sweat

The KnuckleHeadz may just be the thing to save America’s youth. They’re categorized too neatly as a punk band from Whittier, but they’re actually a movement: Southern California’s most raucous self-help program and hardcore band. The members are built like dockworkers and dressed like a deleted scene from “The Warriors”: black-and-green leather vests with a spiky-haired skull back patch. They are also the driving force behind the Punk Rock Fight Club, a Southern California-based organization dedicated to improving young men’s lives through fitness and structure. The rules are as strict as they are simple, and in this topsy-turvy world, truly radical: no hard drugs, no crime, no racists, no abusers. Respect yourself, your brothers and your community.

The KnuckleHeadz achieved a moment of internet fame after hosting a completely unsanctioned show in an unsuspecting McDonald’s for a hundred people. The viral clip of the show is the convenient entry point, but it sells short what the gentlemen have built. Onstage, the KnuckleHeadz are all sweat and spectacle: profanity-laced breakdowns, fans crowd surfing on boogie boards riding a human tide, and the green-and-black army in the pit pulling strangers upright. The absurdity of a fast-food slam pit, bodies and burgers briefly airborne — suggests anarchy. Look closer and you see choreography: Men catching falls, clearing space and enforcing a code. Punk has always promised salvation by noise. The KnuckleHeadz add a footnote: Salvation requires reps, rules and someone mean enough to care. Offstage, they run an infrastructure for staying alive.

The KnuckleHeadz in Whittier

(Dick Slaughter)

Founded in June 2021 by frontman Thomas Telles of Whittier, better known as Knucklehead Tom, and with the help of guitarist and tattooer Steven Arceo, aka Saus, of El Monte, the Punk Rock Fight Club (PRFC) has grown in a few years to six chapters and more than 200 members across Southern California. What started as a tight circle around a band hardened into a movement: discipline for kids who never got it, structure for men who need it, and a community without substance abuse . Prospects earn their way through mornings, sweat and commitment before they’re trusted with the skull back patch. The rules read like a brick wall and function like a doorway.

“I started the club because I wanted to do good in the scene,” Knucklehead Tom said “I wanted to create a tribe where we all supported each other, a family for people from all walks of life, especially those who came from broken homes. I wanted people to know they have somewhere to go and a family they can count on.”

Knucklehead Tom of The KnuckleHeadz puts his mic in to the crowd while performing with the band from Whittier.

(Dick Slaughter)

I first ran into the KnuckleHeadz and a few club members by accident three years ago in a London train station en route to the Rebellion Punk Rock Music Festival in Blackpool, a yearly event featuring more than 300 veteran and emerging bands. They were impossible to miss — part wolf pack, part brotherhood, pure energy. That year the KnuckleHeadz struck a chord with me, not just through their all-in, no-holds-barred performances, but also through their message, their obvious love for one another and their mission to better their community. Since then, I have taken a hard look inside both the band and the club; I visited their gym and attended many of their shows. I have met and talked with families and those the KnuckleHeadz and the club have helped. They have indeed, in many cases, worked miracles. But the guys don’t call them miracles. They call it Tuesday.

“Since we founded Punk Rock Fight Club, we paved way for what we knew was the movement and lifestyle many people in our scene needed,” Arceo said. “We’ve changed so many lives and with that our lives changed as well. We made a family built on brotherhood, loyalty with the camaraderie that can only be achieved through martial arts and punk rock. That’s something many of us grew up without. So to be able to bring this into the world is worth every sacrifice. We’re going on five years strong and will keep going till the day we die.”

The band’s ascent mirrors the spread of the club: a steady climb from underground slots to punk’s biggest stages. They earned a place on the final NOFX show and graduated from Rebellion’s side stage to the festival’s main stage. They’ve organized benefits for causes that don’t trend and for people who can’t afford to be causes. The Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas recently added a piece of PRFC memorabilia, one of the club’s cuts — a leather vest with the skull back patch — to its collection, a true museum piece that still smells faintly of sweat. Next, KnuckleHeadz prepare for a U.S. run with punk legends GBH, the sort of tour that turns rumor into résumé.

Saus, co-founder of the KnuckleHeadz, wearing the band’s signature vest.

The Whittier dojo, KnuckleHead Martial Arts, is where the KnuckleHeadz code gets practical. It’s where guys run martial arts drills and where the mats serve double duty as community center flooring. During the band’s “F Cancer” benefit for 17-year-old Cesar “Little Cesar” Lopez II, the driveway became an impromptu slam pit. Inside, kids tumbled on the mats while guitars shook the walls. Families brought food, local businesses donated services, and more than $6,000 went toward treatments. In the carnival-like atmosphere outside, Little Cesar grinned and hyped the pit from the sideline, proving that joy, like violence, can be contagious.

One member, Bernard Schindler, 55, of La Mirada, came in after a life of ricochets: rehab, prison, relapse, repeat. The club gave him a schedule first and a future second, and now with the support of the club, he’s been clean and sober for more than two years.

Saus performing with the KnuckleHeadz during a Punk Rock Fight Club benefit show outside the KnuckleHeadz gym in Whittier.

(Dick Slaughter)

“Tom and the Punk Rock Fight Club completely turned my life around,” Schindler said. “It gave me purpose, discipline and a new family of brothers that push me to be better. I went from being a broken down drug addict to the healthiest I’ve ever been mentally, physically and emotionally in the 55 years I’ve been alive.”

Since getting involved with the KnuckleHeadz nearly three years ago, Schindler says he’s gotten closer to his family, including his three sons and his girlfriend, in addition to staying sober. “I can honestly say that I couldn’t have done it without Tom and our God-given club, the Punk Rock Fight Club,” he said.

The bassist known as Knucklehead Randy performs while riding on the shoulders of a fellow club member at a benefit show in Whittier.

(Dick Slaughter)

The PRFC trophy case is full of medals and awards, sure, but the real accomplishments are much quieter and miraculous. There are pay stubs where rap sheets used to be, text threads that start with the question “You good?” at 3:17 a.m., and apartment keys handed over when a kid can’t go home.

Hip-hop synth-punk artist N8NOFACE, now a fixture on lineups from the annual L.A. festival Cruel World tours with Limp Bizkit and Corey Feldman, calls Tom “my brother” and credits that code with keeping him aligned. “I was getting clean, and I’ve always believed that if you follow the right people, it helps you stay on your path,” N8 says. “Tom was about health, about not getting all messed up, about being a fighter and a warrior and taking care of your body first. To find that in punk was very different.”

When asked about his hopes for the future of the band, Tom says, “I just want to keep having fun. We love doing it and are grateful for all the love and support.“ The band is currently playing shows across SoCal with gutter punk legends GBH, including a show Friday at the Ventura Music Hall.

“With the club, I want to keep changing lives. It makes me happy to know that my son Nieko has an army of goodhearted uncles if anything were to happen to me. The righteous men in this club make me so proud.”

That’s the trick. That’s the point. In the noise between those truths, a lot of young men hear something they’ve never believed before: a future they’re allowed to keep.

Slaughter is a photographer and writer who has covered music and culture for countless outlets, including the OC Weekly and L.A. Times. He is a founding member of In Spite Magazine.

The wind whips the grapevines, turning my meditative picking stance into a full-body workout. I firmly plant my legs, stabilising a thrashing branch with my left hand as my right snips off a bunch of grapes. Local people claim the roaring mistral wind makes you crazy, which I can appreciate as each arid gust chaps my lips and desiccates my eyes.

I’m at Domaine Rouge-Bleu, an organic vineyard in the Côtes du Rhône wine region in southern France. I have volunteered for les vendanges, the autumnal grape harvest where backbreaking work is doused in camaraderie.

Participating in this time-honoured tradition had long been a dream of mine, a lifelong Francophile and food writer. So, in 2017, eager to understand more about winemaking beyond the bar stool, I joined a motley crew, trading sore arms and farmer tans for a hands-on course in viticulture and viniculture. I expected to gain an oenological education. I had not anticipated how hard the picking would be – nor how gratifying it felt to accomplish something so big together. Many vendangeurs go back for more. I have returned almost every year since my first harvest, becoming friends with the owners of Domaine Rouge-Bleu.

France is one of the top producers of wine worldwide, pouring 4.78bn litres of wine into the market each year. About 59,000 winemakers manage 789,000 hectares (nearly 2m acres) of vineyards. That’s a lot of grapes to pick. Since the Greeks first planted vines in France in the sixth century BC, raisins (grapes) have been harvested by hand. Machines arrived in the 1960s for speed and cost efficiency. Yet 30%-40% of French wineries still retain the traditional vendanges à la main (hand-picked harvests).

Why would a winemaker opt for a method that costs more time and money? Renowned regions such as Champagne are required to do so to deliver the clusters to the press house intact. Grapevines can grow too close together to allow a machine to pass through. Some winemakers believe machines harm the vines and grapes. “You get better quality by hand since you only pick good grapes, without leaves, vines or oil from the machine,” says Thomas Bertrand, who co-owns Domaine Rouge-Bleu with his Australian partner Caroline Jones.

The hard-working couple illustrate the realities of winemaking that are far from the glamour of Bordeaux chateaux. They bring in volunteers to cut costs. However, harvest volunteers are a legal minefield in France. The government insists winemakers pay harvesters, so some offer room and board in lieu of wages, though many refrain from doing so to avoid any issues. Many winemakers wish volunteers were recognised, for communal harvests have been part of the winemaking heritage for centuries. “Our métier is all about sharing and creating convivial moments,” says France Breton, who welcomes volunteer harvesters at Domaine Breton in the Loire.

For example, Vignerons Indépendants de France runs the Vendangeur d’un Jour (harvester for a day) programme across France from late August to early October. “It is wonderful for wine tourism since so many want to pitch in,” says Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the association. You can also find opportunities on volunteer work sites such as WWOOF. I contacted wineries direct via introductions by my local wine bar, eventually finding Domaine Rouge-Bleu through its former owner, whose wife runs the French Word-A-Day blog.

Domaine Rouge-Bleu is in Sainte-Cécile-les-Vignes, a small town of 2,900 off the tourist track, despite its location in Provence. Fittingly for the town name – vignes are vines – the flat landscape is blanketed with grids of vineyards, with Mont Ventoux, the legendary Tour de France thigh-thumper, looming in the distance. At the end of a picturesque driveway lined with olive trees, a 17th-century farmhouse is home to Thomas, Caroline and their two girls. In harvest season, it swells with vendangeurs. I hit the roommate jackpot with Hannah, a perky Brit who works at a wine shop. Our 16-person team hails from France, the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US, my homeland.

Each morning, the smell of coffee wakes us before 7am. We don clothes that we don’t mind getting dirty – grape juice stains are stubborn. Despite the heat, we wear thick socks under our boots to avoid burs scraping our ankles. Thomas gives us a lay of the land on the first day. The first rule of picking is to be gentle with the grapes. Manhandling them can break their skins prematurely, causing the oxidation that negatively affects aromas and flavours.

We should also watch out for oidium, a chalky mildew, because “crap grapes make for crap wine”, says Thomas. When I find a snail on a grape, he jokes: “That’s why wine isn’t vegan.” (He jokes fluently in English.) Snipping grapes eight hours a day for three weeks wreaks havoc on the hands. Cuts are so prevalent I become the unofficial nurse of the group, carrying plasters in my bumbag. We work in pairs, bookending the vines to ensure no bunch gets left behind. To break up the monotony, conversation inevitably flows, profound at times due to the thick vines that block our faces like confessional screens. Everyone has a story – healing from a breakup or breaking free from a corporate job.

This sociability is an antidote to the demanding work: the constant ache in muscles I never knew I had; the unrelenting sweltering sun and hot wind. My skin and clothes are sticky with sweat, dirt and grape juice, my fingernails permanently painted purple. Yet, knowing our collective efforts will be bottled into delicious wine is incredibly rewarding. “There’s no feeling like people coming together for a shared mission,” says Hannah.

What is surprising to me is that I find solace in the repetition. As a freelancer weighted with managing, and finding, my own work, I appreciate having specific tasks; being told what to do; the simple choreography of snip, haul, repeat. Plus, the monotony is broken up by the varied terrain.

Terroir, the buzzword that rolls off sommeliers’ tongues, refers to the soil, climate and sunlight that give wine grapes their distinctive character. I get a crash course on Rouge-Bleu’s 12 hectares planted with 21 grape varietals. Stooped low like elderly ladies, the 115-year-old grenache gobelet vines are planted in an ancient riverbed of large white stones. While these heat-retaining galets help the grenache reach peak ripeness, their uneven surface is torturous – like trying to balance in a ball pit. The trellised syrah are easier to pick, their extended branches welcoming us with open arms to gather their purple jewels.

Once we fill the trailer – emblazoned with an “In Grenache We Trust” sticker – we head back to the winery. This entails a different workout – manoeuvring hoses and vats, loading the press, shovelling grape bunches into the tank. “We keep their stems to reduce heat buildup during fermentation, which leads to the jammy flavours we don’t want,” says Caroline. I appreciate her red wines even more with this knowledge. My favourite task is climbing into the press to stomp out every last drop of juice.

The drudgery is lessened as we toast the day’s end with craft beers from a friend’s Alpine brewery. “It takes a lot of beer to make good wine,” is a common harvest adage that Thomas repeats. Gathering around the table for meals is a harvest highlight, a much-deserved moment of conviviality that reinforces our team spirit and recharges our batteries. Each night, a different harvester cooks a recipe of their choosing, often calorie-replenishing meals such as lasagne, grilled sausages or chickpea curry. Naturally, the meals are paired with Domaine Rouge-Bleu’s bottles, from its citrusy white Dentelle to the luscious Lunatique that bursts with blackberry notes. The most oenologically curious of us have a vertical tasting for a nightcap – by sampling the same wine from different years, we can taste how age intensifies its flavours.

Just as a fine wine lingers in the mouth, participating in a wine harvest is an enduring experience. A fellow harvester, Oscar, goes so far to say: “It’s about as useful a thing a person could do.” Each time I drink wine, I taste its people, its place, its story. My time among the vines has made me truly appreciate Louis Pasteur’s words: “There is more philosophy in a bottle of wine than in all the books in the world.”

Further information: Domaine Rouge-Bleu; Domaine Breton; Vendangeur d’un Jour; WWOOF