All 4 All out of Syracuse NY had one of the sickest releases of 2025 with their “Refuse” EP. Raw, old-school style hardcore but also original in that you could feel the passion coming out of your speakers. “Refuse” is/was definitely NOT one of those releases that just grabs a bunch of riffs and throws them into a blender…. It was definitely on repeat for most of the second half of 2025 for us here at In Effect. It was also their third release and showed a lot of improvement over their first two releases. I can’t wait to hear what they come up with next. We caught up with their singer Sam just after after they performed at the annual Syracuse New Years Day Matinee… The rest of the band is Lukas and Skylar on guitars, Victor on bass, and Dylan on drums. Lead photo by: Karalyn Hope with graphics by: Jon Berg. Make sure to click on the “Refuse” cover art to stream or download their latest release!
IE: Hey Sam, where are you right now and what would you usually be doing at this time of the day if you weren’t answering these questions?
Sam: I’m laying in bed on my phone currently… normally at this time of the day I’d be clocking in to YouTube. Everyone’s gotta get their YouTube hours in… I tend to save it for the end of the day.
IE: Yesterday was the annual Syracuse Hardcore New Years Day show with Integrity and All Out War headlining with All 4 All going on fifth. How was yesterday’s turnout, the overall vibe, and just sort of give us a mini show review from an All 4 All standpoint?
Sam: This year’s NYD matinee was particularly special because it was Lukas’ last one that he’s going to be booking and it was Deal With God’s last show. I would say overall the vibe throughout the entire day was perfect. The gig was completely sold out so it got filled up pretty quick. This was the first year since 2020 where we had a stage for NYD so dives were a must. Opening band Wasting Away got a crazy reaction and it only got wilder from there. The All 4 All set was probably the craziest we’ve ever played reaction wise. The set I was looking forward to most was C4 and they did not disappoint. When Owen ripped his shirt off to reveal “C4” shaved into his chest I lost it. Lukas started throwing dollar bills at him.
IE: Why is it Lukas’ last year doing it?
Sam: He’s been booking it since 2020! Obviously, the pandemic derailed it a couple times in the past 6 years but, I think he’s satisfied with the ones he’s put together and just wants to focus on other ideas he has. He kept it 100% DIY and every matinee went off crazy. It’s so much to put together at one of the hardest times to get bands to travel up to Syracuse due to weather or the holidays.
IE: The January 1st Hardcore Matinee has been a staple in the Syracuse scene for well over 2 decades. Do you remember the first one you attended and what do you remember from that day/show?
Sam: The first NYD matinee I went to was in 2013 with Trapped Under Ice, Turnstile, and Foundation as the big 3 at the top of the bill. I started going to hardcore shows the summer of 2012 when I was 13 so this was my first “big gig” I went to in Syracuse. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I remember the Turnstile set was so crazy people were head crawling from the back of the community center to the front. I spent most of their set with people on top of me. It’s crazy to look back at that lineup and see where all those bands went after that.
IE: Are the people who put the earliest versions of this show on still involved or has a newer generation taken over?
Sam: No, this is a completely new generation of the scene putting this together. 99.99% of the work is done by Lukas to get bands, venue, and everything else. The rest of us just help when needed and are stoked to play when asked. NYD has always gone from generation to generation in a new person’s hands. So, after this year, Lukas is stepping back and we’ll see who picks it up next.
PHOTO BY: RAY MOCK
IE: The release that put me on to you guys is the “Refuse” EP that came out last May. It’s raw, real deal old-school hardcore and you guys did an amazing job all around. Can you talk about that release, especially for those who may not know about you guys yet…
Sam: We started writing the songs for “Refuse” in the spring of 2024 I believe. It was kind of a long process because the rest of the guys are in other bands that were also writing and recording other stuff. Once we had everything written we got into the studio with Burke who had just moved here from Florida. The process of that was super easy and smooth. We’re all comfortable around Burke and he helped us get the best sound possible. He’s not afraid to tell you if you did a bad take. The man cares about what he records. We put out the 7” on Fortress Records and I’m happy with how it turned out. Mikey helped us every step of the way with design work for the layout and promo stuff and getting the record out to distros and stuff like that. I’m very happy with how everything came out at the end of the day. It’s so nerve racking putting all of this together and dropping it and hoping people like it but, the reaction we’ve gotten from it has been great.
CLICK BELOW TO STREAM/DOWNLOAD THE “REFUSE” EP BY ALL 4 ALL 
IE: The cover of the “Refuse” EP goes hard as well. Who is getting All 4 All shaved into their head on that cover and what is the backstory?
Sam: So this started as a t-shirt idea I had to have a drawn recreation of the 3rd Bass album cover for “The Cactus Album” but with “All 4 All” in the back of the head instead. We started bouncing album cover ideas around and we thought it’d be kinda wild but with the right barber it’d be perfect. We ended up finding a girl named Pepper to do it. The model we had got cold feet as we got closer to the appointment for the cut and so I had to get in the chair and have it shaved in my head. We did a photo shoot that day but I unveiled the cut at our 3/15 show and Maddi got a perfect picture of the back of my head that we ended up using. Initially we were gonna have the same color scheme as the 3rd Bass album cover but decided to go black and white to make everything pop a little more and not to be so heavy handed.
IE: Where does All 4 All stand at this very moment in regards to whatever the follow up release will be?
Sam: We’re working on doing a tape release for Total Supply right now, it’s not new songs but it’s gonna be really cool. I don’t wanna reveal too much yet. As far as new songs, Lukas has sent me like 6 audio messages of new songs he’s been cooking up. We just gotta get everyone in the same room to make them full songs. In a perfect world we’d start writing like that asap and have new tunes for everyone by the fall. We’ll see!
PHOTO BY: KARALYN HOPE
IE: The progression this band has made on each release has been really noticeable with big steps forward being made on each of your 3 releases. When you guys put the original “Syrac-Use Your Head” demo from 2022 on or play those songs now do you think about how far you guys have come in just a little over 3 years?
Sam: It’s really cool to be able to see us slowly fine tune what we want this band to sound like. When we started this band we wrote and recorded the demo in like a month so we were going off of pure excitement. Now I can look back and see what I would have done differently with every release and make what we do next even better and harder.
IE: All of your songs aside from “ACHC” are under 2 minutes long. Do all of your new ones follow that same path time wise?
Sam: For the most part we have short attention spans and I feel like all my favorite hardcore songs are short and straight to the point and that’s what I want to try and emulate.
IE: What are some hardcore bands that you feel directly influenced All 4 All’s sound?
Sam: We’ve had this conversation before between the guys in the band. I have a hard time thinking of one specific one. But I think we’re just a mix of all the shit we love. A little Youth Crew like Youth Of Today or Floorpunch, a little NYHC like Madball or Outburst, and a little Boston like Mental or RJ.
PHOTO BY; CARL GUNHOUSE 
IE: Something I did not know going into this is that Syracuse is known as “Salt City”… a nickname that goes back to the 19th century. Somewhere along the way the Syracuse scene adopted the name “Assault City” prompting the ACHC moniker. What can you tell us about the history of the ACHC name?
Sam: To my knowledge, ACHC was coined by the band Black Sheep Squadron with the song of the same name. In the early 2000’s when the scene had gone gym shorts and white belt they wanted a moniker to set them apart from that shit. When I was coming up those guys and the people influenced by them always made sure to make the distinction. So when we started doing our thing we wanted to fly that flag. To me it’s always meant anti pro-core, anti bonehead, and no bullshit hardcore.
IE: What’s life like in Syracuse? What kind of things are cool and what things suck?
Sam: Life in Syracuse right now is trash. We’re experiencing one of the snowiest winters we’ve ever had. Just before New Year’s we had the 2nd snowiest day in Syracuse history. It’s cold as fuck and dark all the time. But if you ask me again in the summer I’ll have the complete opposite answer for you. We just squeeze all our outdoor fun in when we can. Makes for a busy summer and fall but you gotta learn to appreciate all of it for what it is. We have a fairly large university in our city that tends to dictate what happens here. It’s made housing difficult in the city… houses are hard to find at a decent price and rent keeps getting jacked up because they know students will pay it. The hardcore scene here is as strong as ever though. Lots of young kids who want to learn new bands, sing along, and start their own bands. It’s crazy to see where the scene has gone in the past 10 years. It’s like night and day.
IE: Who are the other members of All 4 All and can you give us an interesting fact about each of them?
Sam: Lukas plays guitar, he sings for Street Hassle, look out for their 7 inch on Fortress soon! Skylar also plays guitar… he sings for Who Decides, Heard No More, and Growing Stone. Dylan plays drums… he used to sing for Deal With God and now plays guitar in Blissful Myth and does a zine/label called False Narratives. Victor plays bass, he plays guitar in Azshara and Street Hassle. He’s your worst nightmare on the golf course as well.
PHOTO BY: KARALYN HOPE 
