Project 86 is a rock band from Orange County, California, that singer Andrew Schwab put together in mid-1996. He's explained the number in the name: "The generation before us used that phrase to describe when they would reject or remove something... Project 86 is like the whole idea of being rejected, or separate, or not going along with the current." Across twelve albums they've sold nearly 500,000 units worldwide.
BEC and Drawing Black Lines
HM magazine readers voted them one of the top independent acts of 1997. A strong set at Tomfest that year got Tooth & Nail interested. Their first album, Project 86, arrived on BEC Recordings in June 1998. Bryan Carlstrom produced it, and P.O.D.'s Sonny Sandoval sings on it. It sold over 50,000 copies, and in 1999 the band toured with P.O.D. and Blindside.
Drawing Black Lines (2000) was heavier and more progressive. They made it with producer GGGarth Richardson in Vancouver. Atlantic licensed it to release alongside Tooth & Nail and BEC, and it went on to sell nearly 120,000 copies. In October 2000 they toured with P.O.D., Hed PE and Linkin Park.
A major label and a hard landing
Truthless Heroes (2002) was a concept album made with Slayer producer Matt Hyde, and Atlantic released it alone. It reached No. 146 on the Billboard 200, and its single "Hollow Again" got to No. 35 on Mainstream Rock. Then the band and the label parted ways in 2003. Schwab said later, "We did not go platinum... the record fell short of expectations."
They put out Songs to Burn Your Bridges By themselves in 2003, then went back to Tooth & Nail, which reissued it in 2004. Next came ...And the Rest Will Follow (2005), the 1980s-flavored Rival Factions (2007) and Picket Fence Cartel (2009). After that they went independent and had fans pay for Wait for the Siren (2012), Knives to the Future (2014) and Sheep Among Wolves (2017). Omni (2023–2024) turned to industrial metalcore, and Schwab has since said the band now goes by P86:Omni.
Hope and purpose
Schwab has called the shift on ...And the Rest Will Follow a spiritual one, with the band "refocusing our goals back to what they were when we started, reaching kids and inspiring them to live lives with hope and purpose." On Picket Fence Cartel he wrote about how power and corruption often "run hand-in-hand when it comes to human souls."
Never the same record twice
Project 86 got tagged as rapcore early on. Schwab blamed that on touring with P.O.D. and Linkin Park. Their sound has been compared to Helmet, Rage Against the Machine and Tool. The writer Mark Allan Powell heard "cryptic, down-tuned guitars" and "half-spoken, half-rapped" vocals on the early records. Schwab has said the band's goal is "to never make the same record twice."
