TRAILBLAZERS: AMY MIRET

When Metal and Hardcore began to produce offspring as a result of their various audial fornications, one of its first-born was a raw, dirty, thrash-tinged form of punk called Crust. Crust would later slow itself down and turn into what we now know as Sludge, but in the early years, it was the music of loud, hyped-up, socially conscious youth, and New York’s Nausea, fronted by Amy Miret, carried the flag into every Anarcho-punk’s battle. The wife of Agnostic Front’s Roger Miret, Amy Miret was the Queen of Crust, a daunting title that bore a heavy crown. While more progressive than most forms of punk and hardcore in ideology, Miret still dealt with her share of discrimination and sexism based on being up front and center. Keep in mind, this was a day and age when it was uncommon for women to do vocals in punk and hardcore bands. Mrs. Miret had quite a few hurdles to jump through.

There was no better woman to accept this anti-patriarchal challenge. As evidenced by Nausea’s body of work, Amy Miret not only jumped over those hurdles, she blew them the fuck off the track with her razor-to-the-throat vocal style. Without her influence, bands like Damad and Kylesa would have surely never come to be. Amy Miret was the first female front woman of any form of underground music to incorporate “masculine” growls and Slayer-style vocal theatrics into her personal delivery, breaking both gender barriers and stereotypes along the way.

After Nausea split up in 1992, Miret’s whereabouts became largely unknown. She and Roger Miret divorced, and it seems like she devoted much of her time to raising their young son. It’s really a shame, because there are a lot of bands who would have been more than happy to take her after Nausea was no more. Wherever Amy is today, we can hope that she is doing well and still looks back fondly on her days as the Queen of the Crusties. Ave Miret!

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