Fear
Fronted by the confrontational Lee Ving, Fear brought a hard rock edge and deliberate offensiveness to LA hardcore. Ving was openly antagonistic, onstage and off—insults, provocations, chaos. Their appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1981 ended in a riot and a de facto ban from the show. Penelope Spheeris's The Decline of Western Civilization captured Fear at their most unhinged—Ving taunting the audience, the crowd surging back. They were loud, obnoxious, and utterly uncompromising—punk as provocation. Fear influenced the crossover between punk and metal, their sound heavier and more muscular than most hardcore bands. Ving's background in acting (he'd later appear in dozens of films and TV shows) gave Fear a theatrical edge, a sense of performance that some hardcore bands lacked. They were never universally loved, but they were impossible to ignore.