At the very heart of hate music are the bands themselves. Hate rock is truly an international force, with bands from the U.S. and Canada, other English-speaking nations, all European countries (including those that emerged from the former U.S.S.R.), and even many Latin American countries. There are literally hundreds of hate rock bands around the world.

The U.S. and Germany have the most hate music bands, followed by Sweden and Great Britain. However, hate music crosses all borders. White supremacists in the U.S., for example, routinely purchase hate music CDs
from foreign bands. It is common for bands from outside North America to have some or all of their lyrics in English, to increase the possibility of
sales in the U.S. and Canada. With the exceptions of Skrewdriver and a few NSBM bands, hardly any hate rock bands have ever established any sort of presence in the music mainstream.

Although many white power musicians often view themselves as warriors in the forefront of a battle for the future of the white race, the truth is very different. Condemned by the hatred in their lyrics to relative or absolute obscurity, unable to secure venues to play, and shunned by other musicians and bands, most hate musicians occupy a sort of purgatory (forgive the term) of the musical ghetto (this is somewhat less true for NSBM bands in some parts of Europe).

The bands possess more ideological fervor than musical or vocal skills, which does not help their appeal. As a result, many musicians involved in white power bands lead dual lives: working in obscurity at low-paying
jobs while at the same time being celebrities of a sort in the narrowly circumscribed world of white supremacists. Many bands are short-lived, as members depart to form their own bands, or bands split apart for a variety of reasons (including, from time to time, because of the arrest of a member or members); at the same time, new bands appear frequently. The "scene" is ever changing.

The names that members choose for their bands shows many of the key images and racists concepts the bands try to evoke. Some white power bands have names that openly proclaim their racist nature, such as Jew Slaughter (Oregon), Angry Aryans (Detroit), Grinded Nig, Torquemada 1488 (Spain), SS Bootboys (California), or Section 88 (Great Britain).

The most frequent type of band name, however, is one that evokes violence or confrontation. Examples include Max Resist, Aggressive Force (California), Aggravated Assault, Battlefront (Canada), Bloodshed (Germany), and Warhead (Poland). Norse or Viking related names are also common, such as Legion of Thor (Germany), Nordic Thunder (Delaware), and Viking (Italy). Also common are names that refer back to the Nazi era, such as Das Reich (a Waffen SS division), Dirlewanger (a notorious Waffen SS unit; the band is from Sweden), and Landser (term for a German soldier; the band is from Germany).

Few very popular racist bands can earn money with their music, most reap little in return. Many gigs don't offer much more than expense money. However, there is money to be made in the white power music world. The people who make it are those who distribute the racist music: Below are the three top white power record labels and distributors.

• Resistance Records. The first truly significant racist music distributor to arise in the U.S. was Resistance Records, founded in 1993 and based in Michigan. It sold as many as 50,000 CDs a year before experiencing legal troubles that eventually led to its purchase by William Pierce, the then-leader of the National Alliance, the largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S., who moved Resistance to his West Virginia headquarters. Pierce saw that Resistance could not only be a lucrative source of funds, but could spread the influence of the National Alliance in the white supremacist world. He believed he could attract new converts from the youth who seemed to enjoy the hatecore music. Turning over management of the company to Ohio National Alliance leader Erich Gliebe, Resistance Records quickly became the National Alliance's most significant source of money, taking in as much as a million dollars a year – quite significant for a white supremacist group. Through its magazine, Resistance, and through its Internet website, Resistance Records received dozens of orders per day from around the world. Resistance's success not only brought money to the coffers of the National Alliance, but made Gliebe one
of the most important leaders of the neo-Nazi group. When Pierce passed away in 2002, Gliebe was seen as the most likely successor and was quickly confirmed as the group's new "fuehrer." However, the National Alliance soon became embroiled with factional infighting and disputes, many of them of Gliebe's own making.

Nor were Gliebe's troubles limited to the National Alliance membership once it became known that he had made derogatory comments about racist skinheads who were the racists Resistance's biggest customers. This
caused the National Alliance to suffer a considerable loss in membership during the period 2002-2003, and Resistance Records suffered a huge loss of income.

• Panzerfaust Records. The troubles at Resistance opened the way for other distributors of racist music to expand its main competitor, the Minneapolis-based Panzerfaust Records. It had its beginnings in 1998 by Anthony Pierpont and former Resistance employee Eric Davidson (as is seen in these groups, there is no honor among the thieves). The company has strong ties to racist skinheads in the U.S., especially the Hammerskin Nation, the largest racist skinhead group, which organizes concerts that Panzerfaust sponsors much as the Hell’s Angels motorcycle group did for Woodstock II in the 1970s.

Davidson left, but another former Resistance employee, Bryant Cecchini (who prefers to call himself Byron Calvert), joined and has further strengthened their alignment and credibility among most skinhead groups. A convicted felon, Cecchini managed Resistance's warehouse before leaving to join Panzerfaust. Panzerfaust, at this point in time, now claims to outsell Resistance and probably does. One reason for Panzerfaust's unusual success has been its ability to link hate music with the good of the white supremacist cause. In September 2004, for example, Panzerfaust announced "Project Schoolyard USA," an explicit attempt to target children for recruitment by using hate music. Panzerfaust created a special compilation CD of hate music that it offered for sale for just pennies, intending that white supremacist groups would buy large numbers of the CD and distribute them to children at schools, concerts, and other venues. A number of white supremacist groups enthusiastically endorsed the scheme.

• Other Labels and Distributors. For Halloween 2004, one distributor planned to give free CDs to children going door to door trick or treating. There is no word as yet as to either the success or failure of this project. In addition to Panzerfaust and Resistance, smaller racist music labels and distributors abound in the U.S., including, among others, Diehard Records (Chesapeake, Ohio), Micetrap Records & Distribution/RAC Records (Maple Shade, New Jersey), MSR Productions (Wheat Ridge, Colorado), Vinland Winds Records (New York, New York), White Power Records (Wilmington, North Carolina), and Final Stand Records (Newark, Delaware). Racist music distributors can be
found around the rest of the world, too, from the H8 Store in Germany to Ash Tree Records in Italy.

However, the U.S.-based distributors play a very important role in shipping white power music around the world – even to those countries that may prohibit it, such as Germany. The network that these distributors and labels have created distributes much more than simply music. They market a wide array of accessories and clothing as well. From buttons to bomber jackets, and t-shirts to tattoo designs, they provide eager white supremacists with the tools to turn hate into fashion. One of the best examples of this is the Texas-based Aryan Wear, sold through Resistance Records, which produces a line of white supremacist clothing from shirts to boots, as well as items such as "My Boss is an Austrian Painter" bumper stickers. One clothing company in England has had trouble with a knock-off company using its name to distribute and sell clothing.

In keeping with its attempts to reach out to young people, Resistance Records even markets a white supremacist video game, "Ethnic Cleansing." The game is a first-person-shooter in which the player takes on the role of a white warrior in a future "Race War," who must kill all non-whites to ensure "the survival of your kind."

Jumping on the band wagon Panzerfaust Records has introduced Radio White, a set of six Internet "radio stations" that provide constant streaming audio feed from a playlist of more than 4,000 hate music songs. The six stations include one that provides a mix of music, as well as specific stations for metal/hatecore, Oi!/RAC, Folk/Ballads, and NSBM music. The sixth station plays German language music.

With the twenty-five years of hate music distribution, coupled with the Internet's ability to link all these disparate groups together, these despicable groups have created a hate music subculture, an entire community with shared music, belief, rituals, and fashion. A generation ago many white supremacists were isolated and felt alone, knowing no-one else who shared their sad beliefs, today such people are simply a mouse-click away from thousands of other simple-minded people around the world who share their extreme beliefs.

The hate music subculture is not simply a virtual one. Hate music events bring white supremacists together from great distances. Some are smaller events, held in dance or music clubs, in places as disparate as urban
Orange County, California, the site of a major Jewish Defense League demonstration four years ago, and small-town Wyoming. Still others are larger, more grandiose events, some of them held as annual traditions.
A Ku Klux Klan group, the Kentucky-based Imperial Klans of America, hosts Nordicfest every year; the Hammerskins organize Hammerfest. Volksfront puts together Aryanfest, while in 2004 the Sacramento unit of the National Alliance held its first "Volk the System" concert. Attendance at the larger concerts can number as high as 300-500 attendees. It comes as no surprise that these events are hate filled and violent.

These music subcultures with their hatecore music can be encountered in far less exotic places than an Aryanfest. The buying and selling of hate music, as well as accessories and clothing, flourishes in online venues such as eBay, for instance. Also prospering is the exploitation by white supremacists of matchmaking/social networking Web sites. The proliferation of such sites has provided hate music lovers a new way to reach out to each other. Users can create on-line profiles in which they list likes, dislikes and interests – such as hate music bands. Still other users can search on key words such as Skrewdriver or R.A.C. and immediately receive lists of other users who have put those words into their profiles. Because many of these sites allow users to put links to other user profiles as "friends," it is extremely easy for white supremacists to create networks of people with shared interests – in this case, a shared interest in hate and violence. These sites are also a way for white supremacists to reach out to others in recruiting efforts and it appears that recruiting is picking up.

One relatively recent development in the hate music subculture has been its politicization. In the 1980s, white supremacist leaders from Tom Metzger to Richard Butler attempted to politicize racist skinheads, to shape their cruder racism into ideological conviction. The recent years have allowed racist leaders far more success, to the point where it has become increasingly difficult to separate hate music events from other sorts of white supremacist events.

One now finds white supremacist speakers are a common occurrence at white power music concerts. During the 2004 Aryanfest, the bands Max Resist, Youngland, Rebel Hell, and D.C. Stormtroopers (Colorado) were joined on the stage by white supremacist leaders such as Metzger, Butler (now deceased), and Billy Roper.

Nowadays, extremist political events, more often than not, feature racist bands. In August 2004, the German far-right Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) held a hate filled event in the state of Saxony that featured not only a variety of far-right speakers, but also an array of hate music bands, including the American band Youngland. Exploitation of hate music in this fashion is important for white supremacist leaders, who know that a music event may be more likely to attract attendees than a protest or demonstration. When the National Alliance wanted to protest the IsraelI Embassy in Washington, D.C., in September 2002, they organized a huge hate music concert, "Rock against Israel," but only people who had attended the protest earlier in the day would be allowed in. The result was an attendance of nearly 500 white supremacists – the largest gathering of such hardcore white supremacists that Washington, D.C., to have been seen in many years. It should be noted, however, that attendance was boosted in part by declaring it a "memorial concert" for the recently deceased William Pierce.

As a result of the politicization of the hate music subculture, it is no longer a question of whether a hate group can indoctrinate a young racist skinhead but that in all likelihood, that skinhead had already indoctrinated him or herself though this terrible hate-filled music. The racist skinhead scene and white supremacist groups have never been as close as they are today, and the exploitation of hate music by groups like the National Alliance, Volksfront, the Imperial Klans of America, along with other neo-nazi groups, have played an important role in this development.

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Texan Ben Johnson is the webmaster for a variety of veteran's groups, such as the Marine Corps League Heart of Texas Detachment 975 and Heart of Texas Young Marines, and serves as editor, publisher, coffee-maker and floor-sweeper of "The Veteran's Newsletter." A member of the Jewish Defense League, Johnson also holds positions in the Dallas Jewish War Veterans of the USA and the Department of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA.