Thank you Lou Koller and Sick of It All
My fiancé likes the Bowen Yang podcast. One time she asked me a question she got from it: “What was the culture that made you say culture was for you?” And for a while I thought about it. Really, there are a few moments. I think probably the most obvious was catching an episode of SK8 TV where I saw people riding skateboards to punk music, chiefly Face to Face’s “Disconnected,” which opened up the floodgates to many things in my life thereafter. Underground music and culture filtered the lens of how I saw the world. Doors were opened to not only punk but also heavy metal, to skateboarding, to weird movies, books, comics, life.
But there’s also another one: seeing MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball play Sick of it All’s “Scratch the Surface” video. Seeing the bodies flying wasn’t like a Metallica show; they were close. This wasn’t some stadium. This also wasn’t a rowdy street kid Rancid video; this was like if punk and metal had a mutant baby. These guys didn’t look like heavy metal dudes; they had short hair, they played cool guitars, they were young. But the music was heavy, fast, and loud. I loved it. I didn’t know it was called hardcore.
Hearing Scratch the Surface led me to follow the band when I could find a sampler tape, catch a video on MTV, see their name in the back of a magazine. Soon, I got enough money for a ticket to the 1995 Vans Warped Tour. I went to see Sick of it All. I went to hear Scratch the Surface. Seeing the band live was transformative. I’d been going to punk shows but this was different, people were grabbing the mic, bodies again flew through the air and Lou was the orchestrator of the madness. It’s hard to shake that as a kid.
Hanging around the merch booth long enough, I was annoying. The band gave me a live sampler CD and a sticker to get me to move along. I bought a $10 blue and white striped work shirt that was obviously working class New York used; they screen-printed their name and dragons on the back. I thought it was cool as hell. I was 14.
Soon, I got my pairs of Vans, got camo shorts (I’m wearing them right now), got into bands like Agnostic Front, Strife, Earth Crisis, Turmoil; I dove headfirst into hardcore music and never came out. When I was in a band, we’d jam Sick of It All riffs. Any time they came to town, I’d catch them because they were always cool. As bands came and went, Sick of it All were the band that brought underground culture to the mainstream. They signed with a major label, toured with bands like Helmet, Exodus, Napalm Death globally, and brought hardcore music to everyone, everywhere.
Now, I’m 45. I have greys in my beard. Got kids. Got the tattoos. Been to hundreds of hardcore shows. I saw Sick of It All play their last Austin show a few years back. I paid tribute to the kings. And now, their music will live on for many others as a gateway into a music that could be either a stepping stone into a different world or a scene that changes their lives. I would not be the person I am today without hardcore music. That is a fact. And to think, it all came from a guy wearing a Dragon Ball Z long sleeve and a rat tail giving the people the lyrics,
“What is the force that drives the superficial.
Tell me what keeps their minds remaining little
What is the force that drives the superficial
Tell me what keeps their minds remaining
So afraid of what they’d see underneath the fantasy
So afraid to actually scratch the surface.”
And then he was gone. I looked at my phone and post after post from the hardcore community said the same thing, “aw, man. Fuck.” Lou Koller wasn’t Ozzy Osbourne but he meant a lot to a relatively small collective of people around the world that have kept his music alive. Without Sick of it All and ultimately, Lou, you wouldn’t have Hatebreed, Knocked Loose, or Turnstile. They opened the doors to bigger venues, more money, being able to play hardcore music as a career, or at least the opportunity to get in a van every night for this thing you love. If there are two bands who brought hardcore music to homes in the middle of nowhere, it’s them and Agnostic Front, the ambassadors of what it means to be a band that paid their dues and stamped their passports, no matter how small the country or club.
In June 2024, Koller told fans that doctors had found a tumor in his esophagus. It was adenocarcinoma, and it had already spread into his stomach. The band left their European tour so he could start treatment, His brother Pete set up a fund to help cover the medical costs and lost income while Lou was off the road. That fall, the scene did what hardcore scenes do: bands who’d come up alongside Sick of It All, or come up because of them, played a benefit at Irving Plaza in New York — Vision of Disorder, Life of Agony, Municipal Waste, Killing Time, Crown of Thornz — to help carry him through it. In May 2025, Koller told everyone he’d finished treatment and was cancer-free. It felt like the ending you wanted. We were ready to celebrate Lou, to scream along with him.
Unfortunately, that September, it was back. He kept going anyway, through what would have been the band’s 40th year together, the band he’d started with his brother in Queens back in 1986. He died on July 24, 2026, at 59, the disease finally outrunning him after two years of him refusing to let it define the band or the music. His bandmates put it simply: his fight was over, and he could finally rest.
Rest easy, Lou. None of us will forget you. Maybe some kid on Instagram will see their favorite bands talking about Sick of it All and this will be their cultural moment.
Featured photo By Frank Schwichtenberg – Own work This file was uploaded with Commonist., CC BY-SA 4.0
