When I first worked with Hundredth on Free, they were already building serious momentum as a hardcore band.
I produced and engineered Free, but I didn't mix it. So when Hundredth came back for the next record, I finally had the opportunity to take the process all the way with them.
And this time, we did.
What We Did
The safe move was obvious: make another hardcore record.
The band had momentum, the audience was growing, and there was real pressure to keep making the kind of music that was already working.
But Chad had a different creative vision.
And I backed it.
I believed the songs were more interesting, more honest, and ultimately more valuable than simply repeating what had already worked.
My job wasn't to talk them out of changing. It was to help make the change undeniable.
Reinvention only works if the new version feels intentional. It couldn't sound like a hardcore band awkwardly trying shoegaze. We had to rethink the performances, tones, space, vocals, arrangements, and the entire way the band occupied a record.
So we went all the way. I produced, engineered, and mixed RARE at The Panda Studios.
Screaming became singing. Breakdowns became atmosphere. Hardcore became shoegaze, post-punk, texture, melody, and space.
The new direction created real resistance behind the scenes, and the reaction from listeners was polarizing too. Some people literally booed the new material on Warped Tour.
We had to believe the music was worth the risk before there was proof that it was.
"They call him The Career Saver™"
Then The Skeptics Went Quiet.
As of August 2026, five of Hundredth's top six Spotify songs come from RARE.
Before And After The Reinvention
The biggest song from RARE has more than 2x the Spotify streams of the biggest song from Free.
They abandoned the sound that built their career. Nine years later, 5 of their top 6 songs are from RARE.
The record that looked like the risk became the part of the catalog people meet first.
The risk became the legacy.
Years later, the numbers caught up with the instinct.
The pressure at the time was to do the responsible thing: protect the band's momentum and give people more of the version of Hundredth that was already working.
On paper, that looked like the safe move.
I believed it was actually the wrong one. Repeating what had already worked would have made a record with less long-term value, even if it was the easier thing to defend in the moment.
The safe record might have protected the moment.
RARE gave them somewhere new to go.
Chad kept pushing Hundredth further with every release, building a cult audience around constant reinvention instead of trying to recreate what had worked before.
The Takeaway
Hundredth had momentum and willingly risked it because the old version of the band no longer represented where they wanted to go.
I didn't try to protect the old version of the band. I helped them destroy it and build the next one. Everything the band has done since has continued to validate that instinct.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for a band is stop giving people what they expect.
