Interview with Mike Scarantino (State of Disgrace/All As One)
Channel: Uptown Rumble
Date: 2024-03-14

Oral history with Mike Scarantino, vocalist for Grave Disorder, State of Disgrace, All As One, and other bands, recorded on March 12, 2024, as part of the "Uptown Rumble: Heavy Music in The Bronx" project at The Bronx County Historical Society. The interviewers are Steven Payne, director of The Bronx County Historical Society, and Gary Muttley, bassist for Billy Club Sandwich.

In his oral history, Mike recounts his family's background—Italian on his dad's side and Puerto Rican on his mom's side—, early memories in the Parkchester neighborhood where he grew up, how one of his uncles first introduced him to heavier rock music like Kiss, his experiences in junior high school with other kids into similar kinds of music, being introduced to Slayer and other thrash metal bands at Columbus High School, discovering Agnostic Front and New York hardcore in 1984, some of the bands or individuals he knew in the scene from The Bronx at the time (The Unjust, the drummer from Maximum Penalty, etc.), going to CBGB's hardcore Sunday Matinee and other shows he went to as a teenager, starting his first short-lived band in high school with his brother and a friend, becoming straight edge, leaving the scene for multiple years and getting back into it in the mid-1990s through hearing about Fahrenheit 451 and District 9 and stumbling across a show at Castle Heights in Queens, starting Grave Disorder and his experiences as the vocalist for this band, forming State of Disgrace and how this band developed over time, the creation of All As One and different shows this band played, other bands he has been a part of over the years, and more.