I recently spoke to Jack Chambers, guitarist of London Hardcore band Headstone.

Formed in the capital in 2024 and featuring former members of Antagonist, Restricted, and Nix, Headstone bring their new heavy-hitting London Hardstyle.

Headstone have been ripping up the UK hardcore scene over the past year whether thats on stage or on the dancefloor since their demo released back in April 2025 and I’ve been witness to some of these.

However, 2026 is a new story.

With the imminent arrival of their latest works ‘Year Of The Stone‘ being released they have pushed their own boundaries and making a piece of work more angrier, faster and more technical. A more natural piece of work between the guys; as they have described.

With some sick features on the EP by some amazing vocalists you’ll just have to give the new EP a listen.

I spoke to Jack about how the guys met, their interests and what they have coming up for 2026.

FIRST OF ALL WHERE ARE YOU GUYS BASED & HOW DID YOU ALL MEET?

As far as I’m aware, all the boys have known each other through various ways for a while, then in like 2021 or something I met Filip (vocals) in a pub and after that we realized we were into the same music and had been going to the same gigs for years. Then like 2 years later he randomly messaged me asking if I’d want to start a band with him, Rob (bass) and Jordan (drums).

We met for a practice but we were all pretty rusty and it didn’t go great, then a while after, Filip suggested adding this guy Jack Collins (guitar) who I’d just met from watching him play in his old band Nix.

Met for a practice, smashed out a Hatebreed cover and went from there.

WHAT WAS THE SCENE LIKE WHERE YOU WERE GROWING UP & HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN IT?

I grew up in Oxfordshire, which wasn’t the greatest area for heavy music. We had Nightshift magazine, a local heavy music zine, and the Zodiac, a small venue which has since become an O2 venue, but it was mainly metal and metalcore that came by for my ‘heavy’ taste.

I saw Gojira, Suicide Silence, BMTH and loads of bands which helped get me into heavier stuff, then I moved to Southampton. In my first week, a friend took me to Joiners to see Terror, BWP and Desolated. Like one song into Desolated, with people just murdering each other, I thought “Yeah this is a bit of me” then by the time Terror came on I’d stage dived and thrown a kick for the first time and I was hooked.

Rob’s been going to shows, in Essex, Norwich and London, for donkeys years now, Jordan is from New Zealand and was a part of the scene down there then in Sydney before moving to London, Filip was in bands over in Poland before moving to the midlands, then London, and Collins has been going to shows since he was a kid.

THIS MIGHT SOUND LIKE A DUMBASS QUESTION BUT HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE NAME HEADSTONE?

Honestly? We’re so bad at agreeing on things that we just ended up all picking like 5 “cool” names each, put them in a list and then picked our favourite.

I wish I could say there was some mad story or meaning behind it, but it’s just a cool word that fit the vibe.

I do love it now though.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND TO SOMEBODY WHO HASN’T HEARD YOU BEFORE?

I get asked this a lot and aside from just saying “Hardcore”, the best description I ever heard was from a promoter when we put the demo out (shoutout Cast Iron Promotions) who described it as “sideways Yankee cap hardcore” and I loved that one, so let’s go with that.

WHAT HAS BEEN SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU’VE BEEN FACED WITH?

We’ve been pretty lucky as far as challenges go.

The biggest hurdle is just managing our time around our full time jobs and actually agreeing on things as we’ve all got such different tastes and opinions, but I think those differing views make things a bit more exciting.

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR ALL TIME FAVOURITE ARTISTS?

Christ, we’ll be here all day!

Off the top of my head I’d go Trapped Under Ice, More Than Life, Crowbar, Dying Fetus, Terror, Sade, Division of Mind, Deafheaven, Marvin Gaye, Anything 70’s funk/soul/disco, I could go on and on.

I know every guy in the band would have vastly different answers, but I love that we do have such varied tastes.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SHOWS YOU’VE REALLY ENJOYED BEING A PART OF & DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE VENUE?

We’ve been incredibly lucky in that we’ve not had and out and out “bad” show so far, touch wood.

We love playing New Cross Inn (shoutout Theo) as it’s just the hardcore hub in London and has been for a while now.

Playing with Terminal Sleep was sick as Jordan knew them from down under, and I had been a fan of them for a while due to my Aussie connections.

Playing Network in Sheffield thanks to Kings of the North was another highlight as it was our first show outside of London. We played with Your Demise 04, and I fucking loved that band back in the day, and made so many friends in bands and punters that day.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR DREAM TOUR TO GET HEADSTONE ON?

Crowbar or Hatebreed, easy.

Crowbar is one of the few bands that we all agree on, and Hatebreed was the first band we ever covered in practice. I’ll also throw Dying Fetus in there, just an incredible band we all like. But if I’m honest, we have no assumptions or complacency with what we do, so going on any tour at all would be sick, or a tour with a mates band would be so much fun.

WHAT HAS BEEN SOME OF THE CRAZIEST EXPERIENCES YOU’VE HAD TOGETHER OVER THE YEARS?

This is a nice and short answer as any of the crazy stories we have, I am definitely not repeating.

We like to have fun, and so do our mates. That’s all I’m saying.

HOW HAVE YOU FOUND THE HARDCORE SCENE CHANGE IN RECENT YEARS?

You can definitely see the whole post-COVID boom is all still very apparent, younger kids at shows knowing words and dancing. It’s also cool to see bands playing shows in places that maybe didn’t have much of a scene for a long time.

Mates of ours are playing Mansfield soon, apparently, it’s the first hardcore show there in years. That’s amazing.

We’ve all been around a while and have seen these peaks and troughs but long may this one continue. One thing that bugs me that I do see sometimes is people saying “stop making beatdown or youth crew or this band or that band”.

Ignore them, make the music you want to make. New music coming from a genuine, passionate and committed place is just as crucial to keeping the scene fresh and strong as anything else.

Ignore the snobby melts, they probably aren’t even going to shows anyway.

WHO HAS BEEN SOME OF THE LARGEST INFLUENCES IN YOUR SOUND?

It’s hard to narrow down as we all try and bring something different to the table.

Rob loves death metal, Collins is a punk guy, Jordan loves old metalcore and deathcore, Filip is a hardcore purist.

One we’ve had mentioned by other people a few times is “early Hatebreed” and that’s definitely true, but it’s just as true as anyone from Merauder to Disembodied to early Gojira.

HOW IMPORTANT IS REPRESENTATION IN THE HARDCORE COMMUNITY?

Representation has and always will be an integral part of hardcore.

Obviously as a straight white man, as are the rest of Headstone, I come from a place of privilege and many of us in the scene do, but the important thing is what we do with that privilege.

Support movements, support individuals that need it. Personally I’ve loved seeing everything Riz has been doing with Unite Asia, and now Mashaal.

It’s so cool to see how inspiring it is to immigrants and children of immigrants. It’s also still nowhere near close enough to being what is needed, obviously, but seeing the whole scene vocally and financially support all the charities that have been supporting Palestine is a reminder of what is important in what is a dark time for humanity.

WE CAN’T ALL BE MUSICIANS 24/7 SO WHAT JOBS/CAREERS DO YOU GUYS HAVE?

I work as a screenwriter and script editor, Filip works in sales, Jordan’s a barber (every hardcore band needs at least one barber or tattoo artist), Rob works for a wine company and Collins works in live sound and stage production.

HAVE YOU GOT ANY HOBBIES/INTERESTS THAT YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH THE PEOPLE?

We’ve all got all sorts of stuff going on.

I’m obsessed with films and have recently got into furniture making and tufting (maddest midlife crisis ever, I know).

We’re all mad into football apart from Jordan. We’ve got Spurs, Chelsea, Man United and Birmingham City in the same band, which is…fun.

YOU’RE DUE TO RELEASE YOUR LATEST EP ‘YEAR OF THE STONE’ AT THE END OF THIS MONTH. WHAT WERE YOUR INFLUENCES FOR THESE TRACKS AND HOW HAPPY WERE YOU WITH HOW IT CAME TOGETHER?

We went back to Stuck On A Name Studios in Nottingham where we recorded the demo. We basically started writing the EP straight after the demo came out as we were already sick of those songs by that point!

We’re a lot more comfortable as a band and as musicians, be that in writing or collaborating, and it’s definitely made the process for the EP feel a lot more natural. The music is the best stuff we’ve done by a country mile, which isn’t hard when you’ve only got a demo I suppose. The cliche holds up.

Music is angrier, faster, more technical. Everyone’s levelled up. Filip handles all the lyrics and he’s done such a good job with it so I hope he’s proud. Listening back on rough mixes it was funny to me how I could pull out more influences than we maybe consciously meant when writing, if that makes sense?

There’s older stuff like Merauder, old Chimaira and 00’s UKHC influence for sure, but then you can also hear influence from more recent bands like Missing Link and Mindforce.

WHAT SHOWS HAVE YOU GOT COMING UP THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO PLAYING?

We recently got added to the Racetraitor all dayer in Manchester, which is mad.

We’ve got a few London shows yet to be announced but for now we’re super focussed on our EP release show at Blondies in East London on Feb 5th. It’s 6 days after our EP comes out which is stressful but we’re hoping it can be a really fun night of celebration.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE FROM YOU GUYS HEADING INTO 2026?

We’re just trying to play as many shows as we can this year in as many places as we can.

We’ve already slowly started writing new material, which is weird as the EP isn’t even out yet, but that’s just how it goes with us and I’m sure many bands.

Maybe another release this year? Who knows!

FINALLY, HAVE YOU GOT ANY OTHER ARTISTS/FRIENDS YOU THINK THE PEOPLE SHOULD CHECK OUT?

Far too many to mention but I will try my best!

Mashaal, Regress, Agency, Lowlife, The Burial Code, King Street, Human Deceit, Mindhold, Prozpekt, So Far So Good, Imposter, Divine Hatred, Crowquill, Mutagenic Host, Xile, False Reality, Hour of Reprisal, Still In Love, No Witnesses, Turn of Phrase, all of Essex, all of London HC.

Sure I’m forgetting loads.

If you liked what you’ve read make sure you give Headstone’s new EP ‘Year Of The Stone‘ a listen via the link below and support them, give them a follow on social media etc.

You can catch Headstone at their release show on the 5th February at Blondies Bar with support band The Burial Code. Tickets are available via the Dice link below.

Year Of The Stone EP Release Show Tickets

They will also be supporting BN1’s Tempers Fray in Nottingham through Cast Iron Promotions at the end of February and appearing on the Lev Day fest in Manchester later this year.

Until next time, I’ll catch you in the pit!

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