NEW NOISE
SHOOTING DAGGERS
The queercore band taking the fight to the misogynists
WORDS: DANNII LEIVERS
‘WE ARE QUEER, and we’re gonna live!’ roars Shooting Daggers’ singer Sal Salgado Pellegrin, on We Will Live, the penultimate call-to-arms on the band’s fearless new EP, Athames.
It’s a lyric that sums up the steely eyed attitude behind the band’s brutal, yet triumphant, hardcore punk. Heavy music is a place where people can find a home, when they feel they don’t belong anywhere else. But for a community that prides itself on inclusivity, metal and hardcore can still be unwelcoming spaces for women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of colour.
It’s those intolerances that the trio – made up of French vocalist and guitarist Sal, Italian bassist Bea Simion and Spanish drummer Raquel J Alves – are determined to eradicate. Inspired by the riot grrrl movement, G.L.O.S.S and Black Flag, alongside queercore peers Sharptooth and Pupil Slicer, they’re fiercely and noisily taking their own space in metal’s traditionally white, cishet male scene.