In a house a mile or so north of Philadelphia City Hall, sitting around a table strewn with bags of weed and a hip-hop video paused on the TV, Soul Glo are contemplating disaster. The hardcore band are about to release their first full-length album, having signed at last to a big label, Epitaph, and that album – Diaspora Problems – is as exciting, dynamic and furious an album as you could hope for, but the wheels are already coming off.
A couple of weeks earlier, they were a quartet: singer Pierce Jordan, bassist GG Guerra, drummer TJ Stevenson (the only white member of the band) and guitarist Ruben Polo. Then Polo released a statement saying he had been accused by his ex-boyfriend of rape by deception: securing consent by not admitting that he was in another relationship. The statement also said the ex had been telling others that Polo had admitted raping him. Polo admitted the deception, denied the rape, and insisted he was “working through his actions”. Either way, he is no longer part of Soul Glo.
