Earth Crisis
Earth Crisis is an American hardcore metal band formed in New York in 1989. As of 2024, the band has released eight studio albums and four EPs, as well as live albums and appearing on many compilations.
Earth Crisis is a vegan straight-edge band, centring veganism alongside an alcohol and drug-free lifestyle in the themes of their music. Their songs tackle subjects such as animal rights, animal testing, factory farming and the climate crisis.The name of the band shows that even back in 1989 they were aware of the state of emergency on Planet Earth. As well as animal rights, the band also addresses human rights issues such as racism, oppression and gun ownership.
Karl Buechner, the singer and frontman of Earth Crisis, became a pescetarian at the age of 16 after seeing photos of a slaughterhouse. Two years later, he became vegetarian and shortly after, vegan. He credits his grandmother for introducing him to veganism:
“My grandmother was a vegetarian for the second half of her life – and she lived to be 97. My mother and my aunt were also vegetarians at the time, as was one of my sisters. So I had good role models at home with my relatives who showed me how easy it is to live a vegetarian lifestyle. They were also all successful musicians – and completely healthy. I was a meat eater myself when I was younger, until my sister gave me the PETA magazine, full of photos of animals in cages, ready for slaughter. I can still remember looking at those photos and thinking that I didn’t want anything to do with that. So I became a vegetarian at 16, it dragged on for about half a year, and then at 18 I became vegan.”
