BoySetsFire — BoySetsFire

BoySetsFire formed in Newark, Delaware, in October 1994, and for three decades they have made loud, melodic, politically charged hardcore. They've broken up, reunited, changed labels again and again, and lost a founding member. Through all of it, the songs kept their edge. They're not a Christian band, but they helped shape the post-hardcore sound that a lot of Christian bands grew up on.

Delaware beginnings

The band put out its first demos in late 1994 and early 1995. A string of small releases followed, including the Consider EP and, in 1996, This Crying, This Screaming, My Voice Is Being Born. In 1997 they signed with Initial Records and recorded their first album, The Day the Sun Went Out.

The singer at the front of it all was Nat Gray, who sang and screamed over guitarists Chad Istvan and Josh Latshaw. Drummer Matt Krupanski was a co-founder.

BoySetsFire's lyrics have always been politically driven. The band have named a wide set of influences, from Rites of Spring, Fugazi and the Revolution Summer movement to Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Tool and Portishead. That mix shows in the music. The band could swing from a hardcore breakdown to a big, open chorus in the same song.

After the Eulogy

Their second album, After the Eulogy, came out in 2000. In 1999 the band toured with Snapcase and played the Vans Warped Tour. They released a split EP with Snapcase in 1999, a Metallica tribute split with Shai Hulud for Undecided Records, and another split with Coalesce in 2000.

After the Eulogy became the record people point to. "Rookie" turned up in video games, including Legends of Wrestling and 1080° Avalanche. In 2024, when the band celebrated thirty years on stage, "After the Eulogy" was still in the set.

Wind-up and Tomorrow Come Today

After signing with Victory Records, the band moved to Wind-up, an independent label distributed by Sony in the US. Tomorrow Come Today came out in 2003. The band made a video for "Last Year's Nest." "Handful of Redemption" showed up in EA Sports games, and "High Wire Escape Artist" landed on the soundtrack to the film Daredevil. That soundtrack went gold, the band's only gold record.

The Wind-up years weren't easy. After a dispute with Wind-up, in 2005 the band signed to Burning Heart Records for worldwide distribution and Equal Vision Records in North America.

The Misery Index and the farewell

The Misery Index: Notes from the Plague Years came out in March 2006, with videos for "Dear George" and "Requiem." Then, on July 31, 2006, the band announced on its website that it was retiring.

The goodbye took a while. Latshaw was badly injured before the farewell European tour, so roadie Chris "The Reverend" Rakus played guitar in his place. The band went back to Europe in May 2007 so Latshaw could say goodbye to the fans there himself. The final show was on June 9, 2007, at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia. It was filmed and released on DVD.

After BoySetsFire

On February 12, 2007, Gray announced a new band, The Casting Out, with several former BoySetsFire members. Gray told fans it wouldn't be another political band. Krupanski went on to form Bound and Buried and Young Lady.

The reunion

On October 5, 2010, BoySetsFire announced they were back. They played Berlin, the Groezrock festival in Belgium, the Studio at Webster Hall in New York and Nova Rock in Austria. In August 2011 they played the Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK.

The lineup kept moving. Bassist Robert Ehrenbrand left in late 2011, and Marc Krupanski joined. A year later both Krupanski brothers left, and Rakus and Ehrenbrand agreed to share bass. Dan Pelic joined on drums.

In 2012 the band played a handful of US shows, including two in January in Newark and West Chester, Pennsylvania, plus Boston, Providence and The Bamboozle festival in New Jersey. That summer they toured Europe for three weeks.

While a Nation Sleeps

In June 2013 the band released While a Nation Sleeps..., their first album in seven years, with videos for "Bled Dry," "Closure" and "Never Said." It was well received, especially in Germany, where it reached No. 22 on the album chart. They played the Hurricane and Southside festivals, then shows in Dortmund, Stuttgart and Hamburg.

In November and December 2013, BoySetsFire toured Australia, followed by UK dates in April 2014. For their twentieth anniversary they played Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin and Vienna in October 2014.

Boysetsfire, 2015

The band's self-titled sixth album came out in September 2015, led by the video for "One Match." A European tour with Silverstein and Great Collapse followed, and in the summer of 2016 another European run with Polar and Wolf Down. Then the band took a break so its members could work on other projects.

Thirty and counting

They came back for their thirtieth anniversary. In late September and early October 2024, BoySetsFire played a run of European shows with Strike Anywhere and Michael Rudolph Cummings, including the Melkweg in Amsterdam on September 29.

In 2026 the band lost a founder. Drummer Matt Krupanski died on March 28, 2026.

Nat Gray

Gray's own story is part of the band's. In 2022, Gray came out as pansexual and gender-nonconforming, and walked on stage with BoySetsFire four days later with a whole new look. Gray uses they/them and she/her pronouns, identifies as trans and non-binary, and now goes by Natasha "Nat" Gray. Talking to Delaware Online in 2022, they described the old persona as something they had put on: "That was the gimmick." They now front The Iron Roses as well.

Where they fit

BoySetsFire never sang about faith. They sang about power, labour, war and the people at the bottom. But the sound they built, with a hardcore engine under big, melodic choruses, became part of the common language of post-hardcore. Bands including Thursday, Story of the Year, Funeral for a Friend, Strike Anywhere and Trivium have cited BoySetsFire as an influence. Some of those bands toured with Christian bands, too. Story of the Year, for one, toured Canada with Anberlin and Hawthorne Heights in 2006.

For listeners who came up on that scene, BoySetsFire are part of the family tree. They have been shouting about injustice since the mid-1990s, and thirty years on, they're still at it.