Vic Bondi & His Issues

The title of Vic Bondi's 27th release, Vic Bondi And His Issues, might come off as self-deprecation but in reality, it's closer to diagnosis. Nearly four decades after helping define politically literate American hardcore, Bondi is less interested in nostalgia than in accountability: personal, historical, and national. Asked what keeps him making music, Bondi kicks it straight: "A beating heart, a tin ear, and raw stubbornness." That might sound like a joke, but there's a truth to it. Stubbornness, in Bondi's case, has always meant refusing to let power go unexamined. Written in Seattle and recorded over two days at Soundhouse Recording Studio, both the sound and the lineup are lean and deliberate. Immediate, enthralling, and crafted with razor precision, it's name (bestowed by Jello Biafra) winks at confession while pointing squarely at the culture. Bondi's political lens was formed early. The son of a U.S. Navy captain, he moved twenty-two times before turning eighteen. "When you grow up military, you move every two years or so, whether you want to or not," he says. "So, no matter how formidable your father might seem, someone else is actually calling the shots in a way that affects you directly, especially if you're a kid." That instability, he explains, "predisposes you to a healthy skepticism about authority figures." Bondi has been mining that skepticism for decades, emerging as a founding force behind Chicago's early-'80s hardcore movement with Articles of Faith. Following the 1985 breakup of Articles of Faith, Bondi spent time in Jones Very and Alloy, and later fronted both Report Suspicious Activity (feat. J Robbins of Jawbox), Dead Ending (with Derek Grant of Alkaline Trio and Joe Principe of Rise Against), and Tom Morello's Weatherman. In 2019 Bondi formed "surf band for the apocalypse" Redshift, who's most recent release, Chaos As Planned, came out 2025.