Words – @killer.solo.music
The comedian, Sky Of Ghosts vocalist and creator of Dad Core talks hardcore, PTSD, Zao, stage dives and why growing up doesn’t mean growing soft.
There comes a point in every hardcore kid’s life when the black band shirts are still hanging in the wardrobe… but there’s also a mortgage, kids asleep upstairs and a lawn that somehow becomes interesting.
Nobody warned us this was coming.
Somewhere between stage dives and school drop-offs, the scene quietly grew up.
That’s exactly why Jay Wells L’Ecuyer has accidentally become one of the Internet’s favorite people.
His Dad Core videos aren’t making fun of ageing—they’re celebrating it. They’re proof that the same idiots who were windmilling to Zao twenty years ago are now discussing back pain, coffee and power tools… while still blasting breakdowns on the drive to daycare.
Speaking with Crannk, it became obvious almost immediately that this wasn’t an interview between journalist and comedian.
This was two former hardcore kids finding each other on opposite sides of the planet.
And naturally…
It all started with Zao.
“Zao blew me away right away.”
Like so many of us, Jay’s journey started with gateway bands before discovering there was an entire underground existing beneath MTV.
The Offspring.
Rage Against The Machine.
Korn.
Tool.
System Of A Down.
Then came local hardcore shows in Canada’s Rose City scene and everything changed forever.
“When I first heard those local bands… I never looked back. That was it. I was hooked.”
Ironically, a simple Zao shirt in one Dad Core video ended up bringing the whole story full circle.
The video exploded.
Fans flooded the comments.
Then something surreal happened.
“Russ called me today randomly… Today I got to talk to Russ on the phone. It’s insane.”
For every kid who spent hours studying Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest, that’s the kind of sentence that still sounds impossible.
But beneath the laughs and nostalgia sits another side of Jay that deserves just as much attention.
His band Sky Of Ghosts.
Their debut single, Life Leaves, isn’t built around nostalgia.
It’s built around trauma.
Jay revealed the song was inspired by witnessing a close friend die in front of him over twenty years ago—a memory that never truly left.
“Never really trusted life because life leaves… but death stays with me.”
It’s a devastating lyric, and hearing the story behind it changes the song completely.
Even more remarkable is the fact he hadn’t screamed in over two decades before recording it.
“I hadn’t screamed in 22 years.”
Instead of pretending he still knew how, he hired a vocal coach, relearned proper technique and attacked the microphone with the same enthusiasm he had as a teenager discovering breakdowns for the first time.
That humility says a lot.
So does his perspective on the heavy music world.
“You start realising they’re just on the grind like everybody else.”
That’s perhaps why Dad Core resonates so deeply.
It isn’t really about becoming older.
It’s about refusing to let go of the music, friendships and community that shaped you in the first place.
The mosh pits may be smaller.
The knees definitely hurt more.
But the passion never disappeared.
It simply learned how to fit around family dinners, work schedules and school pickups.
Hardcore never died.
It just became Dad Core.
And honestly?
That might be the most hardcore thing of all.
This is the gospel.
I bite crowd crowd surfers.
– Killer.
