Grab your s’mores, your bug spray and pack your bags as Riot Squad Media is about to take over Northeast Pennsylvania with Camp Punksylvania! The 3-day festival with multiple stages and amazing local acts like The Suicide Machines, War On Women and A Wilhelm Scream, will take place from 1 September until 3 September, tickets are available here. Chris Ruckus of ska-core maestros Dissidente joined TGEFM to discuss their upcoming appearance at Camp Punx for the latest installment of our Camp-centric Roll Of The Dice interview series. Check it out below and I’ll see you at the campfire!
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! You are gearing up for Camp Punksylvania in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to individual artists such as Dissidente?
We’re a bit of an odd duck when it comes to playing shows, as our members live on opposite coasts. But at least we’re all in the same country now! Bigger festivals gives us a built-in audience, which is much less of a risk when we have to fly members in, rather than an independent tour relying on promoters, locals and word of mouth to get people out to shows.
I personally enjoyed the hell out of The War On Two Fronts and the subsequent singles. Whats next for Dissidente?
We have a split that is about to be announced with a band you probably wouldn’t expect, doing covers of a band you definitely wouldn’t expect. We’re also prepping to record our follow-up LP, but that’s definitely further out on the horizon.
Dissidente is unapologetically political. If you had told me a decade ago we’d be looking at a campaign trail made up of an octogenarian who can’t stand still without tripping over his feet, a federally indicted con-man crying oppression from his gold-plated, chandelier festooned bathroom in his private resort, puss-in-boots meatball motherfucker trying to fight a cartoon mouse and an anti-vax Kennedy who can’t decide on any platform beyond licking the boots of Joe Rogan, 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 shitshow happening inside the dumpster fire of American government. How is the already absurd presidential race and performative legislation playing into your songwriting and your mental health?
My mental health has been in the shitter since the days of Dubya. It’s terrible to say, but the longer the dumpster fire burns, the less I’m phased by the absurdity of it all. It’s like Plato’s allegory of the cave. We’ve been watching the shadows for so long that it’s all we know, but none of it is indicative of reality. In our case it’s all political theater. They just don’t care if it’s a drama or a comedy. How do they get the attention that funds their campaigns? By pushing the envelope further and further, because they know as long as their name is repeated enough, they’ll get the nomination. That’s how we get the horseshit match-ups of DeSantis vs Mickey.
Every artist has 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 had a sick bari sax line written for our song “Corvid,” but I was advised to forgo any horns on The War on Two Fronts. We had a tour planned in India and Russia, to play in all our members’ hometowns, but COVID quickly made that an impossibility. Along those same lines, we’ve had to turn down a number of cool shows and festivals because before they were citizens, not all our members were allowed to leave the US.
Any summer camp worth its salt knows there needs to be a lot of different activities to participate in. What activities would the members of Dissidente be in charge of if Camp Punksylvania was an actual sleepaway camp? End of the season Campfire; What song are you performing?
Remember that Operation Ivy tribute where The Aquabats! played a campfire rendition of “Knowledge”? I’d like to do that with Dead Kennedys‘ “Kill the Poor.” That song strikes me as a great campfire sing-a-long. Can’t you see yourself roasting marshmallows and singing ‘convinced the liberals it’s okay / so let’s get dressed and dance the night away?’
Camp Punksylvania is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see on each stage?
My very first pop-punk band played with River City Rebels at the Warped Tour in ’02 or ’03. If memory serves, they followed the tour around setting up a stage in front of the line outside. I thought that was really cool and very punk. I’m excited to see them back at it. I’m also a huge fan of Suicide Machines. In fact, I just did a podcast about their discography on Checkered Past!
A Wilhelm Scream are probably the best melodic hardcore band on the planet. I’m excited to see some of our best buds in The Homeless Gospel Choir, Fat Heaven, The Jasons, and Doc Rotten. Honestly, the line-up is so stacked with our friends.
I’m most excited to have a drink or a smoke with some of my favorite people.
Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
Stay pissed.
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
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/
