Split Personality

Sudden Impact were among the first Canadian hardcore bands to move decisively into the heavier territory where punk, skate culture and thrash metal met. Formed in early spring 1984, the group grew out of the small but closely connected punk and skateboarding communities around Newmarket, Aurora and Toronto. The original lineup featured Mitch Garvin on vocals, Reid English on guitar, Steve Milo on bass and Scott Fraser on drums. Newmarket guitarist Mike Brunt joined later, establishing the two-guitar lineup heard on the band’s first album. Johnny Borodenko subsequently replaced Garvin on vocals.

The musicians met through skateboard parks, concerts and the network surrounding Toronto’s Record Peddler. In a scene small enough that a pair of Vans shoes or a skateboard-company shirt could identify a stranger as part of the same culture, skaters from Newmarket connected with musicians from Toronto and the surrounding towns. English had played guitar with Micro Edge, while Fraser had previously performed with the Surf and the short-lived Intense Youth. Milo had followed Micro Edge closely as its roadie and supporter. Brunt had played with Quarantine, while Borodenko had been part of a high-school group called Brain Hammer, which played Black Flag and Venom covers alongside several original songs.

The roots of the scene north of Toronto extended back to groups including the Surf, later renamed the Innocent Bystanders, and the short-lived Prisoners of Society. The Surf included Newmarket skaters and musicians Todd Million, Laurie-Ann Bokma, Tom Henry, Rick “Bonerack” Henry and, at different times, Scott Fraser and Paul Howe. Although Newmarket had little in the way of an established punk circuit, its skateboarders created their own network of friendships, bands, rehearsal spaces and informal shows.

The House of Wheels, also known as the Orange Bowl, became an important meeting place. Located in the unlikely setting of Newmarket, then a town of approximately 30,000 people, the skateboard park featured a large keyhole pool, a bowled-off three-quarter pipe and other terrain that drew a small but committed group of local skaters. Wider boards, faster wheels and the arrival of punk and hardcore gradually replaced the progressive rock and hard rock that many of them had previously heard.

Toronto offered a larger but still tightly connected hardcore community. The Record Peddler served as one of its principal gathering places, bringing in recordings that were otherwise difficult to find and employing musicians and supporters including Youth Youth Youth vocalist Brian Taylor. Shows by Youth Youth Youth, Direct Action, Young Lions, Chronic Submission, A.P.B., Dead End, Zeroption and visiting American groups demonstrated that local bands could build their own scene, record cassettes and organize concerts without waiting for an established music industry to support them.

Micro Edge emerged from this connection between Toronto hardcore and the Newmarket skateboarding community. Reid English played guitar in the group alongside Boris, Dave and Dwayne Ritchie. Micro Edge recorded several times at Accusonic with Brian Taylor and Paul Gallienne in anticipation of another Toronto hardcore cassette compilation, but the band broke up in March 1984 before releasing anything. Soon afterward, English proposed forming another group with Fraser on drums and Milo on bass. Ethiopian-born Mitch Garvin, who had arrived in Canada by way of Kentucky and San Francisco and moved to Toronto in 1982, became the singer. English supplied the name Sudden Impact.

The group’s first rehearsals took place in April 1984 at a rented basement hall in Aurora. The space had previously been used by local musicians and became far more than a practice room. It served as a venue, skate hangout and gathering place for young musicians from north of Toronto. Sudden Impact organized early shows there with Direct Action, Wrath, Northern Assault and the Gospel Shoppe, while Youth Youth Youth and Micro Edge also appeared at events connected with the hall. Milo temporarily lived in the building after leaving his factory job, sleeping there and bathing from a cooler before Fraser and Mike Poole moved into a Newmarket house they called the Green House and built a half-pipe in its back room.

Most of the musicians lived around Newmarket, while Garvin travelled north by bus from Toronto for rehearsals. The group also practised at Fraser’s house, where the members built another small half-pipe. Milo called it the Vert House, using the French word for green. When they were not practising, the musicians were usually skating or snowboarding.

Sudden Impact’s first major Toronto appearance came on July 24, 1984, when they opened for Jodie Foster’s Army and Sun City Girls at the Turning Point. With little local skate terrain to offer the visiting band beyond parking garages, Sudden Impact instead covered Toronto with posters and drew a packed audience. The show placed them directly within the Toronto hardcore circuit, although their activities in Aurora and Newmarket continued to give the group a distinct identity north of the city.

The band entered Accusonic Studio on October 20, 1984 to record its ten-song cassette, Freaked Out. Brian “Rubbish” Taylor produced the session and Paul Gallienne engineered it. Taylor had already worked with many Toronto hardcore groups and was regarded by the musicians as one of the central figures in the scene. English’s previous Accusonic experience with Micro Edge also meant that he entered the session with a clearer understanding of the recording process than the other members.

For Garvin and Fraser, the studio was initially intimidating. Garvin remembered being instructed to sing six or eight inches from a microphone positioned behind a screen, but found that he could not perform without holding the microphone in his hand. Fraser later recalled that the experience was frightening but also made the young musicians feel like rock stars.

The demo captured Sudden Impact as a fast, compact hardcore band before the musicians moved more deeply into metal-influenced arrangements. It contained “Cat’s Life,” “Paint Fumes,” “Caught Up,” “Bent O.K.,” “Steam Loafs,” “New Song,” “Freaked Out,” “Drunk Driving,” “Sudden Impact” and an altered version of the Amboy Dukes’ “Gonzo.” Maximum Rocknroll reviewed the self-released tape in November 1984, praising its relentless and committed hardcore attack.

The songs developed collectively. English generally brought in riffs, English and Fraser worked out arrangements, and the members contributed words and ideas. Garvin then adapted the lyrics to the developing songs. He wrote his first lyrics for “Sudden Impact,” taking inspiration from images of abrupt death and disaster, including a fatal automobile crash, a parachute failure, someone trapped in a burning high-rise and a skateboarder sprawled at the bottom of a pool.

The band handled Freaked Out through a practical do-it-yourself system. Cassettes were sold at shows and through stores including the Record Peddler, with every cent returned to the manufacture of additional copies. Fraser remembered repeatedly having to order “another hundred,” while Milo estimated that approximately 500 copies were eventually sold. The response gave Sudden Impact a recording that could circulate beyond its immediate circle and helped increase the group’s audience.

The growing interest also led to more important live opportunities. Sudden Impact opened for Suicidal Tendencies at Larry’s Hideaway on April 4, 1985, at a time when the club’s Hardcore Sundays regularly presented local groups. The band subsequently appeared with many of the musicians it admired, including D.R.I., C.O.C., Circle Jerks, Scream and Voivod. Early performances in Montréal and Québec City became particularly important. Montréal developed into a second home for the group through its friendships with S.C.U.M., Genetic Control, Fair Warning and Countdown Zero, and Sudden Impact also played with Voivod at the latter group’s rehearsal space.

A newly unearthed six-song cassette dated April 14, 1985 adds a previously undocumented chapter to that development. The surviving tape is housed in an Accusonic duplicating box marked with the Sudden Impact name and the handwritten date. No song titles are listed on the cassette or its cover. The recording does not appear in the band’s established discography and may document material created between Freaked Out and the sessions that led toward the first album.

During the same general period, the group recorded five songs with guitarist James O. Some of that material later appeared on the 1985 Toronto hardcore compilation It Came From the Pit. These sessions helped bridge the direct attack of Freaked Out and the increasingly developed music heard on the band’s first album. Mike Brunt joined during this stage, strengthening the dual-guitar lineup and contributing to the heavier direction that became central to Sudden Impact’s sound.

The path from Freaked Out to the first album involved several attempts at recording new material. After completing the demo, Sudden Impact returned to the studio to record songs intended for a possible album, but Garvin recalled that Brian Taylor did not believe the results were strong enough. The band recorded the material again in December 1985, producing the sessions that became No Rest From the Wicked.

Continuing sales of the demo through the Record Peddler also attracted the attention of Ben Hoffman. According to Milo, Hoffman offered the possibility of a Fringe Records release if the band financed a recording that he considered suitable. The resulting album was issued by Brian Taylor’s Diabolic Force label in association with Fringe Product. Its cover featured another of English’s manic illustrations.

The group rehearsed relentlessly, often three to five times each week. That discipline gradually expanded the music beyond the brief bursts of the early demo. English introduced guitar riffs, Fraser helped develop the arrangements, Milo constructed the bass parts and the members contributed lyrics collectively. Their method was informal and collaborative, with songs growing naturally from whatever ideas were available.

Punk remained the foundation, but the musicians were also listening to Metallica’s Kill ’Em All, Slayer and Exodus. Sudden Impact did not hold a formal discussion about becoming a crossover band or deliberately decide to combine hardcore with metal. Fraser remembered the heavier sound entering naturally as the musicians improved, while Garvin associated the most noticeable change with Fraser adding a second bass drum.

The first full-length album, No Rest From the Wicked, was recorded during this period of rapid musical change and released through Diabolic Force and Fringe Product. The title deliberately altered the familiar phrase “no rest for the wicked,” changing it to suggest that there was no escape from destructive people or forces. The album retained the speed and physical momentum of the demo while adding longer structures, lead guitar and a much stronger thrash-metal influence. Songs such as “Keep on Truckin’,” “Terrorist Attack,” “To Our Glorious Dead” and “Bent” reflected both the group’s humour and its increasingly serious subject matter.

Sudden Impact did not present itself as an overtly political band. Its lyrics often grew from personal situations, events in the musicians’ immediate environment or subjects found in the news. “Terrorist Attack” dealt with being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, while “To Our Glorious Dead” addressed the waste of life represented by war. “Bent,” written by Mitch Garvin, responded to someone attempting to conform to straight-edge expectations before realizing that the identity did not suit him. “Keep on Truckin’” expressed the group’s broader outlook: continue moving forward, resist outside pressure and do what feels right for yourself.

Garvin eventually became increasingly involved in competitive mountain-bike racing, an activity whose weekend schedule conflicted with the band’s performances and rehearsals. The members remembered the separation somewhat differently. Garvin recalled returning from his first professional race in the United States, arriving at the rehearsal space, hearing the group playing and being told at the door that he was no longer in the band. Fraser remembered that the musicians had been unable to contact Garvin for several weeks while he was racing and had continued practising without him. Both acknowledged that the encounter was awkward and that they were young.

Johnny Borodenko, known to the musicians as “Johnny the Boy,” was asked to take over on vocals. Already a friend of the group and a regular at its shows, Borodenko had worked at the Record Peddler from the age of fifteen, knew many of the musicians in Toronto’s hardcore community and had previously helped Sudden Impact move equipment. Although he was strongly interested in metal, he was also part of the hardcore scene. His arrival completed the lineup of Borodenko, English, Brunt, Milo and Fraser that continued through the band’s later recordings.

Sudden Impact became one of the Canadian groups most closely associated with the emerging crossover sound, although the musicians themselves regarded the change as a natural progression rather than a calculated shift. They shared bills with bands including Suicidal Tendencies, D.R.I., C.O.C., Circle Jerks, Scream, S.C.U.M., Fair Warning, D.B.C., Voivod and SNFU, and toured as far east as St. John’s, Newfoundland. Because the musicians continued to hold regular jobs, most trips were brief, although one tour lasted approximately three weeks. Their shows joined the speed and physical intensity of hardcore with the increasing musicianship, dual-guitar arrangements and weight of thrash metal.

Their second album, Split Personality, was recorded at Grant Avenue Studio in September 1987 and released in 1988 by Diabolic Force under licence to Fringe Product. Produced by Brian Taylor and engineered by Bob Doidge, the record featured Borodenko on vocals, Brunt and English on guitar, Milo on bass and Fraser on drums. The songs were longer and more intricately arranged than the band’s early material, reflecting the musicians’ development and the growing influence of thrash metal.

The group continued into the beginning of the 1990s, sometimes working with altered lineups that included Chris Jerrett on vocals, Jason Cuddy on guitar and Dallas Good of the Sadies on bass. The principal five-member lineup last played together in 1989, and one of the band’s final appearances was a 1991 show with SNFU.

The members renewed contact during the late 1990s and began meeting at Scott Fraser’s cottage to rehearse, eat, drink and revisit the songs. These gatherings were initially private rather than a formal public reunion. Brazilian label Marquee Records later issued expanded CD collections covering the Freaked Out, No Rest From the Wicked and Split Personality periods, including demo, studio and live material.

Sudden Impact returned to the stage in 2018 for the launch of the book Tomorrow Is Too Late: Toronto Hardcore 1980–1989, ending an approximately 30-year absence by the principal lineup. The group appeared the following year at the 77 Montréal festival, returning to a city that had played an important role in its original history. Garvin described both appearances as remarkable experiences.

In 2020, Victoria, British Columbia label Supreme Echo issued Freaked Out on vinyl for the first time. Label president Jason Flower conducted the archival research for the release, which presented the ten-song 1984 demo as a seven-inch EP with an extensive booklet. The package included interviews with Garvin, Milo and Fraser, along with original lyrics, flyers, photographs and detailed documentation of the Newmarket, Aurora and Toronto hardcore scenes. Frank Manley handled copy editing, Michael Tension completed the layout and production design, and the photographs were drawn from Rod Orchard and the band’s archives. The reissue preserved not only Sudden Impact’s earliest recording but also the personal history surrounding the band’s formation, its connection to skateboarding and its place in the development of Canadian hardcore.

For Garvin, the Supreme Echo release carried particular meaning. He had grown up with his father’s collection of 1950s rock and early-1960s singles and regarded the seven-inch as the definitive punk format. Although cassettes had been immediate, affordable and practical in 1984, he had never imagined that the demo would eventually become a record.

Mitch Garvin died in January 2026. Born in Kampala, Uganda, while his parents were serving in the Peace Corps, he entered the Toronto-area punk and skateboarding communities after his family settled in Canada. His voice on Freaked Out and No Rest From the Wicked, particularly his opening scream on “Sudden Impact,” remains one of the defining sounds of the band’s early recordings.

-Robert Williston