It’s been one hell of a year for Iron Reagan, and 2014 only looks to be brighter! After one year of work with one demo and a handful of jam sessions, the group had enough material to drop their debut full-length “Worse Than Dead,” featuring 19 furious tracks, and spent the latter half of the year touring in its support. Clearly not ones to sit idle, Iron Reagan will start out the new year with a new handful of tunes to be featured on a split with Exhumed, followed by (of course) more live dates, and eventually another full-length LP due within the year.
But first, let’s lay down the structure that is Iron Reagan. Comprised of members of Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour, the idea for the band was bouncing around the brain of vocalist Tony Foresta (Municipal Waste) for about four years. After approaching his longtime friend Ryan Parrish (ex-Darkest Hour) about jamming together, Tony’s Municipal Waste bandmate LandPhil Hall joined in with his stockpile of riffs, and off they went. As for the name, that is where the explanations get tricky. “I’m 37, I grew up with Reagan as this image that was feared and respected,” states vocalist Foresta. “It’s more of the imagery and the exaggeration of someone who’s so important. You put it up on a pedestal so much that to make fun of it is blasphemy.”
Name-games and line-ups aside, it would be best to let the music do the talking, and this band will not 
disappoint. The tracks are fast, thrashy, and feature the no-bullshit approach that underground music fans know and love. “The album was the result of writing maybe four or five practices, so it’s pretty raw,” states Foresta. “A lot of my favorite hardcore bands weren’t in the studio for months, so you had some energy and spontaneity there, and that’s what we’re trying to do with this.” In a modest nod to the album’s popularity, let us be sure to include that the album’s label, A389 Records, has already sold out of it.
Set to hit the streets on 7th January, Iron Reagan and Exhumed’s split 12” feature each band dishing out 4 new songs each (with Exhumed doing two covers), and is really just kind of a precursor to what Iron Reagan has in mind for the rest of the year. “It was recorded last winter and took forever to see the light of day. There were different project ideas, then the chance to do this with Exhumed came up, so we did it,” explains Foresta before continuing on with the songwriting for their next full-length. “It’s definitely going to be a progression in the best way possible. When hearing someone talk about a new album in an interview, you know they’re going to say ‘it’s the best thing ever!’ But the shit we’ve got so far is better songwriting, but still short songs. I won’t lie, I wrote one of the best songs I’ve ever written just a few weeks ago. I wrote the lyrics in an airplane, crying laughing because it was so ridiculous.”
Certainly one of the strongest and most impressive bands to come around in a while, it is no stretch of the imagination to state that Iron Reagan will most likely hit 2014 and your eardrums like the nuclear bombs everyone always thought Ronald Reagan would use. And here’s to hoping they will……
