Atreyu Are Copping Flak After Claiming They “Invented Metalcore”

US metalcore band Atreyu have been copping some flak for some controversial comments regarding their impact on the genre, after the group’s frontman claimed they invented it.

In a new interview with Rock Sound TV, Atreyu frontman Alex Varkatzas said his band started what the genre has come to be known as.

“I don’t think we fit into any genre,” he said. “I think we are hard to pin down. When we first started it was a little easier. We were a metallic hardcore band with singing parts. There wasn’t anything else like that when we were doing it. People get confused and say, ‘You’re a metalcore band,’ but we invented metalcore.

“That may sound cocky, but I don’t care. We pre-date Poison The Well and Killswitch Engage and all those bands. I’ve been doing this since I was literally 12 years old,” he said. For context, Varkatzas is 36 now.

Well, like ‘Bigger Than Jesus’ all over again, people weren’t too happy with this claim, and have taken to social media to vent their frustration in meme form, which you can check out below.

In 2016, Varkatzas spoke to Music Feeds about the concept of metalcore, and said:

“When people ask me, ‘What do you think of metalcore?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t even know what that is.’ When we grew up there wasn’t metalcore – I don’t know what that is. So when people are like ‘You’re kings of metalcore’ and this and that… I like punk, I like hardcore, and I like metal, but things are different now.

“Now there are fans who just like that particular type of music and they label themselves as that, that’s interesting to me. I think it’s cool to be some sort of little footnote in a musical genres history.”

ICYMI, Atreyu actually dropped their seventh studio album In Our Wake last Friday.

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