Sean Garrison has been an integral and explosive part of the Louisville original music scene since the 1980s, when Kinghorse rose up in the city's South End. The band's wall of blood, frustration and sound laid waste to divisions between the metal, punk and art scenes, uniting them all with a single question: What in the hell is wrong with me and this world?

Garrison has been absent from music for around a decade - he was last seen twisting country and folk music as leader of Five Finger Discount - and has preferred concentrating on his painting and leatherwork. That changed late last year when I Have A Knife appeared. Not only was Garrison back but he was fronting a punk band, stalking the stage like a feral social theoretician.

Garrison was coaxed out of retirement by IHAK guitarist Gurg McGurk, who is joined by Evan Wallace and Gabrielle Kays.

"I certainly was done," Garrison said. "But Gurg talked me into it because it's really the only thing he wants to do outside of work and family stuff...I didn't really want to revisit music at all because I am very happy with painting and my leatherwork business, but part of the deal here was that if I agreed to do it that Gurg would follow my exact instructions about how the music would sound, and he delivers in a way that far exceeded my expectations."

IHAK releases its debut album, "Stupid and Futile Gestures," this week and celebrates with a show Friday night at The New Vintage. For those who went to Kinghorse shows, or at least, watched them on YouTube, the sight of Garrison eviscerating everything in sight is familiar, even a bit heartwarming.

But there's a crucial different, Garrison said. In Kinghorse, he was fueled by depression and rage.

"The only thing I could really write about back in the day was the struggle to just survive, and the wreckage that depression caused in every aspect of my life," he said. "I was basically walking around with a noose around my neck all the time for 20 years, and I wrote 300 songs describing the wreckage."

His perspective has now shifted, but his anger is no less intense and charged by a fierce intellect. His lyrics are different from anything he's done in the past, he said, and look more outward than inward.

"My songs now mostly deal with cyclical patterns in history, and about potentialities for either redemption or disaster," he said. "The first song I wrote for IHAK is the first song on the album, and it's called 'Gay World.' When I realized that a huge amount of Americans would actually exterminate gay people if they had the chance I was horrified, and the song essentially advises all gay people to arm themselves well just in case these lunatics decide to try it because it's not an impossibility. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes."

Garrison doesn't enjoy being angry, but a highly developed sense of right and wrong is a sure path to anger in a society that worships artifice and fear. It's why punk still exists.

"What causes me to remain in a permanent state of agitation is the fact that Americans just don't want to think, they want to feel, and follow those feelings without being challenged or given grief about it," he said. "How many songs have been written that essentially say 'Hey baby, let's breed!' Hundreds of thousands! This widespread belief that if it feels good, it is good...needs somebody to play the Moe Howard role and poke that idea in the eye.

"Who better to do the job than somebody who looks and acts exactly like Moe? Modern mythical narratives mirror the ceaseless drive of the American to upgrade. Just look at the prosperity Christians, the whole message is that you deserve more. I agree. The world needs more Moe Howard and less Taylor Swift."


I Have A Knife

WHEN: 9 p.m. Friday

WHERE: The New Vintage, 2126 S. Preston St.

COST: $5

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