\n\t\t\t\t@noechonet<\/a> |<\/p>\n
\t\t\t10.7.2025<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/killed-for-less-hardcore-band-2025.jpg\")
\nPhoto:\u00a0Leana Lowe<\/p>\n
In March of 2024, American hardcore scene veteran Keats Rickard (Nowhere Roads, Model Prisoner) moved with his family from Philadephia to\u00a0Whangarei, New Zealand. It’s there where he met fellow coresman Rhys Owen, vocalist Standover, a band recently featured on No Echo<\/a>. The two quickly bonded about their love for all-things hardcore and the next fateful words were said:\u00a0“Let’s write some songs, record them, put out a demo and see what people think.”\u00a0<\/p>\n That’s the origin story behind their new band, Killed For Less. Before they secured their lineup, Keats recorded guitars\u00a0and Rhys\u00a0tracked his vocal parts on the weekend, and with some drum tweaks from studio wiz Wyatt Oberholzer (Envision, Year of the Knife), their demo, Died For Nothing, was completed.<\/p>\n Killed For Less went from project to full-on band with the addition of drummer Braden McMahon, bassist Mark \u201cBoldis\u201d Newbold, Matt \u201cWadzy\u201d Wadsworth on second guitar. The band will be making its live debut\u00a0in Hamilton, New Zealand later this month\u00a0opening the Saturday set of the Foundation Fest.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, I’m happy to help present the music video for a track from the Died For Nothing demo called “Riga Ghetto” that carries an important message. Read on below for more context on that:<\/p>\n Here’s what Rhys shared with No Echo about the song’s lyrics:<\/p>\n “The underlying message in the song \u2018Riga Ghetto,’\u00a0from my point of view, is about awareness. What do we know and what are we deciding to learn from? My grandmother was from Gdansk, Poland and experienced World War II\u00a0in all its horror. While she passed on stories of her experiences to me, from what she saw within Poland and Germany, there obviously were other areas of Europe perpetrating similar atrocities.<\/p>\n “I wasn\u2019t just being told by a teacher or reading from a book, I was learning first hand from someone who was there. A living eyewitness that was let go from a concentration camp, left to wander the streets, not in her home country, once they realised she wasn\u2019t Jewish.<\/p>\n “I only recently became aware of the Rumbula massacre<\/a> in the forest just outside of Riga, Latvia. The town of Riga was turned into a ghetto of imprisoned Jews awaiting their imminent unjust deaths. This was an \u201cevent\u201d I had never heard about or been told had happened but was equally just as important as everything my grandmother had already told me.<\/p>\n “Are we aware enough of historical events and able to articulate ourselves today, in a way that these types of events never repeat? Any level of discrimination and dehumanisation is a learned behaviour. Children are not born discriminatory, racist and intolerant. Abhorrent human nature from \u201cleaders\u201d passed down to younger generations to continue the cycle of destruction. What is it that makes people think they have the right to decide who lives or dies based on differences of opinion?<\/p>\n “\u2018Riga Ghetto\u2019 is my small attempt to create some awareness, some understanding, to start a thought pattern, to be a good human, amongst all the bad ones, and to remind us to ‘never forget.'”<\/p>\n The Died For Nothing demo is available on a limited run of 50 cassettes via Cosmic Level Records<\/a>. It’s also up on all streaming outlets.\u00a0For you PAHC heads, the demo features a cover of\u00a0\u201cBring the Slaughter\u201d which was originally by Philadelphia band\u00a0Rock Bottom.<\/p>\n Killed For Less will make their live debut at Foundation Fest II on October 17, 18 in Hamilton, New Zealand (tickets<\/a>).<\/p>\n Killed For Less on social media: Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n Tagged: killed for less<\/a><\/p>\n \t\tAbout the Author Owner of No Echo, Carlos Ramirez has played in the bands Black Army Jacket<\/a>, Hope Collapse<\/a>, and Deny the Cross<\/a>. Born and raised in Queens, NY, Carlos resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two kids.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Foundation_Fest_is_coming_up_soon!_Get_your_tickets,_and_go_both_days!_We_debut_Killed_For_Less.jpg\")
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\n\t\t![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/avatar_2_4.jpg\"){kind=avatar}
\n\t\tCarlos Ramirez<\/p>\n