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.
Joe Anderl of The 1984 Draft 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!
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! What should our readers know about The 1984 Draft; your history, your mission, your sound?
We are a bunch of parents from Dayton, OH who love making music. I started playing shows 30 years ago and have never really taken a break. The 1984 Draft has been around for over 15 at this point. Our mission is to make music we love that will connect with listeners to a point where they feel like they can relate to our story. It’s a pretty simple one as we basically just write about being parents and the struggles of everyday life.
We’ve gotten to play a lot of cool shows over the years with artists such as Josh Caterer (The Smoking Popes), Off With Their Heads, Andrew WK, Chamberlain, Signals Midwest, and with members of Bayside, Thursday, Saves The Day, and The Movielife. We were also featured in a documentary on NFL Films because of our band name.
As far as our sound, I am personally very into Bob Mould. I take a lot of cues from how he writes, performs, and operates. We are basically the Midwest version of that.
You are gearing up for Midwest Friends Fest in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to artists like yourselves?
Festivals are our favorite. You get to see a bunch of bands and reach an audience outside your own. There is always something for everyone. I personally and super excited to see our old friends in Signals Midwest and Mike Adams at his Honest Weight again!
What does 1984 Draft have planned for us beyond MWFF?
This is the year of recording for us. We are currently working on a split 7in that will include a Jawbreaker cover. After that, we will begin recording our next record Alidigger
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
The NFL Films thing was a trip. They came to our practice space and interviewed us and then came and filmed the show that night. I felt like I was being interviewed by Oprah.
The weirdest was probably when we played a “Latch On”, which was a breast feeding event. We played acoustic and it was the only time I’ve ever said at a show “We are The 1984 Draft and we were breastfed as children”
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?
I hope they are pummeled with pop goodness. We tend to play straight through with very few breaks and sneak as many songs as we can into a 30 minute period.
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 don’t have time for regrets at my age. All of my musical career has been a blessing. If I had one is that I wish we had put out more records. I’ve probably forgotten more songs that we have in our current catalog. I wish we would have done a better job capturing them.
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?
I think that is just human nature. It is prevalent in everything, including punk rock. I figure if you are honest and kind you will see a lot less of it in your life.
This festival is all about friendships and music. What do you value most in friendships amongst yourself and your stagemates?
Loyalty, Honesty, Integrity. When you have those two things I find a deep mutual respect develops and that is important for any long term relationship
Last year, you were part of the Midwest Friends Fest pre-show kickoff party. What made you want to come back and perform with MWFF again? How has it felt being able to watch this thing grow from the inside?
The Pre Fest show was so fun. I am excited to see so many awesome bands from the region that we have become friends with over the years and hopefully a few I have never heard that blow my mind.
The 1984 Draft is from Ohio. I thought the state was only known for amazing chili, a Senator turned VP that speed dates at Ashley Furniture and the birthplace of rock and roll, but MWFF is proving the area is home to some amazing artists. What’s going on in the Buckeye State that has led to so much of an overabundance of great music In the scene lately? How does the area feed into the music you are writing, if at all?
It feeds in but really I think our personal lives are what drives things the most. I write a lot about my kids and what they are seeing in the world today. It’s not a pretty place right now and I think a lot of that is what is being captured in the music today.
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?
Sugar – Copper Blue had a defining impact on my life. Perfect pop songs at extremely loud volumes.
As far as other bands I am really into right now, Toilet Rats from Minneapolis. Super interesting keyboardish, weird pop. It’s so so so GOOD!
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?
My acoustic says “This Machine Brings Friendship”. That has always been one of our band motos.
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)?
That is a great question. I actually don’t like playing in those kind of situations because I get too nervous. But if I had to it would probably be a song by The Get Up Kids or Jawbreaker‘s “Boxcar”. That would be a fun one.
Midwest Friends Fest is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?
Signals Midwest, Dad Hats, Mike Adams at his Honest Weight.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Thanks for taking the time to ask the questions and let us share. We hope to make a lot of new friends at the show!
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/