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. Ian Legge, better known as The Punk Cellist 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! What should our readers know about the Punk Cellist; where you came up with the concept, your history, your mission?
Thanks for having me! After playing drums in a punk band for over a decade, and getting tired of the classical repertoire I was playing on cello, I started arranging songs on cello in my free time back in 2018. It received a really positive response! As I made higher quality videos, some of the bands I covered started sharing the posts. The moment that I knew I should take this project more seriously was when Sum 41‘s manager emailed me to work with them on an unreleased project. My mission now is to make a career out of this cello project.
You are gearing up for Camp Punksylvania in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves? I feel like I see you more attached to festivals than club tours.
I’m so excited to play Camp for the first time with my buddies AJ, Ethan, and Matt as my backing band. Festivals enable me to reach a larger audience that may not know about me, and I love being able to check out bands that I haven’t seen before! I’ve played a few club shows with bands like A Wilhelm Scream, Oh The Humanity!, and American Thrills, but frankly no one has reached out to book me for a club tour which is a bummer. I’m very excited to be opening for Codefendents at Crystal Ballroom August 30th, that show is going to be awesome.
What does the Punk Cellist have planned for us beyond Camp Punksylvania?
My first full length album is going to be released in the Fall/Winter! The first single from the album drops July 5th on all streaming platforms, accompanied by a music video and album preorder! The album will contain never before seen cello covers of NOFX, Turnstile, Ramones, Blink 182, Propagandhi, New Found Glory, and more! Half of the album will be cello-only arrangements, and the other half will be full band covers!
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
Any time I’ve been able to play for/with people is such an honor. Whether it be a wedding, a brewery gig, a club show, a festival date, or a recording session. There’s been so much that’s happened over the past 3 years especially that I’m grateful for. The most unexpected thing that’s happened is that Tony Hawk followed me on instagram hahaha.
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?
I hope they enjoy the setlist and the energy that the band and I bring! We have a lot of fun playing these songs and I hope the audience has just as much fun as we do!
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?
It sounds lame, but I wish I could post on social media as often as I did during the pandemic. When I didn’t have to work as much and was making a bit of money by being home, I was able to put a ton of energy into this project and release weekly covers that would take me hours to put together. Now that I’m working full time again, I have basically zero energy and it’s really difficult to find the time to release covers. It takes a lot longer.
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 think it has a lot to do with the type of person you ask. Some will be inclusive and want to bring people together, expand the punk audience and push back against bigotry. Another subset of fans want the opposite of that.
Our youngest daughter is named Sierra after the Cursive track with Greta Cohn’s killer cello arrangements. Her elementary school band didn’t offer cello as an instrument, how did you get into the instrument?
That’s so awesome!! I hope she can pick up the cello at some point, it seems that music in early education is becoming less and less prevalent which is a huge bummer. I was lucky enough to have a music teacher dad and a vocalist/pianist mother who supported me in my musical journey from early on. While growing up in Miami I went to an arts magnet school in 3rd grade where I learned violin and steel drums. When my family moved to Massachusetts the next year, I switched to cello and joined a great public school orchestra program led by Heather Church.
Who are some non-Camp bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
Some stand out bands lately:
– Shit Present played at Pouzza fest and their live performance immediately got my attention.
– Such Gold has a new single that I can’t stop listening to.
– Little Low asked me to record on their upcoming album and the song they sent me is awesome!
– Jer is one of the hardest working musicians I know. Their live show is always so much fun, but they also talk about important issues.
If Punksylvania were a real camp, what activities are each of you leading?
I would want to lead/conduct the Camp Band 😂
Camp Punksylvania is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?
If I could stay the whole weekend, (which I can’t unfortunately because I have wedding gigs on Saturday and Sunday) I would want to see Less Than Jake, The Dirty Nil, Bad Cop Bad Cop, We Are The Union, Catbite, Kill Lincoln, Tired Radio, Codefendents, Keep Flying, Venemous Pinks, and Black Guy Fawkes!
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/
