MidWest Friends Fest: Collect ‘Em All With Alex Kasznel & The Board Of Directors

Midwest Friends Fest is back for year two in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. Once again taking over Southgate House Revival on May 28-30 (tickets), the festival brings together an incredible and diverse mix of national and regional acts for two days of loud guitars, DIY spirit, and the kind of community you only find in independent music scenes. With artists like Teens in Trouble, Little Low, The 1984 Draft and Tooth Lures a Fang joining dozens more across multiple stages, Midwest Friends Fest is shaping up to be another unforgettable weekend.

This year, MWFF is treating the lineup like a pack of trading cards where each band is its own collectible piece of the Midwest Friends Fest universe. In the lead-up to the festival, we’re spotlighting the artists one by one so you can get to know the players before the doors open. First up in the set: Alex Kasznel & The Board Of Directors.

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For anyone discovering you for the first time… what should our readers know about Alex Kasznel & The Board Of Directors? What’s one song in your catalog that feels most important to you personally or best displays your sound and voice, even if it isn’t the one people know best?

I think people should know that I’m not Mormon. Legit, I’ve been asked that question so many times because of the shirt & tie getup. At some point we might just lean into it and start doing a Latter Day Saints tour. You’ve heard of Christian Metal? Well get a load of this! 
As far as our music, we did make a 7″ called Board Music for Bored People, and it’s just 5 one-minute songs – we made videos for each one too. If people wanna get the gist, that’s a good sampler.

You’re gearing up for Midwest Friends Fest. What does the festival circuit mean to artists like you right now… especially festivals that feel community-driven rather than industry-driven?

I credit a lot of this to festival producers Jared & Lydia Bowers, and also to the Southgate House itself. They’re all so invested in cultivating a community around music, and that’s palpable when you enter that space. Although it’s one of the best platforms for independent bands to gain exposure, MWFF never feels competitive or cliquey. Artists that perform will also volunteer on their off day stacking chairs or setting up merch tables, and they get excited to watch the other bands. It’s a very positive, legitimately egalitarian environment.

This isn’t your first time performing at Midwest Friends Fest. What makes you want to come back and perform at Southgate again? How has it felt being able to watch this thing grow from the inside?

It’s pretty remarkable to see what it’s become. There are a lot of genre-specific fests out there, and I think the beauty of MWFF is that, while there’s a general vibe to the whole thing, it’s a pretty diverse group of artists spread out over three very different stages at the venue. We felt very lucky when Jared asked us to play the first one in 2024, back when it was a one-day marathon and none of us really knew what it was. We had no idea that it would become this huge weekend-long thing with other pre-fest shows happening throughout the year, and I think that’s just a huge testament to Jared and Lydia’s vision and dedication.

Your songs often balance humor, self-awareness and real-life perspective. How do you decide where to draw the line between sincerity and satire in your writing?

That really is tricky sometimes. There’s this weird balance between not taking yourself too seriously but also not positioning yourself as a novelty act. I look at bands like Enter Shikari or System of a Down for some influence there, honestly. Bands like that can have a song memorializing the Armenian genocide, and then right after it a willfully absurd jam about banana terra cotta pie. You kind of need the silliness to humanize the artist. Ironically, the jokes don’t cheapen the sincerity, they just make it more believable.

You’ve described your sound as “Pop Punk for Grownups.” What does that phrase really mean to you now… especially as both you and your audience keep getting older?

There are a lot of lyrical tropes in this genre that are easy targets for ridicule, and some of that just comes from homogeneity. Not to be dismissive, but pop punk is often dominated by the perspective of young dudes, so inevitably there’s a self-deprecating underdog mentality that permeates the music; as those bands age, it can come off as whiny or juvenile. But the tunes still rip! Because we started the Board of Directors when we were older, we just weren’t writing from that adolescent perspective anymore. I think that makes the music more accessible, and hopefully the songs will age better as a result.

When it comes to live sets, what are you most excited to bring to the MWFF crowd? Ideally, what do you want people to say about your set when they’re driving home or texting friends who skipped it?

It’s funny, the longer we do this the more I realize that most of the things people say and do on stage are pretty similar band to band, regardless of genre. As an audience member, I think you kind of reflexively tune out when the frontman says something about “all streaming platforms” or whatever. I do my best to avoid the script and break the fourth wall when we perform. I hope people feel engaged at our show, and I want them to be happy. 

Punk, ska, and indie scenes have long been leaders in inclusion and community, yet gatekeeping still creeps in. Why do you think these scenes can feel so welcoming on one hand and so closed-off on the other?

I think when you love something, you protect it. People who grew up with a particular style of music are often apprehensive when it starts to morph into something new. I remember reading a review of another band on Bandcamp once that went something like “These guys play real punk, how it was before it got diluted with all that melody and harmony”. *Gasp!* Melody? The horror! So there’s gatekeeping in that sense, but I also hear people say things like “My kids won’t listen to Screeching Weasel or the Queers, it’s all mumble rap with them. But you know, that’s their punk. I don’t get it, but neither did my parents.” I think that perspective is important, lest we all get jaded and start bloviating about how we walked uphill both ways to the FYE to buy our compact discs with green paper.

Everyone talks about “the scene”… what’s something the scene gets right right now, and what’s something you hope improves?

Anecdotally, it seems like people are getting disenchanted with streaming, and perhaps with digital media in general to some extent. But live performance and the community that it fosters is something special that transcends music, in a way. There are cities we play where we always see familiar faces in the crowd, sometimes because they came back to see us specifically, but other times just because going to see “the show” is what’s happening that night, and they want to be with their people. I think it’s really necessary to have those unifiers in society.

Midwest Friends Fest has a reputation for feeling intimate even as it grows. What makes a festival feel “right” to you as an artist?

If you follow MWFF online, you’ll see them post often just checking in on their fans’ mental health. They do a lot of festival-adjacent events like benefit shows and food drives. When bands on the bill release new music, they are, without fail, the first people to jump on it and blast it out to their audience. I think the level of personal investment that the whole crew has in the event is infectious, and that’s what makes it so unique. 

Hypothetically speaking… if you made a Midwest Friends Fest friendship bracelet, what word or phrase would it say this year?

We just released a split with our friends in Maestro Murder. They covered one of our old songs on it, and they later told us that it’s “Too Long for Punk”. We’d considered putting that on a t-shirt, but maybe a bracelet is a better place to start.

Post-show, stereotypically Midwestern empty field, questionable bonfire, everyone’s tired but happy… what song are you covering? 

The last time I was in a circumstance anything like this, I recall my friend Ed and I wailing “Tribute” by Tenacious D, like, repeatedly. It stands out in my memory because I don’t fully know how to play that song on guitar, but I’m positive we got through some version of it at least 5 times. In a related story, I’m sober now.

MWFF is stacked. Which bands are you most excited to see, and are there any you’re hoping to connect with offstage as well?

Get Wrecked! is one of my favorite bands, irrespective of the fact that we’re good friends. I’ve had their new record on repeat since it came out. Even if you’re not into hardcore, that’s a set that people won’t want to miss. And of course the Dreaded Laramie. Power pop with Iron Maiden guitars? Come on! What more do you want?

Once MWFF wraps up, what’s next for The Board of Directors? New music, touring, a reset, or something unexpected?

We’re going to be releasing a new EP in June. I’ve shared the demos with some other musicians and songwriters I respect, and one told me that it’s a faithful progression of our sound, but in an edgier direction. Only time will tell if people go for it, but we’re certainly doing and saying things on this record that we’ve never done before, which is always a scary but necessary step in making music. Like what you were saying earlier about mixing sincerity and satire; it’s odd to be bubble gummy and angry at the same time, but here we are! We’ll be touring on that throughout the US and Canada over the summer.