The Hunt For Community in the US: Bands on Hands - A Simultaneous Celebration of Boxing and Music
Bands on Hands — Femme Fatale Night — East Point Utility Works, GA
There I was, in the thick of it all, inside this old utility works warehouse now turned into a brewery. Seeing the people get down in the pit, moving from side to side as the music became harsher, more powerful. I wanted to get in there myself, if not for my expensive camera being with me, and not wanting to risk it breaking. The vocalists from all bands when it was their turn, screaming into the mic, and the band members wailing on their instruments. The energy was raw. The heat from being near the pit practically had me quite literally feeling the aura and emotion just by being near the stage and the crowd.
A few months ago on Instagram I had found a flyer someone had of a boxer getting punched in the face. It was a good photo, so naturally, me being nosey, I clicked it to see what that was about. Low and behold, an entire page dedicated to music and boxing, something I’d never really seen in combination before, at least not live.
Further down the page, I saw videos of people with mohawks and dyed hair 2 stepping into a pit, and another video of them slowly dancing to top the night off. But, the final video was of two boxers giving each other punches back and forth. Body shots, face shots, an announcer narrating what was going on. I hadn’t seen or heard of anything like this before. A boxing match and a hardcore show?
“Who’s doing this, who came up with this, this is such a good idea.”
The Idea of Self Defense
Some personal self reflection. 
When I was in middle school and high school, I was bullied pretty badly, often for a lot of stuff I couldn’t help. I didn’t get social cues, I often would not try my hardest in school, and I couldn’t really tell if people were being nice to me, or if they were going out of their way to be mean towards me. It was a pretty common occurrence for someone to go out of their way to be sarcastic when asking me something, and I did not realize they were being mean until a week or two later. Being mean wasn’t really a consistent concept in my head, like I understood it, but I followed a strict set of rules. The rule being if you treat me with respect, I’ll show you the same, always say goodbye before I leave, always say hi and wave when I see an acquaintance. But I don’t know, maybe it’s being on the spectrum, but people really don’t act the best when you’re nice sometimes. Maybe it’s from past hurts, or distrust, but even as an adult, people hate it when you follow those rules, or are put off by them, and they themselves don’t follow them either.
The idea that someone could go out of their way to be mean, confuses me, and I don’t understand it. An emotional high stakes moment where something is said that shouldn’t be – sure I get that, I’ve done that. But to go out of your way to be a bully…why?
I was myself, and I think I got picked on for it, so much so that I decided to be quiet in school, never speaking, never looking anyone in the eye, never making a facial expression. If I was quiet, no one could have a reason to make fun of me, or so I thought.
But once in high school it got so bad that a student came up to me at my desk and started punching me when I spoke up against him.
“Hey dinosaur,” (my nickname that I was called as a kid because of the shape of my head and the fact that I always had a buzzcut).
“Hey dinosaur, are you gonna do the Gangnam style dance for us?”
Every time it was the same shit, from the same people, even when I grew hair.
“Hey, does the carpet match the drapes, you look like Chief Keef, say Sosa.”
One day I told a classmate to go fuck himself, and I called him an absolute fucking dumbass in front of the whole class. I don’t really remember all of what I said but I blew up on him, in front of the teacher and all.
Needless to say, that classmate didn’t like that, came over, and started punching me. I ended up getting suspended along with him, even though I didn’t retaliate. My parents told me years later that they ended up going back to the school and getting the suspension removed from my record. I really wish they had told me that years ago.
After that incident, my father was set on teaching me how to box.
“No, keep your left hand further from your face, keep your right hand close to your face. Don’t make a fist like that, put your thumb outside on your knuckles. You jump rope because of the rhythm, don’t lock out your arms when you punch, keep going.”
He had bought a punching bag, and one of those punching things you wear on your palms. He would make me run drills with him, from time to time. It was hard to figure out if he wanted me to keep myself safe, or if he was embarrassed that I didn’t fight back at all. I was mad at him for making me do that, but in hindsight, I think he was trying to protect me the best way he knew how.
My father was also bullied as a kid, but he had handled it differently. Often getting into fights, even being arrested a couple of times. Once he had told me that my uncle was jumped by some other kids in a park. My grandfather and all three sons – my father included, had gone to the park, confronted the boys, and I was told my grandfather even threatened someone with a pistol – allegedly.
Is that cool? In hindsight, not really, that type of violence isn’t really needed, especially against high-school kids. But, still, it’s important to stand up for yourself, but there has to be a better way.
Now as an adult I know to ask someone something like “you feeling alright.” Or laughing with them if they say something rude because it makes them uncomfortable. Understanding that other people's shitty behavior has more to do with them, and less to do with me also really helps.
February 7th 2025
I was pacing around East Atlanta Village, looking for the event organizer for Bands on Hands, Free. I had walked into a bar, ready to start the interview. I sent a text, and waited outside of a bar, the name of which I can’t really recall.
Free came outside, he had a buzzcut, and had worn a black jacket. He looked buff, like he’d actively worked out pretty regularly.
“Hey, I thought the interview was Saturday,” said Free.
I had completely forgotten, it was Saturday, I was here a day early. I hadn’t really had too much experience doing interviews. In fact, I didn’t really quite know what I was doing. To some extent I still don’t. Around this time I had lived outside of Atlanta, and had driven a good hour to get to the city.
“Oh shit, we did plan to schedule it for tomorrow, my bad.”
“Eh it’s cool, it’s alright, you can come inside and we can do the interview. I'm not doing anything right now for work.”
I followed Free into the bar, we sat at the bar near the stage area. He’d offered me a beer, but I declined.
Free was 24 years old at the time of doing this interview, he’s an artist that has a lot of hobbies, including sustainability (he grows mushrooms). He’s genuinely a pretty nice guy, we even talked about martial arts films at one point, but I won’t get into that and get distracted.
“I’m really big on, you know, growing my own food. I kind of like making my own clothes here and there too, I haven’t in some time, but I guess that kind of plays into both the creative hobby aspect and the sustainability aspect.” He said.
We moved on to start talking about Bands on Hands itself.
“Alright cool, cool, alright, so I guess it’s just kind of what I asked before, I mean, what made you want to come up and start all of this up?” I had asked.
“It was a few different things that kind of came together. It was really a union of necessity and desire. I had always wanted to do martial arts, but never had the time or money just because of being involved in so many other things. So it was a way of me creating a space for me to train just by creating a community around it, and I was also working at a warehouse at the time, and we were trying to turn that warehouse into an event space and create homegrown events for the company. I know it participated in a similar event that a friend of mine threw in New Orleans. They threw an event where it was like a hip-hop alternative show with boxing matches in between sets and the boxing matches for that show were like with these steel barricades on a concrete floor. It was super grungy, but it was really fun. Fast forward, like 6 months later, when I was at the warehouse, I just hit them up and kind of asked for their blessing to use the warehouse.”
He laughed.
“I put my own spin on it to bring out bands instead of solo acts. The first one was at that warehouse, and ever since I’ve stopped working there. This whole thing has been my brainchild ever since.”
I nodded my head, moving onto the next question.
“So why punk and hardcore, why not hip-hop or another genre?”
“Because of the moshing, and just because it’s already punk and metal, the show’s already a place where people recreationally hit each other and boxing is the sport where we recreationally hit each other. So I was like, the two are just begging to go together, right? I mean, it would work with hip-hop, but I feel like the energy would go well with this style of music more.”
The next upcoming show was Femme Fatale, a night where femme bands and boxers would have the night centered on them. It was a crazier spin on the whole event, making the day of the show even more unique, and more enjoyable. I asked about this next.
“I ended up going with the planned women fronted bands lineup for the last bands on hands show, which wasn’t necessarily a femme night, or intended to be that way. It just sort of happened, we had 4 bands which were fronted by women, so this time around, I put in a little more legwork into finding femme fronted bands because their list had already been used up from the last one. But with some help from a lot of people I knew, we found some.”
Day of The Show
Each match had about 3 rounds, and each round went on for I believe 5 minutes. Everyone gathered around the stage with their phones to record the fights. Free was on the band stage announcing what was going on the entire time with quick little quips about the fight.
There were a lot of market vendors as well, one person I won’t name was being really extra about how I should make money as a photographer. I had maybe been a little worried about what the vibe was gonna be like. Was it going to be really violent with a lot of meatheads that want to go out of their way to hurt people? But no, there were mostly young adults there, and a couple of older folks with all grey hair. The moshing was contained, no one had gone out of their way to crowd kill, really. It was genuinely a good time, and from a photographers standpoint, there was a lot for me to take pictures of during the whole night.
The day of the show I couldn’t stop chain smoking, when one band would go on I’d sit and listen, and then pop outside. When another band went up, I’d repeat, over and over again. An interesting contrast to be feeling so out of breath all the time, and feeling a bit inebriated, and then to see people be physically active in the ring. Something about seeing people two step or move side to side in place or really just moving altogether really does something to your brain.
The matches were even more fun to photograph and watch. I’ve never seen a boxing match in person, and the movement and technique that the fighters used for both fights was so involved. The whole event was amazing, and I’d absolutely try to make the next one in the future.
I find hardcore and punk music to be the most relaxing in times of stress. When you show up having a hard day, going to a show and listening to the heavily distorted sounds really detoxes you.