Violenteer

" In an era of post-rock, post-metal, post-pretty-much-everything-that’s-worth-a-damn, Violenteer’s fraught, double bass, noise rock/melodious doom assault makes itself right at home, acting as the high thread count sonic comfort blanket we’ve all been craving. With the anticipated release of their self-titled EP, the band explores the violence and dark beauty of this weird world through standout songs like “Cocaive Man,” “Up the Flood,” “Neve,” and the soaring anthem “Just Another Day,” paving the way to an innovative, killshot future led by a reliable 90s uppercut. I’ll be praying to sleeping gods and dead stars for a shared universe quadruple bill of Violenteer, the Jesus Lizard, Chat Pile, and Baroness."

– T.E. Grau, Author and Screenwriter of I Am The River, They Don’t Come Home Anymore, and The Nameless Dark


Dual bass outfit Violenteer is a band that defies easy categorization, creating an innovative brand of intense art-rock that explores themes, textures, and sounds both familiar and totally unique. Drawing on elements of rock, post-punk, doom, industrial, and experimental noise, the music Violenteer creates is both groundbreaking and memorable, creating a singular sound that is wholly their own.

Hailing from the fertile musical heartland of Omaha, Nebraska, informed by numerous local projects, recordings, and national tours, and by time spent jamming in the Portland music scene, band founder Randy Cotton (Ritual Device, Ravine, Ocean Black) joined with his brother and long-time creative collaborator Barry Cotton (Members of the Press) and drummer Eric Ebers (Ritual Device, Ravine, Minne Lussa) to create Violenteer during the summer of 2021. Since that time, the band has played several live shows, sharing the stage with the likes of Voivod, Prong, Mudhoney, Whores, Live Skull, Unsane, Elephant Rifle, FACS, Shiner, Djunah, Gay Witch Abortion, Cherubs, and Season To Risk, among others.

Violenteer’s opening for seminal, Kansas City noise-rock outfit Season To Risk turned out to be a foundational moment for the band, as the performance caught the attention of STR frontman Steve Tulipana. By the fall of 2022, a collaboration between the Cotton brothers and Tulipana had begun. With the release of their debut EP, Violenteer (available Dec. 7th,2024 on independent label Skinsuit Communications), the current lineup consists of the brothers Cotton, veteran drummer Corey Thumann, and Steve Tulipana on vocals and audio gadgetry.

Both on wax and through their mesmerizing live shows, Violenteer continues to push boundaries and confound labels (both literal and figurative), positing an innovative musical commentary on this often dark, violent, confusing, and sometimes beautiful world. Each song reflects this thoughtful outlook, conjured up as a collage of guitar or synth-like melodic flavorings that are at times brash, at others a soothing melancholy. All the while, the deep-water dual-bass and drum grooves support Tulipana’s soaring, searching, and often eerie vocal expressionistic sketches. Several songs from the band’s self-titled EP reflect this haunting dynamic, as Tulipana overlays the melodic gloom with a lyrical snarl that reflects the creators’ existential exploration of the complex and fatalist reality in which we increasingly find ourselves.

Violenteer possess a musicality and compositional maturity that is undeniable, and the songs act almost as musical movements, fueled by a relentless drive one moment, while other times acting as thoughtful examination of space and timing, expressing as much through the notes as through the margins between. Yet this is not gentle music. This is not a placid sound. Perhaps it is best-described as a moody, sonorous blend of post-rock, post-punk, and noise-rock, humming, buzzing, and throbbing with vital energy and a howl into the ether. It is powerful, arresting, and darkly beautiful, swirling above the foundational dual-bass thrum.
This is the sound, the ethos, of Violenteer.

"Violenteer has just released an excellent new self-titled 12". The band's sound recalls classic 90's era Touch and Go records bands. Unlike most of those bands, Violenteer has no guitarist, and instead utilizes two bass players. The music is heavy, dark, and moody. It's quite good." - The Dark Stuff Podcast