Year Of The Knife vocalist Madi Watkins joins Hardlore podcast for first interview since accident

Madison Watkins, vocalist for Year of the Knife, recently made an appearance on the Hardlore podcast hosted by Colin Young (God's Hate/Twitching Tongues) and Bo Leuders (Harm's Way) where she gave her first interview since the band's van accident last June in Salt Lake City, UT. 

Following the band's show in SLC, their van collided with a semi-truck, resulting in serious injuries. Twin brothers, guitarist Aaron and drummer Andrew Kisielewski suffered broken bones and lacerations, while bassist/guitarist, and Madi's husband, Brandon Watkins endured a concussion. Madi herself experienced serious brain trauma, and fractures to the jaw, femur, pelvis, ankle, and tibia, necessitating a medically induced coma. The injuries left her unable to speak and required many months of surgeries and physical therapy. 

Madi was eventually discharged from the hospital after three months of recovery. 

Of the first thing she remembered after the accident:

That's the weirdest thing about it is I feel like I don't even remember being at the hospital and I feel like I just remember being back home, which is… I know that there were times in between that it's just like, I have no memory of them, which I think is super weird, but maybe a good thing. 

When asked about her recovery, she said: 

There's a long road ahead, but most of it is just convincing the rest of the band that I'm ready. Because I think sometimes I push them and I'm like, "I really want to play," and they're like, "can you?" And I'm like, "yeah, let's practice, let's do stuff." Maybe they're just being conservative, but I'm just like, "come on, let's go for it!" 

Despite the severity of her injuries, she and the rest of the band are recovering, she explained: 

It took like a long time for all of us, but I think that everybody's back 100%. 

She continued:

The twins were always really really worried. They were like, "I don't know like if you're going to get back to where you were," and I was like, "I think I'm better than where I was."

The band recently played a show together as their death metal unit Damnations Domain, and more recently had an official practice as Year Of The Knife. 

On the band's first practice since the accident: 

It was awesome, it was seriously so fun. It was just cool to get back to practicing because I was like, "we can do this." Anything we have like offers, if they're like, "I don't know," I'm like, "you do know! We can do this!" 

When asked how her voice was feeling afterwards she said: 

Good honestly, and especially after practice I think that I was worried, like, "am I going to feel shot, am I going to not want to talk the next day?" And then it's like no, it's fine.

The accident left the members of the Delaware hardcore band in a rough spot physically and financially. The band were supported by the broader hardcore community with a GoFundMe that has raised a staggering $256,536 to date.

On the support they received she said: 

Seeing that I was just like, "holy shit." Even people that we're not close to were being supportive and to me I was just like, "damn, we're so lucky." That was something that I don't I don't know if I felt that way before. After that I was like, "damn, we really have the support. When we needed it, people were there"