Interview with Cruel Noise

Cruel Noise is a weekly punk radio show that is released as a podcast. Produced by John Villegas (who also currently plays in extremely sick Pittsburgh hardcore punk bands DE RODILLAS and PEACE TALKS), each episode consists of sets of new and old hardcore punk and other underground music interspersed with light banter. Though I've only been listening to Cruel Noise for a fraction of it's 361-episode (at time of publishing) run, it's quickly become a highlight of my week AND one of the main ways I learn about and sample new or new-to-me bands that I want to listen to more, tell my friends about, or try to catch live.

Fresh off the chaos of Pittsburgh's notorious Skull Fest, John was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions about the evolution and making of Cruel Noise, finding new music, DIY punk and wanting only the best for our human and animal friends. Queue up a sick record, pour yourself a big glass of water and enjoy The Counterforce's interview with John Villegas.

First of all, how was Skull Fest 2025? Any highlights / favourite bands you saw that people should check out?

Skull Fest was a success, people had fun, bands played, little to no blood was spilled. The majority of my time was spent running around and working but I did get to see some great bands! The stand out sets were LA PREGUNTA, IDEATION, STRESS POSITIONS, THE DARK, FLOWER, and ZORN. A lot of other bands that I saw were as good or better, but I had never seen those particular bands before so they had a greater impact in my human brain. Honorable mention to COMMITMENT from Philly. 

How and why did you start making Cruel Noise and what forms has it taken over the years? I’ve heard you mention that it was an on-air radio show at some point, and that there may be some early episodes lost to the sands of time and internet platform decay... how did you land on the podcast format?

Some friends and I did a pirate radio station for a few years until the FCC shut it down. We simulcasted it online near the end, and when the feds told us "no-no" I decided I was going to figure out how to keep doing it. The first 30-60 episodes were on SoundCloud, and at some point Sony bought SC and deleted a bunch of accounts of people who were playing copyrighted music. It was a minor blow to little old me, but I know there were some bigger DJs who lost a lot of mixes they had on there.

At that point I emailed someone from a podcast I listened to called "Rock and/or Roll" and asked him how he got away with playing music he did not have the rights to on Apple Podcasts and he told me that despite their rules and regulations saying "you cannot play other people's music" they actually don't care. So I found a third party website that uploaded the RSS to all the places that I knew distributed podcasts and never looked back. I considered trying to get on one of the local college stations here in Pittsburgh, but at that time of my life I was drunk, reckless and unreliable and knew I would not (and could not) conform to their collegiate values of what radio should be. Plus I am painfully DIY, probably to my own detriment. 

Do you have a process for picking music for or making the show? How is the Cruel veggie-sausage made?

I play a lot of my friends' bands, bands I see on tour, and bands whose tours are coming through town as the starting point. I always try to focus on what is new as the bedrock.

BUT, I am also obsessed with compilations of the first waves of punk and hardcore. "Killed By Death," "Bloodstains," old regional comps like "Are We Too Late For The Trend" & "Cleveland Confidential" that are a snapshot of a time and place and often have a band's only recorded song. You will find other themes in there as well, songs whose titles all share a single word and most often songs all released in the same year often times a 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-year anniversary type scenario. 

Part of the goal of The Counterforce is to push back on the algorithmically-driven flattening of punk and hardcore (e.g. the shaping of music to be more conducive to success on platforms like Spotify or YouTube) by encouraging human curation – radio shows being a perfect example of that. I’m wondering if this is something you think or care about, or if it’s even part of the motivation for continuing to make the show?

Yes of course! My life was forged by mixtapes and mix CDs. I love the glimpse into someone else's world, a sample of their music taste boiled down into the confines of a media limited by time and/or space. Try as it might, the algorithm does not understand me and cannot predict what it is I want to hear. I know that I cannot do that either, but I hope that out of all the things I throw at the musical wall something sticks and you, the listener, find a new band or bands that you love.

I am obsessed with finding new sounds – tapping my fingers on objects to the annoyance of others, playing my guitar as loud as possible hoping to discover some tone new to me and, most relevant to this, music I have never heard before that piques my interest. That is where my love of digging for the old music really comes in. I mourn the loss of kbdrecords.com which was a seemingly endless resource for great old bands that were mostly forgotten to time. Once I find some great old punk song, I get excited to share it with people. I never liked gatekeeping, mostly because I was the loser who would be on the other end of the situation. It doesn't make sense to bully people because I was bullied, I believe people should be sharing music and art with each other with as little judgement as possible.

I don't use Spotify but have a love/hate relationship with YouTube. I am happy to be some sort of low-level alternative to the corporate music model.   

Other than that, what else keeps you motivated to keep making the show?

I really, really love punk, I want everyone else to have a chance to listen to the music that I think is great. Through playing in bands and touring I have seen so many great bands and met a lot of good people and I want to share their music as far and wide as I possibly can. Also doing the podcast helps keep me motivated to listen to newly-released music. I am a nerd who is obsessed with music and I just want to share it with people. There is so much out there that flies under the radar and I hope by cosigning a band, song, label, etc., that you will give them a chance. 

When I started listening to the show regularly, the thing that sold me on it was not just the music selection, but also your encouragement to “support the bands by going to see them live, buying their records and telling your friends about them,” which is something you say pretty much every episode. It's a breath of fresh air to hear this, in a time when we are more often prompted to follow or stream bands on various hostile corporate apps to support them. Why do you feel like its important to emphasize that every episode? Has this always been a directive/pseudo-tagline of the show, or did it develop somewhere along the way?

I do not remember when I started saying that but it is in the same spirit as "Now go start your own band!", something that is seemingly salient but also impactful. It probably has something to do with me being old and coming up in a time before the corporate structures got their hands on my version of DIY punk. I legitimately want the best for the bands I play because I think they deserve it and going to see them live, buying their records and telling your friends about them is the most direct, unfuckwithable way I can think of to do that. Cut out the middleman, go straight to the source. 

On a recent episode, you played a block of songs about not eating animals and talked a bit about being vegan, wondering why it's not as common of a thing as when you were coming up in punk. I found the way you folded it in with your typical light banter about your life, pets, bands, etc, to be pretty chill and non-judgemental but still impactful. As a person with a platform, how do you relate to talking about what's going on in the world or encouraging making choices that line up with ones ethics or politics? And do you see these choices as an integral part of DIY/punk alongside the music? 

No one likes being preached to about the things they do or do not do. Through much trial, tribulation and loss I have found that I cannot fix the things I perceive to be problems in others but can only fix the problems in myself and hope that leading by example can show people another possibility. I quit eating meat when I was 15 or 16, I LOVE animals so much and seeing how they suffered on their way to the plate hurt me so bad that it was a no-brainer to become a vegetarian. Veganism seemed to be the logical next step on my journey. The title of the FLUX OF PINK INDIANS album "Strive To Survive Causing the Least Amount of Suffering Possible" really resonates with me and I think about it often.

A theory I have toyed with as to why punks don't care about veganism or animal rights so much anymore is that:

1. "Karens" have taken veganism and made it "cringe" 

2. Western culture and social media have pushed the agenda of "ME," making everyone the star of their own show to the detriment of others. 

This is a very broad strokes version of unfinished, probably unprovable idea(s).

I don't want to be preachy. I don't want to be judgmental of people. These are things that I have been trying to tamp down in myself in a more concerted effort since becoming sober in 2019. It is hard to not be an asshole about things you really believe in when you are faced with people who have opposing views. I struggle with it all the time. Personally I think punk, ethics and politics are all inextricably linked BUT I know that it is not reasonable for me to expect everyone else to think the same. To some people it is just a party. I want to be mad at them for not doing what I perceive to be "THE RIGHT THING" but I know I have done the wrong thing a lot and hope they can find their way to it sooner than later. 

At the end of the day the podcast is about music, the talking is secondary. I am happy to share my opinion(s), no matter how incomplete or misinformed with anyone who asks for it, but I don't see it as my place to force it down anyone's throat.

Do you have any tips for people who might want to start making a radio show?

I think if someone feels compelled to do a radio show or podcast they should absolutely do it. It is easy and you can do it for cheap or free. There are hundreds of guides on how to do it online, and if there are questions I could answer you can email me.

You can subscribe to Cruel Noise on your podcast app or RSS reader of choice, or visit cruelnoiserecords.com for links to everything.