MidWest Friends Fest: The One With Old Pictures, New Pictures

Pick up some Skyline Chili, make a few friendship bracelets and grab your buds as Midwest Friends Fest is returning to the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area for its sophomore year. Midwest Friends Fest is once again taking over the Southgate House Revival in Newport, KY. 

The 2-day festival with multiple stages and amazing national and local acts like Signals Midwest, Cinema Stare, The 1984 Draft and Tooth Lures A Fang will take place from 30 & 31 May with tickets available here. 

Old Pictures, New Pictures has joined TGEFM to discuss this year’s festival for this installment of our MWFF interview series. Check it out below and we’ll see you at the bonfire in the woods!

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Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! What should our readers know about Old Pictures New Pictures; your history, your mission, your sound?

Sean: OPNP started in mid 2018-I (Sean) was DJing an Emo night event with my wife, Kelley at a bar in Covington. Daniel was there was and we struck up a conversation. We became pretty fast friends because we like a lot of the same bands and have similar interests and world views. We started jamming as just guitar, vocals and drums soon I introduced Steven to Daniel and we finally rounded out our sound. I’d say we’re somewhere between old school 90s emo like The Promise Ring & 2010s math, emo like A Great Big Pile of Leaves. Our mission has always been to spread positivity and make people happy.
Daniel: We started playing together in 2018, out of a shared love of nostalgic 90s / early 2000s sounds, midwest emo, mathrock, and punk rock.  Since 2018, we’ve played countless shows in Cincinnati, NKY, Indiana, and in Virginia. In this time, we recorded our debut EP (in 2018) and recorded a live session at Rhine Records in 2022.  I (Daniel) live in my hometown of Richmond, VA now but our project continues through bridging the east coast and the midwest.

You are gearing up for Midwest Friends Fest in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves?

Sean: We really have not played a lot of festivals before-but we plan on utilizing MWFF to reconnect with some old friends and make new friends since we have not played locally (NKY/cincy) in about 3 years. There’s a lot of local bands that I (Sean) love, but we didn’t get the pleasure of playing with live while we were active.
Daniel: This festival is rooted in everything we love: a diy, can do ethic, positivity, harm reduction, and spreading love – we are so stoked to be playing Midwest Friends Fest this year!
Steven: The festival is great way for us to get back out there after some time off.  It’s a great opportunity to get to play and see sounds many great bands together.

What does OPNP (hope you dont mind the abbreviation) have planned for us beyond MWFF?

Sean: We hope to have 1-2 new songs ready to play live for the festival! We’re really hoping to reach some new fans that may not have been able to catch us in the past.
Daniel: Later in 2025, we are planning a few regional tours of the midwest and East Coast and are working on some new music that we can’t wait to share
Steve: Hopefully some new songs together and getting in the studio.  

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

Sean: There’s so many. One of my favorites was my bachelor party. Daniel was my best man and he rented us a cabin in Red River Gorge. We brought our instruments and had a little jam session while my brother in law filmed us. It was such a great bonding experience and definitely strengthened our friendship.
Daniel: Being a band before, during, and after the pandemic as well as being rooted in two different locations has taught us a lot about the importance of our friendship, resilience, and the ability to thrive during disturbance.
Steven: Sean’s bachelor party weekend acoustic set. Just a great time as a band and cozy cabin jam session. 

Regarding live sets, what are you most excited to bring to the Midwest Friends Fest audience? What do you want the attendees to say about your set when they tell their friends about you?

Sean: I feel like we were “ahead of our time” in regard to our sound. It’s so sick that there’s a lot of local math/emo bands and I’m stoked that it seems like there’s a lot more people that will appreciate our sound.
Daniel: I feel like our sound is pretty unique, it definitely has emo/mathrock tendencies, but we also have a good amount of psychedelic and 90s inspired vibes to our music, which is something that I feel makes us somewhat unique in the music world of 2025.   We love to cross genres and our music is really rooted in positivity.  Our drummer and MWFF organizer Sean and his partner have started a really incredible organization (Start Today Harm Reduction) which is doing beautiful work getting people stoked on the idea of harm reduction and taking really good care of ourselves.  With all that is going on in the world, this country, and with the climate crisis, I feel like organizations like Start Today are so important, as we need to as individuals and communities take really great care of ourselves so that we can be effective in dealing with our social problems in positive ways.
Steven: Just excited to be back on stage together and general. I hope the audience can see how much playing together means to 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?

Sean: I don’t like to live with regrets. I feel like everything happens for a reason. When we were at our most active we never turned down a gig and we were getting some really good traction. Initially, I was very bummed Daniel needed to move back home to Richmond, VA. But the move has made our friendship stronger and when we come to RVA and play shows people are really stoked. RVA is an amazing spot for emo, math, and punk. If we ever fully relocated for some reason that’s where it would be.

The punk, ska and indie 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?

Sean: I overall think that at the end of the day we’re all outsiders in some capacity. People just want to be heard and I personally have been involved in the scene since I was 15. I have made some of the best friends through music and playing in bands. With that said, I have also seen a lot of negative situations in that time. I think that we can always improve upon ourselves and I like to think that a lot of people have changed and have become much more self aware.

This festival is all about friendships and music. What do you value most in friendships amongst yourself and your stagemates?

Sean: I love the camaraderie that being in a band entails. I love Daniel & Steven like brothers and I know that we all have each other’s backs. 

The world has been going through some shit over the last few days, weeks, hell, decade. What affect, if any, have the cultural and political landscapes of the last few years had on your music or the live scene in general?

Sean: I am a registered nurse in addition to being a musician. I have learned a lot from my healthcare background that I enjoy bringing some of my knowledge into the scene. With Daniel’s departure from NKY I was able to start; Start Today Harm Reduction with my wife, Kelley. We’re a nonprofit organization that provides harm reduction resources and items to local venues. We work with bands, musicians, and venues in effort to raise awareness of substance use disorder and mental health within the scene and community. 

The band went on hiatus for a couple of years. What’s going on that got you guysback on a stage together? What affect, if any, have the cultural landscapes of the last few years had on your return to music or the live scene in general?

Sean: Since Daniel moved back home to RVA our gigs need to be more coordinated.We all work full time careers, families and friends. We were lucky enough that Daniel was able to come up in order to play. The cultural landscape has been interesting to say the least. The last local gig we played was with our friend’s in Scarlet Street for their album release. We made so many new fans that evening and most were confused on where we had been. It was odd to explain that we had been around, but never super caught on. Now I think with this gig we can reestablish ourselves as an important NKY Emo band. When we have played in RVA it is wild. Folks automatically get down with us.

OPNP is from the burgeoning scene in Cincinnati/Northern KY area but since hiatus has also put down roots in the legendary Richmond VA scene, with Daniel moving back to the area. What’s going on in the RVA and NKY areas that have led to so much of an overabundance of great music In the scene? How do the very different areas and transient nature of collaboration feed into the music you are writing, if at all?

Daniel: Cities like Cincinnati and Richmond , have so much to offer because they are not global cities like New York or LA, which leads to the breeding of unique culture that has come from a DIY and community-driven ethos. Being rooted in two cities has given us the ability to connect across geographies. For me (Daniel), it’s been really great putting down roots in my hometown of Richmond , where I’m currently working on a full-length record out summer 2025 with the Slow Go Oftens , in addition to playing in friends bands here such as Midlife Pilot and Hardcount. We are stoked to be able to still play as OP / NP and can’t wait for MWFF and other shows and festivals later in the summer. 

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-MWFF bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?

Sean: I (Sean) was 13years old when I went to my first punk rock show. I saw Homegrown at The Void (RIP) and that’s when I felt like being a musician was tangible. Ever since then I was hooked on the idea of wanting to play music.
Some non MWFF bands people should be aware of are locals Cruel Age. Chicago’s Colossal (90s/00s emo) and our homies from RVA- Midlife Pilot & Fightcloud.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this newcomer by the name of Taylor Swift. Her growing fanbase trades friendship bracelets. If you made a bracelet for MWFF, what word or phrase word you put on it?

Sean: “$12 Modelo pls”

Post show jam session in a large, empty field. What song are you singing around the bonfire? (Pardon my playful biases, but everything I know about the Midwest comes from shitty movies and songs by the Kinsella Bros. so I assume everyone playing here has spent some time at bonfire parties in the fields off some lonely county road)?

Sean: Knowing us likely Michelle Branch, Hilary Duff and other 00s female pop icons then probably transition  into The Lawrence Arms

Midwest Friends Fest is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?

Sean: Reeeallly stoked to see Signals Midwest and I got into Nightmarathons a few months ago so I’m really excited to see them.
Additionally Bear the Moon & Take the Reins

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

Sean: We’re just really stoked to be playing around here again and ready to make some new friends!!