COMMANDO Release New Track, ‘Ready To Die’

Unapologetically queer collective COMMANDO have shared their new track, “Ready To Die,” a self-described anthem for destruction and rage put to music, ahead of their new self-titled album.

The group wrote and recorded the album in studios throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, using tools from the last three decades of rock, metal, punk, hardcore, hip-hop, and pop to create something all their own.

The band deliver the album in five “suites,” each featuring a different lead vocalist among the all-star team of legendary queer performers. COMMANDO initially formed as an act of revisionist history, asking how the world could be different if the late-90s’ movement that birthed nü metal and a number of other alternative subgenres was used to dismantle queerphobia, misogyny, racism, white supremacy, and the heteropatriarchy instead of reinforcing them.

Drew Arriola Sands opens up about the new track, describing the narrative revolving around a brave, beautiful woman, living “dangerously on the edge” and sometimes surrendering to the struggles of everyday life.

“Every step requires another drink or hit. She’s hurting but explores different ways of coping which are not all healthy and not all safe. Although the song is called ‘Ready To Die,’ our protagonist isn’t. By the end of the song, she realizes that there is so much life yet to be lived. She wins for now,” Sands says.

Lynnee Breedlove references her friendship with Friday (Stephanie Sargent) in San Francisco in the 80s and her departure to Seattle, leaving Breedlove with a lavender Tony Hawk t-shirt. She recalls meeting up with her by chance at a show a year, only to learn that she had died from a heroin mishap years later.

“Cut to 25 years later, that Tony Hawk shirt had become a shred, just the logo, a patch,” Breedlove says. “Drew was struggling with substances. Fentanyl was in everything, and Friday was her hero. Trap Girl was in SF for a show; Drew was sleeping at my GF’s house, and all these books about how to get your mind right came flying off the shelf in the middle of the night onto Drew and woke her up. We decided it was a sign. I wanted to put in a word from Friday, patron saint of girls skating on the edge, about self respect and how punk rock saves, for Drew and anyone to always have handy.”

The band’s debut album is out now, and Andy Meyerson says that it became something “far greater” than any of the members could have imagined, with label Kill Rock Stars helping to elevate their aim to smash all things that close the minds of society.

“The initial idea has blossomed into the album we wished existed when we were kids, and we want the next generation to see this band as the badass superheroes we always wanted in our lives,” Meyerson says.

Listen to “Ready To Die” here:

For more from COMMANDO, find them on Instagram, Twitter, and Bandcamp.

Photo courtesy of Devlin Shand