Apa Kabar! Check Out New London Hardcore Act, AGENCY, On Debut EP [UK/Malaysia]

Many of us immigrants who move to the West often head out to hardcore shows in our new adopted homes solo. Coming into a space with deep hardcore roots like London can feel insanely anxiety-ridden. To tackle this, whether or not we are conscious of it, many of us people of color often actually look for “apnas/自己人” (“our people” in Urdu/Hindhi/Cantonese) in the community because in an unfamiliar room/scene, it’s always nice to see someone that looks familiar even if you don’t know them.

We moved to London 2 years ago and one of the best parts of the scene, which we’ve repeated a thousands times by now, is that as soon as you walk through the doors at a show, you’re met with incredible warmth and friendliness immediately dissipating some of that fore-mentioned nervousness. People are smiling and chatting away left, right and center. (SIDE NOTE: Brits EASILY take the award for being the most chatty groups of people – regardless of their ethnicity. Every time we’ve seen someone born and raised and educated in the UK, they, without fail, can easily get into a conversation with anyone, anywhere for any length of time about anything. It’s unbelievable to watch! We’ve literally seen complete strangers get into full conversations on buses eventually missing their intended stops…)

While looking out for “apnas” one of the nicest dudes we’ve met is a Malaysian transplant named Alex. You will always find Alex smiling from ear to ear right before his timberland boots smash someone in the face in the pit. Homie is like a staple at shows giving it up for every band.

Fast forward to today, he’s finally moved from the pit to the stage with his own debut band, AGENCY, who played their first show over the weekend. As should’ve been expected, when a hard mosher who goes off for every single band starts a band they’re met with a room full of people ready to finally give that love back. It was a frickin’ 2pm on a Saturday and the room was PACKED for Agency’s debut show.

Today, we get to pick the man’s brains. Having gotten to know Alex for a few years now, it was easy to throw a bunch of questions at him. We started with how AGENCY began.

“The 3 of us [Alex (vocals), Lucas (guitar), Joel (drums] started off as strangers who met at shows, would respect each others mosh style and maybe get clipped by one another here and there…frickin Lucas and his damn kicks. The very first time the 3 of us met together was at Northern Unfest 2024. I had seen Lucas at 1-2 shows before this but this was when the 3 of us properly spoke, hung out and tried to just kick the shit out of each other in the pit.”

Agency 2024

“We’d see each other again at a London show and eventually our drummer, Joel, just put out the idea of us starting a band. So August 2024 we had our first practice. Completely clueless on what we wanted to do but we just knew we wanted to make music and have the best time doing it.”

Agency 2025

Prior to playing their debut show at the second anniversary of phenomenal London-based promoters, CUT AND RUN COLLECTIVE, they had dropped their debut EP, ‘Life Will Kill’. One of the first things that jump out is, sonically, the band steered clear of what is the current “in” sound, especially here in the UK. The UK scene runs heavy and metallic. That is not to say that this is the ONLY sound prevalent in this massive community, but for the time being, it seems to be the most prevalent. Seeing the peeps who make up this band go OFF on the dancefloor for years now, we assumed AGENCY would head down the beatdown/heavy hardcore path. Yo – wrong as fuck. The music on this debut EP is a collection of old and new from fast almost hardcore punk parts, to early 00s metalcore, to almost Killing Time/late 80s NYHC hardcore. With all those elements, you know we had to get the full context from the dudes.

“Influences are a bit all over the place. The 3 of us listen to both very similar but also different types of HC/heavy/alternative music. Which is probably explained by the fact the 3 of us found our love into HC in very different ways. Lucas found his way through embracing the classics. He is a scholar of HC and does a lot of homework, which is reflected in the fact our sound captures a lot of the 90s/early 2000s sound (eg Death Threat, CTHC in general, a bit of east coast hardcore punk sound too). Joel came into HC from a more modern entry point. He just loves breakdowns and moshing and has played a big role in influencing some of the dance parts of our tracks. Seed of Pain is a notable influence on some elements of our tracks.

Me, I’m a metalcore kid through and through. Especially metalcore bands from the HC scene (eg Misery Signals, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, Renounced). You can tell if you read the lyrics, which we can dive deeper into at the next section of this. But sonically I see myself as the bridge between Lucas’s love for the classics and Joel’s embrace of the modern sound. Being from a metalcore background too HC was somewhat new to me and it was modern bands that pointed me in this direction. But finding out about Rucktion and LBU bands is what led me down the path of wanting to become a core-man, and becoming properly obsessed with HC, especially UKHC bands. So those bands have also played a huge role in my influences. Bun Dem Out changed it all for me, which led me down the path of discovering RUCKTION RECORDS. Legendary UKHC bands like Ninebar and Diction made me go backwards from modern stuff into the classics and inspire me so much.”

“I’ll be honest and say we had no idea what we were doing at the start. Literally zero plan. The HC way I guess. We wrote songs just with the intention of “let’s just try some shit” as long as it invokes “reaction”. We love all the big participant moments of watching bands. The dancing, the stage dives, the side to side, skanking and mic grabs! So we wanted make sure all elements of that are fuelled by our sound. But the 2 very first songs we wrote we completely scrapped. Wasn’t our style…but suddenly because our drummer Joel was running an hour late to practice one time, (classic), Lucas just started riffing and we figured out elements of the track Severed Hands. When the song was properly written and we played it, we knew we finally had something. Found our sound. Fast bits with that punk energy. Hard riffs with a tough edge to skank and high energy breakdowns to demonstrate your style to . Along with the very negative self hating lyrics. That metalcore type shit. So yeah, it all started with Severed Hands.”

Heavy hitting music will most definitely be accompanied with heavy subject matter. Agency don’t shy away.

“I despise what is inside of me. And I have elements of trauma I guess from finding good things in my life which eventually seem to “leave me”.”

“Lyrics are basically about how more often than not I hate myself, some personal struggles with my state of mind, being self destructive, losing people in my life whether it be relationships, certain life successes becoming failures or losing loved ones (Mourning, in particular, is about dealing with my dad passing away 10 years ago) and also a song about wanting to fight despicable and greedy people.

It’s not all completely negative but those are the main themes. I’ve spent the last few years of my life trying to heal and fix certain things about who I am as a person. And I’m proud of who I am and the growth I’ve made. But, to reference some lyrics, “I force myself to wear a smile” because “behind this mask” I despise what is inside of me. And I have elements of trauma I guess from finding good things in my life which eventually seem to “leave me”. Because it seems more often than not “the people I give love to only come to me to die”. Whether metaphorically or literally. Hence the lyrics (and demo title) “anything I touch…life will kill”.”

How do we not then tie it all back to the POC community that this website will always champion.

“There aren’t many of us (yet…) but I am blessed to have crossed paths with so many incredible other Asians in the scene. There is always more that can be done of course but my experiences with UKHC and especially the London scene has been nothing but inclusive and more diverse than I’d expect. As a South East Asian in the scene and in a band I just hope that I can play a role or help influence more POCs to start and join bands as well. We got some Asian demon moshers out there but there could be more. And will be more…Also it’s time we build some new bands with POCs. Maybe a fully POC HC band in the UK scene.

I also rep by spamming friends some videos from shows in Asia, especially Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the style is insane. Side note – shout out Moneybag from Malaysia and shoutout the Hard and Raw crew. Maybe it’s also my duty to bring that Asian demon mosh style over here… some of us gotta do our homework.”

RESPECT.

Go follow the band and get involved.
https://www.instagram.com/agency.ldn/

Photo Credit: https://www.instagram.com/ransomphotog