Ryan Clark (Demon Hunter) and his thoughts about Exile's songs...

"Throughout what feels like my entire life, I've found  refuge in subculture. I knew very early on that "normal" wasn't for me.  When you feel like - or are treated as - an outcast, the best defense is to lean into it.

Growing up a pastor's kid, I was always looking for ways to rebel without giving up my soul. It wasn't that I was looking to shed the ideals I was raised to believe in. I just knew that somewhere out there was a fringe where I could be the kind of outcast that I wanted to be.

In junior high, I found skateboarding culture, which soon led to punk and hardcore. Though my musical taste would eventually pull me down a particularly metal avenue, it's the ethos of hardcore that I still hold in the highest regard. At its purest, hardcore is about belief, respect, perseverance, accountability and hard work. Very few - if any - other musical genre act as a crash course in responsible and ethical living.

I know that finding you place in the world has always been difficult, but I fear that social media has increase this dillema 100-fold. I pray my daughter is able to wheter the inevitable storm of internet trash that she will eventually be thrust into. I pray that she finds strength in oppostion to the norm. I pray she finds a filter - as I did through hardcore - and gives not a single passing thought to her generations's many falsehoods"

(Ryan Clark about 'Defense Mechanism')