Grab your s’mores, your bug spray, a shot of Malort and pack your bags as Riot Squad Media is returning to Northeast Pennsylvania to take over the West End Fairgrounds in Gilbert, PA with Camp Punksylvania! The 3-day festival with multiple stages and amazing national and local acts like 7 Seconds, The Bronx, Less Than Jake, will take place from 5 July until 7 July tickets are available here. Dave Lake of legends Diesel Boy has joined TGEFM to discuss this year’s festival for the latest installment of our Camp-centric interview series: Happy Campers. Check it out below and I’ll see you at the campfire!
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! You are gearing up for Camp Punksylvania in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves?
We really enjoy playing festivals. They didn’t really exist like they do now back we were originally at it. There was basically only Warped Tour if you wanted to see a day’s worth of punk bands, where now there are punk-focused fests all over the world. It’s fantastic to play in front of more people than we normally would and extra fun when it’s diverse bill that allows us to meet and watch bands we might not ordinarily cross paths with on the road.
What does Diesel Boy have planned for us beyond Camp Punksylvania?
We’ll be weekend warriors throughout the rest of the year, doing a handful of shows every few weeks when we can squeeze them in. We have a seven inch that came out on SBAM last month with a pair of new songs. I’ve even managed to write a couple of new songs, though we haven’t started working on them in earnest as a band yet.
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with
the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
To me, the most exciting time in the band’s history was when we were on the cusp of being a working, full-time band, before we were signed and when so many new opportunities were coming our way. It was super exciting to score a gig opening for L7 or Biohazard. When the local press would write about us, it was always a thrill. When record labels began to have interest in us, it was hard to believe. And then of course putting out a seven inch on Fat, going on our first real tour with Strung Out — those were major milestones. Appearing in an episode of “Freaks and Geeks” was pretty unexpected and weird too, and even cooler that it became this kind of cult classic.
Regarding live sets, what are you most excited to bring to the Camp Punk audience? What do you want the campers to say about your set when they write home from camp this year?
One downside to playing festivals is that you often don’t get to play a full set with the normal ebb and flow of a longer setlist. But the upside is, wall-to-wall bangers! We’re mostly excited to bring OURSELVES to the festival. This will be our first trip to the east coast in over twenty years so it’s nice to be able to reconnect with folks who haven’t seen us in decades or who never got a chance to see us the first time around.
We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?
Most of my band regrets don’t have to have to do with musical things but with interpersonal band relationships. The way we handled moving on from our first drummer, for example, or the lack of communication when we went on hiatus in the early 2000s.
When we reformed, we talked a lot about how much time we’d be able to realistically devote to band activities, since we have to schedule around real jobs, family obligations, playing in other bands. With limited time, we knew we’d have to turn down a lot of opportunities, so we try not to have regrets about any of that stuff, focusing instead on how lucky we are to get the opportunities that still come our way.
Since the release of “Gets Old” the band has been back out on the road for shows and festivals. How have the new breed of fans been interacting with the fans who have been singing along for decades?
In fairness, it’s mostly our longtime fans who have aged alongside us that show up to the gigs. But it’s fantastic when older fans bring their kids to shows and when fandom spans generations. We love that!
The punk and ska scenes have almost always been at the forefront of inclusion and diversity within the music scenes. The flipside of course is that the gatekeeping in the scene is also very prevalent? Why
do you think the genre brings in such a welcoming community and is so happy to let everyone in and also seems to shut the doors so quickly behind themselves?
Punk is a lifestyle for a lot people and many local scenes are very close knit. Being a punk is part of people’s identities too, an allegiance to a set of ideas and ideals, often pegged to a meaningful time in their lives. It has also existed mostly outside the mainstream, so it is generally something people had to seek out. All this adds up to people feeling offended if someone comes off as a poseur or they think their culture is being co-opted, thus all the “name three songs” memes etc. It’s certainly not unique to punk though. Any passionate fanbase feels protective of their own.
There aren’t very many acts with the longevity and consistency of Diesel Boy. What advice do you have for the younger acts starting out?
Well we took a twenty-year hiatus so I’m not sure I can speak to the secrets of longevity per se. Things definitely run smoother these days, mainly because we’re older and the band is not the defining thing in our lives.
My advice to young bands would be to temper expectations as much as possible and find joy in the work itself rather than looking to milestones to gauge success. Find likeminded bands and artists you can team up with. Don’t be afraid to take risks and put yourself out there, but don’t be annoying. Don’t pester people. Work hard and stick to your guns and follow your gut. Beyond that, the music business is so different today, and it remains a challenge for us old farts, so the model that we followed is likely not the best way to find an audience these days.
Speaking of longevity, with a catalogue as beefy as yours, how do you figure out a set list thats going to appeal to both new fans and fans who have been around for decades?
One of the only good things about the music streaming services is that they all have artist platforms where you can see which songs are the most popular. That’s a good starting place for putting setlists together. Then we throw in a few that we just want to play or that hardcore fans will be stoked to hear. We don’t play enough that we get to change up the setlist as frequently as we’d like, because it’s also nice to be able to get into the groove of a particular set. There is also the added challenge of us not knowing all the songs!
Camp Punksylvania is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?
We’ll only be there Sunday unfortunately, with our day headlined by Less Than Jake, who always put on a fantastic show. There are a lot of bands playing that I’m not familiar with, so I’m excited to hopefully get turned on to something completely off my radar.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
