Features

“This is us continuing to push the agenda that we can do whatever and be whatever”: Inside Knocked Loose’s raging new track with Denzel Curry

Knocked Loose frontman Bryan Garris exclusively lifts the lid on the Kentucky wrecking crew’s new single Hive Mind, featuring hip-hop trailblazer Denzel Curry…

“This is us continuing to push the agenda that we can do whatever and be whatever”: Inside Knocked Loose’s raging new track with Denzel Curry
Words:
Nick Ruskell
Photo:
Jared Leibowitz

Knocked Loose have started their very big 2026 by dropping the wild video for their new banger Hive Mind, featuring Denzel Curry.

The video, filmed at the skate park in the band’s Louisville hometown, sees them and Denzel causing absolute mayhem. Talking exclusively to Kerrang! frontman Bryan Garris says, “This is us continuing to push the agenda that we can do whatever and be whatever, and remain ourselves.”

It comes at the beginning of a huge year for the Louisville sluggers. They’re over in the UK in May for Slam Dunk, then there’s the small matter of hitting the stadia of Europe with Metallica all summer.

But before all that, Bryan takes us inside the song, the video, and the collab. It all started as a vague idea, which got almost shunted into becoming reality, “and now it’s this absolutely ridiculous piece of music that that I really can't wait to see what people think about.”

Tell us about the new song, then…
“It sounds like a Knocked Loose song with Denzel Curry! It's the same thing as when we did Suffocate with Poppy. Everybody thought that was going to be electronic or something a little bit more in her lane. But no, it is a Knocked Loose song that they are themselves on. This might be one of the heaviest songs that we've ever written. It's fun, which is not something that we typically tap into, but it's fun. It’s not funny by any means, but it is the first music video where we let funny bits exist. It’s not a rap video, but we wanted something like that, to make something that is over the top. It’s a very exaggerated version of Knocked Loose, featuring Denzel Curry. What people think it's going to be versus what it actually is, I think, is going to be vastly different.”

How did the idea come up?
“We did the $uicideboy$ tour several years ago, and watching how well that worked put in the back of our head the thought, ‘Could we ever do this?’ It got brought up in conversation last year, and I said that if we were to do this, the only person that would make sense is Denzel Curry. I'm such a fan of him. He's such a charismatic, entertaining artist, and he has so many different voices, and he's energetic. He also loves and appreciates hardcore and understands the community, he's covered Rage Against The Machine, he's covered Bad Brains. It needed to be somebody that gets it, but that can also match the intensity.”

How did you bring it up with him?
“We had never met, actually. We wrote a demo, very rough, and sent it to our mutual friend Kenny Beats, now Kenneth Blume, kind of as a joke – ‘Yo, imagine this, LOL.’ He immediately sent it to Denzel and texted us back within the hour, and was he's down. There was a moment where we all looked at each other like, ‘Oh, I guess it's happening…’”

When did you first meet him?
“Last summer in Europe. We had the song, and I was going, ‘Man, I don't know what his vibe is, but we need a video. I have it directed in my head, I know what it's going to be, shot-for-shot, and it needs to be at our home in Louisville.’ At Outbreak Fest we got to hang out and meet for the first time. Everybody else in the band was going, ‘Yo, ask him about a video, ask him about a video.’ And I was too nervous! He actually suggested playing it that night, but it just wasn’t ready. A couple of weeks later I was talking to him face-to-face, and our drum tech and our guitar player, Isaac, are behind him, looking at me, going, ‘do it!’. As soon as I ased he went, ‘I’m down.’ And that was amazing. We ended up doing it right after Louder Than Life in Louisville, and it went perfect. A situation that was like a dream scenario and something that I'll never forget.”

You did the video in Louisville skate park, which is pretty rad…
“The video is truly nuts. We wanted to do a live show video, but it had to be the craziest version of that. We did it in the bowl of the Louisville skate park, and there were, like, 700 people there. But then that's so crazy that we needed a little something else to juxtapose that, so we did more performance-based shots in this historic building in downtown Louisville, where we could actually get shots of Denzel without people stage-diving around him.”

That’s a pretty special hometown party…
“Yeah. Part of it was a full day of us playing in the bowl for people. When we promoted it, we flyered it and specifically said: this is not a show. We didn't want people thinking that they were coming for a live performance, and not to expect a normal show. But then when everyone got there, we packed the bowl, and came out and said ‘No phones, or you’ll be asked to leave as this is not a show. We appreciate you all coming… This song is called All My Friends.’ We started playing a show anyway, doing a bunch of old songs, and the crowd went insane. When Denzel got there, we played the new song five times in a row, he had to leave, so then we played five more old songs to get extra footage. It was so much fun.”

Knocked Loose play Slam Dunk Festival on May 23 and 24 in Hatfield and Leeds respectively. Get your tickets now.

Read this next:

Now read these

The best of Kerrang! delivered straight to your inbox three times a week. What are you waiting for?