No more romance, we want revenge!

Shooting Daggers are vocalist/guitarist Sal (France), bassist Bea (Italy), and drummer Raquel (Spain), a trio of queer feminists who’ve quickly gained a reputation for their uncompromising commitment to making heavy music more inclusive. Formed in 2019, Sal and Bea bonded over a love of punk and quickly started writing music addressing their experiences as women and LGBTQ+ people in the hardcore scene, self-releasing a demo EP in October 2019. By late 2020, Raquel joined on drums, and the trio started gaining underground attention for their fearless riot-grrrl rage and DIY ethos.

Shooting Daggers’ debut album Love and Rage was released in February 2024 through New Heavy Sounds, placing queer struggles boldly at the forefront. Rather than being confined to punk, the 9 tracks mix blistering hardcore with grunge and shoegaze elements switching from breakneck intensity to atmospheric piano-driven catharsis. It’s a confrontational and empowering record, taking aim at sexism and queerphobia with unflinching anger, but also celebrating skateboarding, freedom, self-love, and change with depth and conviction.

The band’s mission to carve out space for marginalised voices in punk is deeply inspiring, proving that righteous anger can be transformed into solidarity and hope with every show they play. Their live performances are tight, aggressive, and feral making them a must-see act with real social impact, turning their concerts into celebrations of unity, confidence and that “take no crap” attitude the punk community has always valued.

We caught up with the band to find out more:

Can you tell us about the interplay between the two emotions Love and Rage, and how they affect the record?

When we wrote the album, we noticed that our songs’ moods fluctuated a lot. Some were angry, some very sad, some uplifting and some a mixture of many. They were the natural result of our emotions.

We automatically were channelling pain and anger and transforming it into something beautiful, like music. With “Love & Rage”, we wanted to encourage others to do it too, especially women and queer people, as we wish to find hope and power in a world that is so broken and that disregards us.

For a punk band you seem to experiment with wildly different genres. What drives that exploration?

We just don't like to repeat ourselves. We always try not to write songs that are too similar to one another because we think it's just boring. We, of course, have a style that unites everything we do, but in terms of genre, we don't feel like picking anything in particular because we like to let ourselves be inspired by everything we encounter. Also, we're 3 very different people who come from different backgrounds in music, we just let ourselves be who we want to be in that moment when we jam in the room.

A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser is one example of a song of yours which feels totally unlike traditional hardcore, and it’s spellbinding. Can you tell us about your decision to write and perform slower songs, both on the record and during the live shows?

Thank you so much! We were inspired by dreamcore and bands like Turnover and Title Fight for that song. We just had a riff that we liked, played it over and over and built a song around it. We don’t put strict limits on how our music should sound. The more we write music, the more we do whatever we like. Also, lyrics reflect emotions/a story, and in this case, we talk about how impossible it feels to recover from trauma. It’s quite a despair song; I don’t think a fast-paced rhythm would have had the same impact.

Again this wasn't planned it just came out.

Can you talk about misogyny and queerphobia within the hardcore community? Was Shooting Daggers formed as a direct response to your experiences?

Yes, Shooting Daggers was formed with the direct intent of having a non-men/queer hardcore band. We had clear political intentions so you could say that, since the beginning, there was a strong desire for taking space in a scene that is strongly male-centered. We knew it wasn't going to be easy and there's so much work to do still to dismantle the macho mentality and the bro culture that pervades the hardcore scene. Abusers and their apologists are everywhere, and misogyny and queerphobia is rooted deeply in people and it shows. From language, to violence, to abuse, to subtle everyday undermining.

However, we've found so many amazing women, queer people and real allies along the way during these years of playing, there are some great bands out there and new ones forming everyday, so we are hopeful for the future of the scene.

What does the label ‘queercore’ mean to you?

‘Queercore’ for us is community, is political and is a movement. We use the label ‘queercore’ as it doesn't describe a specific genre of music (which we also struggle to define for ourselves). Queercore unites all the outcasts that exist and always existed in the scene. We believe that punk is queer by definition but people seem to forget it nowadays. A little bit like the riot grrrl movement did to bring feminism into music in the 90's, we think queercore holds the same power of change, it helps with finding your identity and finding a community. Queer punks worldwide recognise each other, form strong bonds and have the gift of creating amazing things together.

Have there been any moments at gigs that have made you think “Yes, this is exactly why we do this”?

We can think of many moments, especially when the crowd is filled with queers at the front. Probably the best show we ever played in this sense was Paris in June 2024. The show was organised by this amazing queer collective called Les Murenes and the crowd was 90% girls and queers. The vibes were immaculate, everyone was so free to be themselves, people free to be topless like cis-men do all the time, girls were free to mosh without fear and everyone was having a good time. Plus we ended it by playing Rebel Girl on stage with Throlz (a great feminist band of friends from France) and we were all having anti-fascist chants. That for us was the peak of happiness.

Also, at any show we play, even if it's small, and the crowd is not particularly participating, if there is even one single girl that comes to us afterwards telling us that we inspired them, we can call it a success. Inspiring girls and queers to play music is the reason we do what we do at the end of the day.

What have you learned from sharing stages with massive acts like Amyl & The Sniffers?

We learned that massive acts are people like everyone else. Amyl & The Sniffers, in particular, are actually nicer than many bands we met that are way less popular but think too highly of themselves.

We learned that dealing directly with the band is easier than dealing with agents and promoters because a lot of them don’t know how to do their job properly and undermine support acts constantly, especially if you're women.

We learned to somehow overcome your impostor syndrome and just enjoy the experience of playing on a big stage with your favourite bands because you deserved it and worked hard for it and to never forget to be grateful.

Who would play on your dream festival lineup?

Let's do a non-men line up:

The Cranberries, Mannequin Pussy, Trholz, L7, Gouge Away, G.L.O.S.S., The Menstrual Cramps, Flinch. , DeathPill, Bibione, Bikini Kill, Amyl & The Sniffers, Spiruline, Balla, Bratakus, Dead Name.

What’s next for the band?

We're writing new music at the moment, so we hope to be able to release something soon.

Also, in the meantime we're still playing live, we're going on tour in the UK in September with Roman Candle, we will be playing a few festivals and we have a few gigs still to be announced.

What is the ultimate goal of Shooting Daggers?

Our goal would be to be able to live with our music, to keep touring, to keep meeting amazing people in the DIY scene worldwide while also having the resources to spread our knowledge and passions to others through community projects aiming at girls and queers wanting to pursue alternative music.