100 Words Or Less: The Podcast

Host Ray Harkins dives deep with creators of independent culture from musicians, artists and other interesting people to find out what inspires them, how they came to be and many other unexpected places.

100 Words Or Less: The Podcast is a music podcast hosted by Ray Harkins, with 782 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Ray Harkins hosts 100 Words Or Less: The Podcast, a music show with 782 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #729

  Ari Katz from Lifetime & Zero Zero

  Sep 30, 20261h 9m

  Ari Katz has spent over three decades inside hardcore and punk, first as the singer of Lifetime, the New Brunswick band that quietly rewired what a hardcore song could be about, then through Zero Zero, and later behind the counter at Black Cat Records. On this episode of 100 Words Or Less, Ari looks backward: the DFA scene, the New York hardcore bands that set the bar in the late '80s and early '90s, and what it took for a band from Jersey to write something personal in a scene built on toughness. A conversation about influence, lineage, and the records that made this whole thing worth doing. PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed Apple Music Spotify  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order.   Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code SPOOKY (for a limited time only) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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  Episode #728

  Bryan Garris from Knocked Loose

  Sep 23, 20261h 26m

  Bryan Garris, vocalist of Knocked Loose, one of the most talked-about hardcore bands to come out of the last decade. He first sat down on the show in 2017, when the band was still an "upstart" fielding as much online debate as praise. Nine years later, they've released a Grammy-nominated record, toured arenas with Metallica and Gojira, collaborated across genres (Poppy, Chris Motionless, Denzel Curry), and become one of the rare hardcore bands to break through to a genuinely mainstream audience, controversy and all. Along the way there's also been real physical toll: a van accident on tour and a bout of Bell's Palsy that he pushed through mid-run. This conversation revisits where he started and checks in on what's changed. PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed Apple Music Spotify  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order.   Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code SPOOKY (for a limited time only) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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  Episode #727

  Eric Stenman from The Barbarians of California & Tinfed

  Sep 16, 20261h 3m

  Eric Stenman has spent three decades on the other side of the glass, quietly shaping records for Deftones, Weezer, Thrice, Dashboard Confessional, and Senses Fail, while building AWOLNATION's entire catalog alongside Aaron Bruno since 2011. Before any of that, he was a teenager in Sacramento, self-funding vinyl pressings on his own credit card inside a scene that also produced Deftones, Far, Will Haven, and Death Grips. Now he's finally the one holding the guitar. The Barbarians of California, his band with Bruno, released their debut album And Now I'm Just Gnashing My Teeth and is about to open a couple of dates on Guns N' Roses' 2026 tour, a long way from a home studio with barely any gear in it. We get into the Sacramento scene that shaped him, the reunion with Bruno after a decade apart, his stories from recording Cake, what it means to walk onto a stadium stage after thirty years of building other people's. PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed Apple Music Spotify  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order.   Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code SPOOKY (for a limited time only) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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  Episode #726

  Mike Morales from Initiate

  Sep 9, 20261h 8m

  Mike Morales grew up skateboarding and playing in a power violence band in Lompoc, a small Central Coast town far from any real scene, before those friendships pulled him into Initiate. We trace that path into the band, into writing Cerebral Circus (the record where Initiate let acoustic guitars and huge choruses sit next to their heaviest material), and into what it's like touring with a band now spread across three states. Mike also gets into the gap between what a band looks like online and what it actually feels like from inside the van, plus watching hardcore grow up around Initiate since 2016. Long Live Andy Williams PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed Apple Music Spotify  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order.   Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEVERSLEEP (for a limited time only) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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  Episode #725

  Christine Goodwyne from Pool Kids

  Sep 2, 20261h 7m

  Christine Goodwyne has been building Pool Kids since she was two people short of a band, booking backyard shows in Tallahassee before there was even a name on the flyer. Nearly a decade later, the group has a Hayley Williams cosign, a flooded studio they somehow saved, a hardcore alter ego born as an April Fool's joke, and three albums that trace a path from math-rock tangents to pop hooks, most recently Easier Said Than Done on Epitaph Records. This episode, Christine sits down to talk through the parts of the story that don't usually make the press cycle: what it actually takes to survive as an independent band inside the modern music business, what made Florida's DIY scene both a launchpad and a complicated place to come up in, and yes, an honest attempt at ranking math rock bands, because someone had to ask. PRE-ORDER THE BOOK FOR 100 WORDS OR LESS  Weekly Recommendation Playlist brought to you by Evil Greed Apple Music Spotify  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube Rockabilia sells you officially licensed Merch from ALL your favorite bands (and your Dad's favorite band, your siblings etc...). Use the promo code 100WORDSORLESS for 10% off your order.   Get 10% off your Evil Greed order by using the code NEVERSLEEP (for a limited time only) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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