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. New Jersey’s Keep Flying 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!
What should our readers know about Keep Flying; your history, your mission, your sound?
The band started in 2016 and we’ve been releasing music annually as well as touring full time since. I’d like to consider us a punk rock band with horns but we fall into several different descriptors depending who you ask. The mission is to create a whirlwind of positive energy for 30 mins that our community can let loose during and not worry about all the stressful things going on all around us.
You are gearing up for Camp Punksylvania in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves?
For us it is a great opportunity to reach new eyes and ears and attempt to bring more people on board with our ideology that music is supposed to be fun. We appreciate every festival opportunity we get because we also get to network with like minded spirits who perhaps down the line will want to have us on board for other opportunities. And of course, the festival circuit is an absolute goal for so many millions of artists that we attempt to let talent buyers know about other great music we are familiar with for their next years planning.
What does Keep Flying have planned for us beyond Camp Punksylvania?
Beyond the fest we have a short run with Long Beach Dub Allstars as well as a support run with Bowling For Soup with a few headliners sprinkled in. We are finalizing our fall plans now as far as touring and we have a new album being mixed as we speak!
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
Most memorable moment so far for me has been the final warped tour date in Atlantic City NJ. We opened one of the main stages and had people running over on the sand to join us in a celebration of one of the greatest summer events ever. I only wish the tour had not closed down so we could have had the opportunity to do an entire summer. Unexpected would be the August ’21 tour we did post covid where ever single show was just perfect and packed. And the weirdest would be waking up in the blazing heat of Sydney Nebraska waiting for our loaner van to be fixed, and of course. It wasn’t.
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?
As far as live sets I’m most excited to show some new viewers how crazy we can be on and off the stage and hope to exchange that energy back and forth. I hope campers say they were impressed with the P90X program going on while playing instruments!
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?
We had the opportunity to open for the bosstones a few years ago and we couldn’t do it due to availability issues and that is my biggest regret since this band started as the MMB are by far one of my all time favorite bands.
You’ve got members with roots in Long Island, Philly and Jersey. Those 3 areas have some of the strongest, most important musical history in the scene, but each breeds very different sounds. What is it about
those areas that bring about and nurtures so many brilliant artists?
To be honest at this point in the bands lineup we are mostly a NY based band. That’s where the chips are fallen and that’s the energy we all have regardless of the states we are from. It’s definitely a huge part of our identity both ON and OFF the stage. I think the reason bands from the area are go getters is because we have to push and try harder because of how much other great talent there is. There are so many people living in the same small place. Plus I do think growing up we were all part of scenes that had heavy local presence that wanted to life each other up.
What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst? On the flipside to that one… Who are some non-Camp bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
Andrew WK – Party Hard. That is the album that made me say I must do this. That was the live show that made me say I must be a part of this. It changed me for sure. It was simple. Fun. Easy to become a part of the show. Special memories every time I saw him.
Some great bands to check out:Architecture in Helsinki, Nominee, Northbound, The Blue Meanies
If Punksylvania were a real camp, what activities are each of you leading?
Hot dog eating or wings for most of the band. For me it would be archery.
What song are you performing around the campfire this year?
Camp Punksylvania is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?
We finally get to play with 7 Seconds and Flatfoot56 so that’s going to be absolutely epic.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Try to not take anything too seriously. Have fun with it. And get ready to have the best dang summer of your life!
www.keepflying.band
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/
