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. After a few strongly worded letters and phone calls to our management team, Swam of The Karens, have joined TGEFM to lodge their complaints and 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! What should our readers know about The Karens; your mission, your sound and what you are most likely to speak to management about?
The Karens are a Karen themed hardcore punk band that just tries to be a lighthearted fun band, though at times we do talk about for example the trans experience and we also make fun of Republicans, as they are often Karens. Our influences are pretty much the early punk bands like Ramones, Black Flag, Misfits, etc. so I suppose musically we sound a bit like that, but we also mix in a bit of Grimple vocal influence. We are most likely to speak to the management about broken ice cream machines, not getting a veteran’s discount, etc.
What do The Karens have planned for us beyond Camp Punksylvania?
We are currently in the process of releasing our new EP titled I Hate Horror Punk, it’ll all be out this year. Nothing else can be said publicly. Mwahaha.
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
Touring and recording for sure. We didn’t expect Coos Bay Oregon to be such a wonderful scene but it totally was. The weirdest experience is probably the intial culture shock mid tour. The feeling of “holy fuck, we’re actually doing this.”
The Karens was one of my favorite sets last year at Camp. What made you want to come back and do it again? How has it felt being able to watch this thing grow from the inside?
Thank you for saying that. We just love Laura and Terry and the other organizers and are friends with a lot of the regional bands/fans of the bigger bands. And the festival is very inclusive and safe, so it’s pretty ideal. To be honest the festival has been huge since the beginning. Hard to gauge the growth to be honest. Like which band is cooler, Casualties or 7Seconds? We just look at it as a cool festival with cool bands
Speaking of your 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?
Our new material for sure. Also having Joe on lead guitar and DR.CHUD on drums. We want campers to just say they had fun with the set and that they want more from us.
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?
I (Swam speaking here) wish I was more vocally against the Republicans in the scene early on instead of just trying to get as many shows as possible. Shouldnt have worked with a couple labels, though they aren’t Republicans. I just shouldnt have been naive about people “wanting to help the scene.”
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?
I (again, Swam speaking here) think a lot of that has to do with pay to play promoters hand selecting a bunch of whales (pay to play bands) who will pretty much single handedly pay for a bigger band’s guarantee, and so those butt rock ass pay to play local bands act like their shit don’t stink cus they got to play with whatever band they paid to get on with. And I think the other bands don’t really realize all of that stuff is going on in the background and just think “wow, why isn’t my band able to play with these types of bands? We are the same genre, do we just suck? We should just quit.” Leads to a lot of feelings of resentment and jealousy towards others.
Many of the Camp Punx artists have not been afraid to get political, and The Karens are certainly no different. If you had told me a decade ago we’d be looking at a campaign trail made up of a pair of clueless octogenarians set to a backdrop of legal proceedings, foreign wars and record profits I’d have told you there’s no way things could get so bleak…but here we are and it turns out you’d have been underselling the shit-show happening inside the dumpster fire of American government. How is the already absurd presidential race and performative legislation playing into your writing, the live experience and your mental health?
We try really hard to not let it affect our mental health but obviously it sucks to see over 30 thousand children get murdered by the IDF and the US totally enable this. It sucks to see right wing terror groups gain a lot of ground without any pushback really. All we can do writing-wise is make fun of the absurdity and hope it helps people laugh through the pain.
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 bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should know about?
Black Flag and The Linecutters when they toured through Knoxville were what birthed the idea of The Karens. “What if we did that but as a shitpost?”
No Consent, Disorderlies, Middle Finger Drive, Kids On Fire, Wednesday Demonstration.
If Punksylvania were a real camp, what activities are each of you leading?
we’d all be leading punk yoga.
Thinking of post show jams… what song are you performing around the campfire this year?
“Wonderwall,” “All Star,” Creed and Nickelback covers, “Headstrong” by Trapt. The good stuff.
Camp Punksylvania is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?
Suburban Downgrade, Meanderthal, Skating Polly, Car Bomb Parade, D.O.A. excited to see everyone.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Nope, that pretty much covers it all! Thanks for including us!
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/
