March 08, 2021

#38 Interview with Robert Pennington vocalist of Endpoint & By the Grace of God

1 hour 23 minutes

When I was in high school there were several bands that I considered the soundtrack of the youth if that era had a house band it was the Louisville hardcore band Endpoint> Whenever I could I traveled to shows around the Midwest to Endpoint. At the end of their 7-year run, they played an emotional and compassionate style of hardcore that evolved from their early days playing metal-influenced punk. They were an amazing band and at the core, the beating heart of the music was vocalist Robert Pennington. He has fronted 11 bands including Endpoint, By the Grace of God, and Black Cross to name a few.

I am very honored to talk with Robert Pennington Ph.D. about a variety of topics. The influence of the punk rock paperboy, History of Louisville hardcore, how annoying Nirvana becoming cool was for old punks, the gig where Endpoint matured as a band on stage, the motivations of returning to hardcore with By the Grace of God. That is just the first 35 minutes.

After 35:00 We switch gears and talk about Rob’s academic career. You see we ended up on a similar path from punk rocker to a special educator. Rob however is a researcher and lecturer teaching special educators. As someone who currently spends 5 days a week in that type of classroom for the day job, it was fun for me to pick his brain on education. We also get into how Hardcore music prepared us for thinking in terms of social justice in the classroom and staying calm during violent tantrums.

If you stick around to the 1:04 mark we talk about our favorite Vegan Restaurants when traveling.

Check out his music…

•You can find my books here:

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/contributors/david-agranoff

Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW

•And me here: Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_Agranoff

Twitter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor

Blog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

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