ZAK MAYBAUM

“You cannot advocate for bodily autonomy while denying those same rights to other sentient beings. You cannot fight to keep families together while paying for those of another species to be ripped apart at birth. You cannot scream about liberation while subjugating those that you view as “less than”. You cannot demand people’s right to exist without harm while simultaneously doing harm to others.”

My name is Zak, I’m 39 years old, and currently live in Chicago, IL. I am the main singer/lyricist as well as a guitar & synth player in the blackened darkwave band Bleached Cross, but I have been playing music in various bands since I was about 16. Other than playing music, I’m into powerlifting, Magic the Gathering, tattoo collecting, and recently have gotten back into skateboarding. I went vegetarian at the age of 14 or 15, and vegan at 24.

What was the moment or experience that first pushed you toward veganism?
Did your path into veganism come before or after getting into hardcore / straight edge?
Was there a specific band, record, or scene influence that opened that door for you?
How did your friends, family, or local scene react when you made that shift
Was it an immediate commitment, or something you grew into over time?
I’m not sure if I can pinpoint the moment the lightbulb flipped in my head about veganism, but I can remember clear as day how I first stopped eating meat: I was working at a baseball concession stand as a summer job with an older dude who had tattoos (which was very novel at the time since this was 2001) and we got to talking about music. I came from a background of growing up with 90s alternative stuff on the radio as a kid and eventually found nu metal/skate punk in jr high. This was the summer before my freshman year, and this dude came from the punk/hardcore scene and put me on to some bands as we talked (shouts out American Nightmare). But he was vegan, and I remember him talking to me about that and just being very matter of fact about how it wasn’t a difficult sacrifice and asked why what I ate didn’t align with my morals. I’ve deeply loved animals my whole life and never particularly enjoyed meat as a kid outside of seafood and burgers, and in talking to him I realized the inherent contradiction in how I was living my life. At some point that school year, I told my mom I wasn’t going to eat meat anymore, and because she is a saint she didn’t push me on it and actively helped me by buying special groceries and cooking meat stuff separate from the rest of the food each night for dinner while I still lived with them as a teenager. My dad did not understand it at all and got actively pissed that my mom was making two different meals for us, and some of my extended family thought I was just going through some bullshit teenage rebellion phase and it would pass. Spite is a powerful motivator, and my commitment to it only grew the older I got.
I knew people in college who were vegan when I was still just vegetarian, and I think them asking me why I wouldn’t connect the dots and go vegan eventually got me to thinking about it more seriously. Once I was living on my own after college I just decided my new year's resolution that year would be to go vegan as it seemed like the logical next step after being vegetarian for so long. Ironically enough, I don’t think I became aware of the scale of horrors that the dairy industry perpetuates until after I already went vegan. Had I looked into that more seriously in college, I absolutely would have gone vegan sooner, because the old adage of “the dairy industry is the meat industry” is so incredibly true. I’m still ashamed it took me as long as it did to realize that.
For you, how connected are veganism and straight edge—are they inseparable or distinct choices?
Do you see veganism as an extension of straight edge ethics, or its own independent stance?
How do you respond to people in the scene who embrace one but not the other?
I’m not straight edge so feel free to omit this, but I think if you aggressively claim edge and aren’t vegan (or especially are anti-vegan), you are actually a coward who stands for nothing other than yourself. That’s some “me, me, me” libertarian bullshit, figure it out.

What role did the hardcore/metal scene play in shaping your beliefs?
Do you feel like the scene today is more or less aligned with vegan values than when you started?
Honestly I don’t think it shaped my beliefs on animal rights so much as it gave me spaces where I knew other people felt the same as me and I could connect with some bands or people on that level. I do think because of the kind of music I listened to I was being exposed to certain things politically that I otherwise might not have been at a younger age, but my beliefs in that also just developed the more I learned about our country and how things worked as I went through high school taking different history classes. My beliefs have always been shaped by what I can observe and, as an adult, are a natural extension of my politics. I think veganism is largely more “mainstream” in these spaces now compared to ten or twenty years ago. I'm thinking specifically about food options at various punk/hardcore music festivals and how commonplace having vegan stuff is now. But that being said, that vegan/vegetarian component has always been there, and is a big part of why I was drawn into punk and hardcore music in the first place. Despite veganism being more visible in those spaces now, I always hope for it to grow in acceptance until it is a majority viewpoint to have.
What kind of impact do you hope your band has on listeners?
Have you ever heard from someone who changed because of your music?
Do you think music can genuinely shift people’s behavior, or just reinforce existing beliefs?
I have written a lot of our songs about death/grief…as someone who has always found music as a huge release or way to process things I am feeling, the biggest compliment I can get is having someone tell me that our music or my lyrics give them that kind of outlet for what’s going on in their own life as well. I think if you can touch someone else on that level, you absolutely have the ability to shift their behavior just as much as reinforcing existing beliefs. I think it all depends on where the individual is at when they find your music.

Do you see veganism as inherently political?
How do you balance music with direct action or activism, if at all?
What issues within the broader movement do you think aren’t being talked about enough?
I think it is an ethical choice that pretty naturally segues into a lot of political ones as well, and it seems hard to separate the two in my mind. To me, ethics are an extension of politics and vice versa.
You cannot advocate for bodily autonomy while denying those same rights to other sentient beings. You cannot fight to keep families together while paying for those of another species to be ripped apart at birth. You cannot scream about liberation while subjugating those that you view as “less than”. You cannot demand people’s right to exist without harm while simultaneously doing harm to others.
The amount of so-called “leftists” who become armchair philosophers that hand wave all of this away by saying “ lol there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” as some kind of gotcha the second you bring animals into the equation is infuriating. No shit there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight for what is right in the process. If we can’t eliminate racism overnight, does that also mean we should just give up and be racist? It’s such a flawed way of thinking. I can walk and chew gum at the same time, you can go vegan while also acknowledging capitalism is a death cult for our planet that needs to be done away with. It isn’t fucking rocket science.
Since our band is not a “vegan band”, I like to think that just by living as a vegan in a very non-vegan world, that is its own form of activism. I know a few friends who went vegan after I did, and if I had something to do with that, then that’s incredible. I hope that by doing what I do it shows people how easy it is and can help lower that barrier of entry for people who are curious. Domino effect and all that. I have never taken part in any illegal “direct action” so to speak (I have done tabling/leafleting outside of a fur store and volunteered at a farm animal refuge), but the people who do that and risk their freedom/livelihood in the name of liberation are absolute heroes to me and are illustrating how in our society, a riot can sometimes accomplish far more than non-violent protest and/or voting ever could. Speak to your oppressors in a language they understand :)
I think that the human exploitation component of animal ag absolutely needs to be talked about more. The workers in slaughterhouses are lots of times undocumented, and working in incredibly dangerous and psychically damaging conditions for absolute dogshit pay. I will always advocate for the animals as victims first based on the sheer scale of their torture and abuse, but the human component of this machine is abhorrent as well and needs to be completely dismantled.
Looking back, would you approach your message differently?
What keeps you committed when it gets difficult or isolating?
Where do you see the vegan / straight edge movement going in the next decade?
What would you say to someone on the fence about embracing these ideas?
My commitment comes from not only having watched videos of the conditions these intelligent creatures are made to endure, but from spending time around these animals knowing that they can think, feel, and process pain the same as you or I. Again, it’s very simple: If I wouldn’t want this done to a human, why the fuck is it ok to do it to an animal? I will also say from my time spent living in southern California and getting to visit/volunteer at Farm Animal Refuge, that it re-enforced everything in a very real way for me that I hadn’t experienced previously. Spend some time at one of these places near you if you haven’t, and donate to one regularly if you can. They are all doing incredible, tangible work and are so essential in helping people not only connect the dots about what is on their plate, but also providing sanctuary for animals who otherwise would have been killed.
As far as the next decade goes, it’s hard to say. We lived through the vegan mainstream boom, and now with the right-wing chud grifters in charge, it is on the downswing in favor of MAHA bullshit for dullards. I don’t think the vegan movement is going anywhere, but it does need to be protected from people who are only hopping on temporarily to clout chase. Best way to avoid that is 1.don’t prop up influencers, 2. patronize your local vegan establishments when you can, and 3. lead by example in your own life.
If I could talk to someone who is on the fence about it, I would say in the history of the world, it has literally never been easier to go vegan than right now at this second. If you care about animals, humans, or the planet, it is a moral imperative.

Final Thoughts:

First band that made you think differently:
I was already down the path, but I would say Goldfinger, hah. They had a song called “Open Your Eyes” and “Free Me” that came out when I was a new vegetarian, and hearing songs that echoed my feelings was definitely powerful and made me realize the reach that music with this kind message could have.
A lyric you’ve written (or heard) that still hits hardest:
When I started lifting (which was not long after I went vegan), all I listened to for maybe the first year+ I was in the gym was the Harm’s Way album “Isolation” on repeat. It is, to me, the best hardcore record ever written, and it was easy for me to view the misanthropic lyrics through a vegan lens even though I know the band is not vegan. So the hardest line on that album for me would have to be the soundclip in “Breeding Grounds” at about the 2:20 mark- “...people are of no value…”, cue insane mosh riff to fadeout.

One misconception about vegan / vegan straight edge:
I think one misconception is that all vegans are malnourished and weak. Whether that manifests literally through physical strength or figuratively through implied or direct misogyny, that misconception was a big reason why I got into lifting. If people were going to talk shit about me, I liked the idea of being able to show them that I am, in fact, probably stronger than they or the average civilian/keyboard warrior are. If I can deadlift 500+ pounds without eating animals, what’s your excuse?
One non-negotiable value:
There’s no such thing as a “cheat day”, because this isn’t a diet or fad. This is a deeply held moral conviction, so please don’t try to talk to people like me about it like we are children who don’t know what we want.

One thing the scene needs to do better:
The hardcore scene? Less cliques, and stop propping up trend chasers/garbage humans and giving them cartoon-sized sacks of money.
Smash coward posers.