Bodyweb: Meet The Leeds Mob Blending Slipknot And Hardcore Catharsis

Photo: Nat Wood

When he’s writing music, Louis Hardy is trying to excavate something. “It can be a really thorough way of trying to explore yourself on a deep level,” he reasons. “I don’t want to say it’s like therapy, because that’s the most clichéd thing ever, but you can explore a lot. If something happens in my life that triggers a strong emotion in any direction, I want to write a song about it.”

“I want to find the sounds that make me feel the way I felt in that moment or at that time and build a body of work that is formed from the nucleus of an event or an emotion in my real life,” he continues. “And then, once it’s created, I can look at it and be like, ‘This is like a snapshot of what was going on in my life, and it’s all guided from this small emotional palette.’ Every choice, musically or creatively, has been informed by trying to honour that emotion.”

The vessel for this soul-searching is Bodyweb. Louis is often spotted on stage as the guitarist of Higher Power, as well as in Big Cheese and Fate, but with Bodyweb, he is at the helm. His mind is put on the table and is allowed to spill open in different, more personal ways. If Slipknot started in the 2020s and found themselves pulled towards hardcore more than metal, Bodyweb is what they’d sound like – bristling with a feral energy and indelible swagger, while also channelling the icy dread of technological dystopia. 

They’re stalwarts of the Leeds hardcore scene, often found in beloved venue Boom, with Louis helping to build a new rehearsal room when the venue had to move premises. Outside of it, they’re in increasing demand too, racking up support slots with the likes of Static Dress, Scowl and, more recently, Poison The Well.

Bodyweb is not so much a side project as it is a supergroup of sorts. It took root in jam sessions with Ben Jones, of fellow Leeds hardcore merchants Pest Control, through which they crafted their 2023 debut ‘train_wreck_simulation’ alongside Louis’ estranged friend known only as pq (also from the group Nihiloxica). 

Metamorphosing through different line-ups, within its ranks currently are Luke Thompson from Leeds hardcore mob Stiff Meds on drums, filmmaker Tom Hobson on guitar and Naomi Macleod of Empire State Bastard on bass. It is in this configuration that they have released their new EP, ‘Deadwired’, on Flatspot, home to recent agenda-setting hardcore records by Speed, End It and Whispers.

‘train_wreck_simulation’ cut right to the core of how it feels to be trapped in a state of pain. Convulsing and eerie, it was unafraid to go to uncomfortable places, whether that was repeating the word “incest” in the song of the same title, or in concluding track purging, in which Louis bawls into the microphone: “What am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to do.” 

But, when it came to crafting the follow-up, Louis knew he couldn’t expose old wounds. “The first record was super self indulgent, I think,” he muses. “It was figuring itself out and trying to learn how to walk and understand itself musically and what’s going on there. I was like, ‘I don't want to make this record that's like, ‘In my life, everything’s difficult. It doesn't make sense to just do that again. [Now] I feel like I'm in a good place in my life, I thought, ‘I want to make something that can tap into those same emotions, but more from a place of examining what's going on around me and how that makes me feel, and how to ascend above it.” 

“I feel like a lot of the themes in this band deal with this idea of ascension from suffering,” he adds. “It’s a strange task, really, because you’re gonna suffer in your life regardless of what you do. You can’t really live a life devoid of suffering, but you can kind of choose how you suffer. I like the idea of trying to ascend out of it.” 

With ‘Deadwired’, Bodyweb have forged a more high-definition version of their sound, finding defiance and confidence while heightening their sense of atmospherics as Louis wrestles with the creation and fracture of human relationships. The music, however, is at the centre of an even greater world. Their attention to detail bleeds into their icy aesthetic, pulling influence from everything from anime, video games such as Half Life 2 and even the work of French auteur Gaspar Noe. Ultimately, it’s a way for Louis to realise the emotions of the music in multiple dimensions. 

“Before I’m making any record or any big creative thing I would research so much different media, like books, movies, video games, music, or anything I can, and I’ll try and find a bunch of stuff that all makes me feel the same way,” he explains. “Then I pick through it and think, ‘What are all of these things doing that make me feel this way? And why do they make me feel like this?’ I’ll examine it, and then start to find the common thread between all of them, and then that's where I feel like the magic for the project begins.”

That approach is paying off, despite Bodyweb’s relative newness. Of course, it’s translated into an array of pinch-worthy opportunities, like their recent Halloween release show at Boom or a couple of spring shows opening for NYHC greats Incendiary, but also into a litany of conversations at the merch desk with people who have found solace in Louis’s words. Ultimately, it’s an outlet for connection. 

“I’m designing an emotional journey for someone to experience that will help them understand something about me that I can't put into words,” he concludes. “I feel like a weird person a lot of the time, which I’m fine with. But sometimes, [I think] people will hear a song I’ve written, and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s why he’s like that.’ I feel like that with a lot of my friends who make music, especially things that they don’t release, because they’re often more vulnerable. I like to hear what people make because it’s a window into the truest parts of somebody.”

Bodyweb’s ‘Deadwired’ is out now on Flatspot Records.

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