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For Justice Tripp, there is nothing else but music.
It’s been that way for most of his life, and it has only intensified the older he has got. You could say that it’s become more a case of him fitting the rest of life’s necessities – eating, sleeping, running errands – around music rather than how it is for everybody else. Even as Rock Sound is talking to him, he has a band – Richmond’s own Destruco Disk if you’re interested – that he is producing, staying at his house, a space that he has built with the sole intention of being somewhere that anybody who needs to stretch a creative muscle can come and feel like they are home.
“It’s a bit like when you’re a kid, and you find a skateboard and then want to skate all day, every day, and then some kid at school says that his mum let him build a halfpipe in their backyard. My house is the half pipe in the backyard,” Justice explains with a smile. “My band are all from different states, so they can fly in and stay here and play music, no problem. I want to make that available to others, too. Me being in the room for that feels exciting and inspiring. I don’t turn that feeling off ever.”
Yet even though that meter is constantly running, it’s only recently that Justice has figured out how to take everything that he has learned, loved and hung on to from a life on stage and make it make sense in one place. And that realisation is present on ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’, the sixth full-length record from Angel Du$t, the most unpredictable, audacious and free-flowing project in his arsenal.
Whizzing and banging with as much punk ferocity as it is rock and roll rough and tumble, it is as close to an audio personification of Justice’s view on not just music but on the world he wants to exist in as he has ever had.
“I feel like I’ve been making music for a long time and learning lots of cool new tricks, and this is the first time I’ve been able to do all of it together in one space,” he muses. “With the people in my band, everyone comes from different cities and different backgrounds, and they all carry a lot of musical information that we have tried to tap into different layers of. This record feels like a very informed collection of a lot of that musical background.”
THE SOUND
No matter what direction you are coming from, authenticity has been and always will be the focus for Justice. Because if you’re not representing your true self within the art that you are putting out, you’re not only doing yourself a disservice but also the people you are showing it to.
Though with that in mind, it’s taken a particular internal step for him to be able to truly let everything hang as it is supposed to on ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’. That is not to feel like anything he has experienced doesn’t deserve its moment to shine.
“It’s been about allowing myself to represent any moment of my life that I want,” Justice explains. “To represent anything that I was doing and do it without putting up a subconscious boundary of whether I should be doing it or not. That’s something that I used to do, even with this band. So, allowing myself to be as authentically myself as a creator. That’s the unique step that I took for me.”
A lot of that also comes from surrounding himself with the sort of bandmates and accomplices who not only bolster that feeling but also want to push it forward. Within the band, ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’ is the first release to feature the work of Nick Lewis and Jim Carrol, both of whom have the experience of time in American Nightmare, The Hope Conspiracy and Suicide File, to name just a few, under their belts. Additionally, the recruitment of producer Brian McTernan, responsible for everything from ‘Still Searching’ by Senses Fail and ‘The Illusion of Safety’ by Thrice to ‘Nonstop Feeling’ by Turnstile and ‘Petitioning The Empty Sky’ by Converge, gave Justice not only a professional comfort but also a personal one as well.
“He is very important in my story, from learning about recording and production and what that process looks like for me,” he beams. “So, welcoming him to the team and hearing him say, ‘I see all of these things that you do and that you want to do, here’s how to make them make sense on an album’, was huge. I think he is really important to the story of hardcore music overall. When you look at how influential he has been and how many really important hardcore records he has produced, he’s very inspiring.”
Inspiration is an important characteristic of this record as well, reflected in the smattering of special guests who also make appearances throughout it. There are the forefathers in the form of Terror’s Scott Vogel on ‘Pain Is A Must’ (“If we are acknowledging hardcore music in this capacity, then you need to have the greatest in there”) and American Nightmare’s Wes Eisold on ‘Zero’ (“He opened a door within emotional hardcore language. I feel like before him there wasn’t a lot of that going on”). And there are modern moguls such as Taylor Young on ‘The Beat’ (“He plays guitar and drums and has produced a lot of the coolest music in current times”) and Frank Carter on ‘Man On Fire’ (“He just exceeded my expectations. I had to go back and push myself more, and that’s awesome”).
By surrounding himself with this many voices, outlooks and stories, both from the inside and out, it’s allowed Justice, and in turn Angel Du$t, to be even more riotous and risk-taking than ever before. ‘I’m The Outside’ has as much in common with The Beatles as it does The Rival Mob, switching between hip-shaking grooves and steel-toe-capped brute force with the flick of the wrist, whilst ‘Downfall’ wouldn’t sound out of place next to Oasis as it would Drain.
It’s this variety, or lack of fear in the face of that variety, that defines the sound of ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’. In the same way that the setlist of a show looks to tell a band’s story, Justice intends for this record to do the same job. But not just tell the story of Angel Du$t; tell his own musical story, too.
More than anything, it’s a reminder to everyone that the only person telling you what you should or shouldn’t be defined by is you. You’re not the same as you were two years ago, and you don’t have to keep things the same just for the sake of that older version of yourself.
“The idea of mastering art or learning everything that there is to know about being in a studio or making music is ridiculous,” Justice states. “I don’t know anybody who can win with that mindset. But going in and knowing that it is you versus yourself. Your limitations and your brain’s state in that moment are always changing. It’s a different battle every time. You can’t go in and do what you did two years ago and expect it to work. You have to dive into the music and be willing to accept that your immediate thought might not be it. You might not have the answers immediately, and that’s okay.”
THE LYRICS
In much of Angel Du$t’s output over the last decade and a bit, as long as it gets you moving, then they are on the right track. But be that movement inspired by the loved-up folkiness of 2019’s ‘Pretty Buff’ or the pit-spinning fun and ferocity of 2016’s ‘Rock The Fuck On Forever’, there has been an air of positivity to proceedings.
When it came to ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’ though, in sticking with making sure that every part of who he is was covered, Justice chose to probe some different emotions.
“A lot of the subject matter here is things that I feel deep within myself that I don’t see being addressed across the board. I don’t see many people talking about these things. When you listen to music and you see art, you start to think to yourself, ‘Okay, what isn’t being represented out there? What is my unique perspective within this?’ The lyrical tone is a bit darker and more aggressive, and that’s something that exists in everyone. Everybody feels good, and everybody feels bad. But I guess that just allowing myself to take on some of those feelings that I haven’t in more recent Angel Du$t records was the aim.”
And such a sentiment has been achieved, as there is a change of pace to things that those who have followed the band’s journey will certainly pick up on. There is a darkness and an anger to the words that Justice is uttering, but not in the same way that hardcore usually perceives those things. Here, Justice is telling the truth about how he is feeling right now, about what life is throwing at him, rather than forcing himself to feel a certain way because of an expectation. Because forcing yourself to feel a certain way for the sake of making something that someone thinks you should be making goes against the whole point of art in the first place.
“Expression, in itself, is nice to experience”, he ponders. “It’s why I make music. It’s nice to tell the truth about yourself. I hope that when people are making music, they feel that way every time. But a lot of things I have done musically have been defined by someone trying to set a boundary or a restriction. Just rules within music. You don’t want to create exclusively as a result of spite or in spite. You want to create as authentic a place as possible.”
THE TITLE AND ARTWORK
Because of the way that the lyrics and sound of the album ended up going, the two words that stuck in Justice’s mind as a way to describe it were ‘Cold’ and ‘Menacing’. So that’s where ‘COLD 2 THE TOUCH’ comes in as a title. But what is the most menacing image that he can conjure to accompany such a sound?
“I think for a lot of people it’s a police officer,” he giggles.
That’s how the image of Johnny Law has found its way onto this record. Holding a hand up as if to tell you to stop or cease, it’s another swing at people trying to tell Justice what they think Angel Du$t should be. Much the same as when writing lyrics, he was inspired by how he has spent much of his career going against the grain of what is expected of him, when it comes to an album where all of the pieces have finally slotted into place in the way he wants them to, it was important to stick the tongue firmly in the cheek in the most foreboding way.
That’s also where the dollar sign comes in. A symbol that has been with the band since the very beginning, proudly replacing the S in their name, it has now taken on another meaning.
“The dollar sign on the artwork represents that cold and menacing feeling, too,” he continues. “This menacing figure we live with every day. It drives all of our lives.
“But as far as it being a symbol in the name, it’s something no one was doing. And when you decide to be that band, the one with a dollar sign in your name, it’s seen as corny. ‘It looks like a rapper, that’s not what we do here’. But you’re the one who is still talking about it, and we’re the band that has that. It’s another one of those little jabs that Angel Du$t has taken at the rules.
“A lot of the nature of aggressive music is that it is a response to the mainstream. And as hardcore becomes more mainstream, more people are trying to dictate what is and isn’t allowed. If I’m going to co-exist in this space, I have to be defiant.”
THE FUTURE
Much like with everything that Justice does, there isn’t really a game plan for what is going to happen next. Life is unpredictable; you never know which direction it will push you in. So, all you can do is continue to stay true to who you are and enjoy the ride as and when it starts.
“The next step is always a response to what is happening around me,” he admits. “That’s what art is. Whether it’s what’s happening in society or my personal life, it’s whatever feels good in this moment. I’ve had moments in my life when people imitate things I have made, and the response is to do the polar opposite. I’ve had moments in my life where the world changes what I’m feeling in the moment, and then the music becomes something else. As people, we are always evolving, and the future looks like making another album with my team when the time comes, that is as authentic to our experience at the time as possible.”
And that might not even come out in the form of Angel Du$t in the future. It could come out via his bedroom-pop solo project Cold Mega. It could be through the two unannounced projects he is currently working on that he hopes to come out within the next year. And with Trapped Under Ice playing shows throughout 2026, you never know if the itch to add to their stellar discography might materialise.
But it’s because of that possibility that Justice likes to always keep music so close to him. It’s why he wants bands to come to his house and work on their dreams with him. It’s why he wants to encourage the scene in Baltimore to continue thriving as much as it has over the last decade. Because this is how we express ourselves, and if we aren’t expressing ourselves, then what is the point in any of this?
“I love music,” he concludes. “And I am pursuing everything I love about it at all times. And I don’t see any reason to ever limit yourself.”
And that is just about as inspiring as it gets.
