people are family friends. But, you know, my dad works his fucking ass off in order to get by, so we barely have time to go to every show and meet all these people together… He’s just exhausted constantly and to work up the energy for all these oldheads is a chore, right?
He’s definitely the reason I do what I do though, and a lot of his influences are my influences. We agree and disagree on a lot of things when it comes to music.
It’s definitely his connection to Touch and Go and a lot of that Midwest DIY, the beginning of indie, blues-punk and all that.
He’s mostly let me figure it out for myself though, with music. He’s never really pushed a lot of his tastes on me. The only bands he’s ever really pushed down my throat were Roxy Music and The Jesus Lizard to the point of being if you don’t like theses bands, you’re an idiot!
Good lot of it was just going through his records, though, and that’s bridged the gap between my dad’s old punk world, the new punk world, DIY music more broadly. I asked my dad, “Hey, what’s this band? Do you know these guys?” a lot while going through his own collection.
He’s pretty mysterious about it too, tries to be outwardly separate from that whole scene and timeline these days, but his music is my music too.
Same thing with my mom. She was a huge fan of the bands that my dad played in and played bills with, showed me all the cool garage stuff like The Gories, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion… but neither really tried to mold me in some kinda mirror image of their tastes.
No Steely Dan, though.
I wasn’t allowed to listen to Steely Dan.
What’s the Steely Dan beef?
It’s both Steely Dan and Father John Misty. They just hate them and they won’t let me play them in the house. Father John Misty is all terrible, but there are a couple of Steely Dan songs that I like.
It’s rubbed off on me, though, being a picky asshole when it comes to music. If I hear something playing and I don’t like it, I will get very annoyed until it goes away.
Your current project, Run Your Mouth, is an Akron DIY hardcore staple at this point and, generally speaking, has the most violent sets of the night when you’re on a bill.
Most of the members from your previous band, Shmux, are currently in RYM – How’d the former end and the latter begin?
I met Kyle, the real brains behind Shmux, about two and a half, three years ago. Kyle was more into older punk like The Descendents and I was into heavier stuff like Bad Brains, and we just started writing together. He eventually wanted to start a band and I went well shit, I’m done singing and playing guitar in a band, so I was on guitar.
Our friend Justin volunteered on bass, and Gabe – he’s a lifelong friend of mine and he was in La Femme Fatale, too – went on vocals, and there it was. We put out a couple of small LPs. They were fine.
Shmux was fun, but it kinda had to die. We were getting older and our music wasn’t really going anywhere, which was where Run Your Mouth came in. Shmux wanted to be heavier, but we knew that we couldn’t be.
Shmux is still kinda active in the sense that we’ve always kinda wanted to do a hip-hop project and just putting it under Shmux’s name with the same guys doing it. Kyle is very insistent that Shmux will never die, and we have our own disagreements about that. I think that good things have to die and good bands have to end. It fell apart – we struggled with the recording process a bit.
Shmux was one of those bands where everything banked on seeing us live versus listening to recordings of us.
It got tedious, and we didn’t really have a good time recording with the guy we were working with. Neither Gabe or I really wanted to do it anymore, and we just wanted to do something heavier. So Garet came along and we started writing stuff that was thrasher and heavier than the Shmux stuff, and we all just went well, this is dead now, and we have to do something. And I still wanted to be in a band with Garet, Kyle and Justin.
Putting the pieces together, it was originally going to be me playing guitar and singing, Kyle on drums, Justin playing guitar, and Garet on bass. But then I was like, I don’t wanna do a hardcore project where I’m not just doing vocals, unless it was some deathcore thing or something like 200 Stab Wounds, and I didn’t want both a guitar and a mic in my hand. Or fronting with a guitar. You need to move for that kinda stuff.
At first what we wrote sounded like… not necessarily weak but a little dull, and I pushed and pushed and pushed for another guitar player, and they finally agreed to let Joel in. It was perfect.
Joel was a really big Shmux fan, maybe the biggest that ever was. He was in a band called Death Program for a long time that I was a big fan of, and I’m sure you’re familiar with. We didn’t ask for much we were just like hey, show up every once in a while, make us sound bigger, and Joel was like cool (thumbs up). So the rest is history.
We really took our time with this one. We rehearsed for probably five or six months before playing a gig. Cool enough our first gig was at at Dirty D’s [Dirty Dungarees] with some really, really cool bands. So that was definitely a blessing.
Rest is history.
It’s been good ever since.
Most immediate influences on RYM’s sound versus Shmux?
It’s complicated.
We all write different things and some songs and some projects are heavier on some writers versus others. Shmux was a lot of Kyle’s brain, and I wrote a lot of the guitar melodies. Shmux wasn’t really consciously influenced by many artists because we’re all influenced constantly by different performers and musicians constantly, but at its core it was mostly… Surf influenced? Stuff like Daikaiju, old Beach Boys.
We wanted to have this bounce to it that surf has but also heavy, but not so heavy that it necessitated being hardcore. We’re all very humorous, we love comedy more than anything, and Shmux didn’t take itself too seriously at all. Tim Robinson was the biggest influence.
With Run Your Mouth, it gets complicated again.
The stuff we’ve been writing is heavier, more technical… Polished, I’d say. I can only really speak for myself in general on that, but Run Your Mouth is very influenced by… Korn, Jesus Piece, Negative Approach, John Prine, Show Me The Body, Mastodon, Bad Brains, Disembodied, trying to think of a few more…
But the band that everybody in the band loves more than anyone else is Korn. Which is funny, because we don’t sound anything like them, besides some of the melodies that lean that way, but between them and Jesus Piece they’re the bands that we all think are incredible. And John Prine. But pretty obviously no resemblance.
I like to give credit, though, to more local bands. Without bands like Darkroom, without Grudge, Walking Wounded, Griphook, S.M.I.L.E., Violent Nature… Without that kinda local influence, as much as I’m into Jesus Piece, or Drain, or Mindforce or whatever big hardcore band’s got steam right now, they’re the reason we play at all.
Going to DIY shows and seeing madness and madhouses is really what pushed us to play the music that we do.
And you’ve got an LP coming out soon, right?
Yeah, absolutely. We just released our first 3-track EP, ‘Keep It Running.‘ And we just recorded 5 to 6 songs with Graham from Violent Nature, and we’re just waiting a little bit. I’ve still got to track some more vocals. That probably won’t be out until fall. Technically not an LP at 5 or 6 tracks…
I mean, these kinda things are a bunch of bullshit, but we could consider that a promo, I guess.
Last fall, you did a kinda extensive Midwest mini-tour with the recently dissolved Columbus hardcore band Salt. (Honestly, pun intended.)
How did that play out in terms of reception and adventure?
Oh, it was great. I mean, obviously, we all know what happened with Salt. If you’re from Ohio, I don’t need to speak on it, I’m not involved, but obviously what happened was… you know, fuck Salt. What can you do? That’s the way the world goes around, right? It was fun while it was real.
We only hit Dayton and Indianapolis outside of Akron, Cleveland, and Columbus.
Dayton was fine. To be honest with you, the owner at the Dayton venue we played at was really rude to us the entire time, treated us like shit, I didn’t fuck with that at all. She was really condescending to us the entire time, essentially kicking us out five minutes after the set was over – being like, “you need to leave, you need to leave;” and we were like, “dude, we’re getting our equipment, chill out.”
Very passive-aggressive, very rude, and her entire aura and the aura of the store was all welcoming and community and it was all a bunch of fucking bullshit, because you’re not treating us with any sort of respect. So that really upset me, not gonna lie, but it was a good show, definitely.
It was at a record store… I don’t wanna say which one, since I just bashed the owner (laughs).
I mean, what can you do? Don’t be rude to touring bands who are coming in and giving you business.
But then the polar opposite happened in Indianapolis, and that was just amazing.
Brady from Rest Assured is one of the sweetest, kindest men I’ve ever met in hardcore and DIY. He set us up at a skate park in Indy with bands named Gagger and Crossfire and they were powerhouses, really, really talented bands. That skate park was a really cool venue to set up. Brady was so welcoming and so kind, helped us out with literally everything, watched our merch for us… he really saved the day on that one – Indy was a blast.
Sucks that we did that with Salt (laughs).
The Midwest hardcore scene might be the most visibly hyperactive in the country at this point.
What do you, personally, attribute this to?
A lot of this is just culture, I think.
The Midwest, specifically the Rust Belt, has been grounded on a lot of blue-collar Americans. I think hardcore is a blue-collar genre, as well as punk. I think that our cities are kinda tough… with the Midwest you can obviously go out to like, Nebraska or whatever, but specifically I’m referring to the Midwest as it’s concentrated around the Great Lakes: Chicago to Buffalo, down to Cincinnati, maybe Lexington, Indianapolis, those kinda cities.
I’d definitely attribute it to the blue-collar culture and atmosphere of these cities more than anything. I think also a lot of people are angry, and living in these cities can be really tough. I love living in Cleveland – I won’t live here forever, but I love living here – but living in these cities can be tough, and living in America can be really tough, and people get angry about it…
And I think artistic expression is the best way to ever deal with something. The best way to express emotion, feeling, surroundings. Also, in hardcore and adjacent stuff, there’s a lot of pride in cities. If you think about all the Bay Area stuff, how many of those guys go Real Bay Shit! onstage, right?
Slug from here really represents Cleveland and really pushes some Cleveland sports stuff, they have a song called “Cleveland” [from their recent ‘Ohio’ album off of Delayed Gratification Records], stuff like that.
Fucking wild that they got Dwid from Integrity to contribute vocals on their last LP.
I mean, I’m not surprised at all actually (laughs).
Yeah, Slug are cool guys. They really love to represent the city, which I really respect.
Also bands like Haywire from Boston, they’re really all about Boston hardcore… we’re from Boston, we rep Boston. So I think there’s this mixture of hard-working Americans dealing with really, really hard shit and finding a way to artistically express it or to artistically deal with it, you know?
End of the day, at least for me, having a really tough, bullshit week working however many hours, dealing with bullshit, and then going to a show, hearing some guy screaming about my city, then getting to dance around, flail around, and express some anger while being in a safe environment is pretty fucking badass and really important, you know?
It’s a mixture of all those things, but I think it’s the blue-collar environment more than anything, because things are really hard for the people living around you and me in general, and I think out of hard conditions and difficult conditions you get a lot of dramatic, incredible art, and it just so happens that this art is very, very heavy and very forward, and yeah, it’s pretty cool.
Occasionally, I see you doing solo country sets in DIY spaces around here and being Kevin’s son and being around P.W. Long; you were steeped in Americana and country records growing up.
Some of it.
My musical childhood is interesting because, like I said, my parents didn’t really try to force anything on me and regardless of how cool your parents are, you’re gonna hate their music taste growing up around them, right? Because you’re a kid, and you hate your parents.
So a lot of things that they showed me, I was already resistant to and not willing to listen. I was like, this can’t be cool because I’m young and you guys are old and dumb. So I think that hindered me a little bit, but I think every kid has to do that, you gotta hate your parents’ music. But when I got older and COVID happened, I just dove into DIY music, independent stuff like Touch and Go, Americana. It really took me a long time.
I always loved music, and I always thought I had good or at least decent music taste, but I didn’t really find my taste or the true value of that kinda stuff until I was an adult, specifically because I was resisting my parents.
I think if I would’ve had typical American parents, then I would’ve gotten into things much earlier because my parents were into the thing they were into it seemed stupid to get into it because they like it, they must be dumb. But there were things they loved that I always did, too. I was a huge White Stripes fan, garage music. I got into The Beastie Boys pretty heavy, one of my parents’ favorites. Some of those things definitely stuck with me.
My dad has always kinda played country, too, and wrote songs on guitar, and that was more of what I heard as a kid with that. Most real country that I heard was just him driving my mom insane playing the same song on guitar in the living room over and over and over.
I did grow up going to some pop country stuff and I didn’t really like it. My first concert was Toby Keith. Pretty interesting. It was around me, but I didn’t really get around to the kinda Americana songwriting that I like, even from like Dolly, Blaze Foley, Townes van Zandt, Chet Baker, and going further back to the origin of American music with old-school blues, Robert Johnson. Obviously blues are at the center of all American music, so I have to give credit to that of course.
But I didn’t really start writing country stuff until I was an adult.
I think there’s a stigma about country music about what it is and what it isn’t. It’s changed so much over the last thirty years and people don’t seem to have a real sense of what real country music is anymore. You can like whatever you like, that’s fine, but all this Morgan Wallen-type stuff, it’s all flashy. I just don’t get it, it doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s just pop music, and with country, Americana, even folk, it’s pretty similar to hardcore. These are rooted in hardworking, blue-collar Americans that are fighting every day to feed themselves, feed their families, feed their dog, whatever.
Those are the two different paths when I’m expressing myself with music – I’m either really going: down-the-line breakdowns, hard, heavy, anger throwing; and then emotional, subtle, simple, and honest. There is a line to me with Americana and hardcore, going back to blue-collar stuff again, looking for a way and a space to express themselves and feel safe before they have to go back to work.
Any intent on doing this as a more coherent project?
I haven’t really decided on what to do with that yet. I’ve just written songs, and with these sets it’s usually Wes from Kling Thing going, “hey, I’ve got some people coming through from out of town, wanna play a couple songs solo?”; and I’m like, “hell yeah.”
But people seem to enjoy it, I enjoy it, so I’m curious to see where it goes. I’ll just keep writing songs, recording some demos, so I’ll play it by ear.
Kyle really wants me to do something about it, and people constantly want me to record demos for them. People really like the songs, and I’m happy to hear that, it’s fantastic. We’ve talked about getting buddies of mine together as a full band and just play my songs, I don’t know where that’s gonna go yet as of now, but I really enjoy it. It’s so different compared to what I’m used to do, and I’ve done varied stuff before… musical theatre, hardcore.
I think everything has its value, too, and has its own space, and I think you’re an idiot if you only listen to one kind of music, or commit to only one kind of music in DIY spaces rather than just, refusing to go to shows that aren’t like… grindcore, or whatever. I think that’s stupid. I think you gotta support all DIY. Someday it’ll be full-fledged. We’ll see.
Is Ohio worth saving or is it beyond redemption and should just secede from the Union – like how I personally think Florida and Texas ought to, at this point?
I think Ohio already is. It’s all Ohio, I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t think we should secede, I think we should invade.
What’s a good primer for readers outside the U.S. whose interest in Ohio and Midwest hardcore is piqued upon reading this besides who you’ve mentioned?
My favorite hardcore band in Ohio is Grudge. I think they’re incredible, and they take their time, which I think is very important for artists and everything they’ve released has been impressive.
They’re sweet guys too and always put on a kickass show.
I think Darkroom is one of the greatest things to ever come out of Ohio. Darkroom was something really, really, really special and I’m so sad to see it go. They’re basically the reason why I stopped turning my back on metalcore.
I never really got into metalcore at all and never really understood and hearing “Lifeless” for the first time I was like holy shit these guys are the real deal, they’re no jokes. Marcus, Nate, Ethan and Graham are really, really talented and probably the reason why I wanted to make heavier music was seeing them and seeing what they could do.
I’m trying to think of more general DIY bands beyond hardcore…
Walking Wounded’s an incredibly talented band.
If you want something more punk-y, Bigg Egg, they do fantastic, they always bring a crowd and a good time.
If you want more alternative, shoegaze-y stuff, Funeral Commercial and with a more post-hardcore edge, Hostel.
Violent Nature from Columbus was probably the scariest band I’ve ever seen play. That first show was abominable.
That being said, I also gotta give credit to the You Die First guys as well. Easily the meanest band in Cleveland, while Violent Nature is the meanest band in Columbus.
Also shoutout to Self Interest, new straight-edge from… I guess their members are all over the place, but really great first demo that just came out and they’re the homies, too.
We definitely recommend Chum Lord to anyone who’s never heard of Chum Lord. Easily best punk project to ever come out of Ohio since The Dead Boys.
Chum Lord is forever… Which is funny because they’re probably coming back, which is crazy. No shit. I’m working on booking a gig…right now.
I could go on and on…
Bolster from Cincinnati.
Slumber from Ohio in general, they’re the boys.
Glue Eater.
Chain Rule.
Shackled By Lust.
Champagne, new Akron tough-guy shit.
Waydown.
En Love.
Southover from Toledo.
Regalia.
Old Yeller, new PV from Columbus. Rohan and Kitty are really talented musicians.
The Jackal from Akron.
Frenzy, thrashy hardcore in a NYC style. (I used to kinda hate that style, but Frenzy made me start to really like it and start cartwheeling and flailing around like an idiot!)
Yambag is probably the coolest hardcore band ever. They’re the fastest band ever, tenfold one of the best bands to play live and Richard is the man, he does so much for Cleveland and Ohio music.
Cruelster. Piss Me Off. Woodstock ‘99. Church and State… those guys are all awesome. They’re not the oldheads but to me they’re like, oldheads a little bit. They would hate to hear that.
There’s so many Ohio bands, I could go on and on and on.
If you have the chance to come to Ohio and go to Ripperfest, or to Dirty Dungarees in Columbus, it’s pretty special.
No Class, formerly Now That’s Class, is a pretty special place, too. It’s changed, ownership’s changed, everything’s changed, but it’s still a Cleveland staple for heavy music.
Brother’s Lounge is obviously coming up.
Little Rose Tavern is amazing.
Cleveland runs pretty heavy on punk, while Columbus runs on hardcore. There’s of course a lot of hardcore bands in Cleveland and a lot of punk bands in Columbus, but in general I think Cleveland has a little more of that punk thing going on and Columbus has a little more of the hardcore thing going on.
But Richard from Yambag is the reason why Cleveland music is actually cool, he’s put so many good bands up and is so willing to put new bands on, to talk to people after shows, to book a mixed bill, to book a car generator show, to talk to people in the scene who have never talked to anybody. He’s not shy or afraid of making somebody feel welcome. Really big shoutout to him for all that, big ups to that guy.
Delayed Gratification Records (DGR) is an Ohio staple with a lot of cool bands like Rejoice, Circus, Slug.
Collide has their thing going on with bands like You Die First.
There’s a lot of younger people coming up with these smaller labels… Martial Law is a newer that puts out like, kiddo beatdown? I don’t know those guys very well so can’t speak too much about what they’re doing but seems like they’re putting out a lot of grindcore, some beatdown, but they’re all a bit younger, which is fucking awesome, cool seeing that happening.
Dude, there’s so much going on in Ohio right now, it almost feels oversaturated with how much good shit’s happening.
All that being said, Kling Thing in Akron is super, super important to Ohio and DIY generally. Wes, Tom, JJ, those guys are beasts. Absolute beasts. They’re so welcoming, book so many great shows, and support good causes.
They did several benefits for everything going on in Palestine, they’ve supported indigenous causes and people, meanwhile running the coolest DIY venue space ever. I’ve never caught a bad vibe there once, and I’ve played all kinda gigs there.
I’ve only had one bad show there, and that was probably my own goddamn fault. So welcoming to bands, everything’s so efficient. It’s been going on for such a long time, for good reason.
There’s so many important bands from across the spectrum in Ohio, but without Kling, not a lot of it would be possible. I think Kling is really valuable not just to Akron or Kent, but to Ohio broadly. I’ve never played with anybody that was like this place sucks. Their Halloween shows are so much fun.
Really happy that I can call those guys friends and comrades.
I could go on for hours if you really want me to… just come and see it yourself!
Links
- Malachi Monroe – Instagram
- Run Your Mouth – Instagram
- Run Your Mouth – Spotify Entry
- Shmux – Bandcamp
- Shmux – Spotify Entry
- Shmux – Instagram
- La Femme Fatale – Bandcamp
Header photo by Chris Chin.
All images supplied by Colby or sourced online.
