SPIll Your Guts: A Ska Punk International Fest interview with PWRUP

Ska Punk International‘s SPI Fest will return for another weekend of ska and ska-punk in 2024. This year’s event taking place on 17 May and 18 May, has relocated to a new, all-ages venue known as 25 Central Street in Windsor, CT. Tickets can be purchased here. The annual festival will feature Catbite, Mutiny, Stop The Presses, Matamoska, Call Me Malcolm and our SPIll Your Guts interview guest, Aaron Hibbert of PWRUP. Check out what Aaron has to say below.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! You are gearing up for SPI Fest in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to individual artists like yourselves?

We’re really grateful to be included in so many incredible festival lineups this year because it’s a fun and effective way to play to large swaths of new folks we might not be able to tour to otherwise. We’re especially stoked for SPI Fest for a few reasons, one because it was absolutely one of the best events of 2023, two because we love every band playing this year, and three because Windsor CT is basically in our backyard.

I won’t call it a ska revival because ska is something that’s never gone away, but there is a massive rejuvenation of the scene with We Are The Union, The Kilograms and Catbite.  What is going on out there that has gotten so many people back on their boards to ride this latest wave of Ska?

I think we owe a great deal of the latest ska resurgence to a few different factors. Labels like Bad Time Records and Ska Punk International have been pumping out a constant stream of incredible new ska, which not only showcases bands that are absolutely killing it, but also inspires folks to either get the old band back together or start something new and exciting.

What does PWRUP have planned for us beyond SPI Fest?

Well right before SPI Fest, we’ll be playing Stoop Fest out in Michigan, including a small run of midwest shows. Then in July, we’ll be playing a killer bill in CT with Big D & The Kids Table, We Are The Union, and Kill Lincoln, then Camp Punksylvania, then Buffalo Ska Fest all back to back to back. And then in September, we’re playing the Supernova Ska Fest Pre-Party down in Virginia. But as always, keep an eye out because there’s more to come.

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

Let’s start with the most unexpected. Everyone we asked to be featured on the album said yes. That was absolutely wild. Most of us have been listening to bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls and Death By Stereo since we were kids, so to have members of those bands be stoked on our music and also be excited to be featured on the album was easily the coolest thing we’ve experienced so far. The most memorable have probably been the shows where we did not expect to fit in at all and ended up having the most incredible time, shoutout to RPM Fest.

Speaking of live shows, what are you most excited to bring to the SPI Fest audience? What do you want those in attendance to take away from your set?

Honestly, we’re super excited to basically be hosting it this year. Folks will be flying in from all over the country and we get to show them how we do it in New England. It’s going to be a really awesome time, AND we get to sleep in our own beds every night. I hope everyone takes away the sense of community we’ve come to know and expect from our local scene, from the family SPI has built, and from anyone else who takes a chance and comes out to the show.

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?

We didn’t play SPI Fest 2023 and that ended up being one of the coolest shows last year. We were kicking ourselves for a while over that, but I think it’s okay because it wasn’t the right time for us then, but we’re all really glad to be ready this year. I think the other regret we used to have was that we didn’t finish the album before the pandemic, but again, timing is everything, and if we had released Just Devils back in 2019, it wouldn’t have been half the album it ended up becoming. We’ve all made a ton of mistakes in our previous bands, but we learned and grew from them. No regrets this time around, we’re here to do the best we can and enjoy the ride.

The ska scene gets a lot of flack from every genre of music (including ska itself) but is also almost always at the forefront of inclusion and diversity within the music scenes.  What is it about the scene that attracts such a welcoming fanbase?  What is it about ska that leaves itself so vulnerable to mockery in the music world?

Ska is a nerdy genre. It was made by outsiders for outsiders. And I think for many of us, when we found the ska scene, we found a home and a chosen family we might not have had otherwise. It’s never going to be perfect, and sometimes folks need to be reminded, but at its core, ska is about unity, and the scene (especially the “new tone ska” scene) has adapted with the times and grown to be more inclusive and diverse than ever. I think a lot of people are afraid of vulnerability. So when they see a scene that loves so openly, and feels so vulnerably, they tend to project their insecurities onto it. My hope is that the newer generation doesn’t bend to the scrutiny as easily as previous generations did. Keep loving and keep feeling, be unapologetically vulnerable and keep fighting for each other. That’s how we win.

PWRUP has not been afraid to get political.  If you had told me a decade ago we’d be looking at a campaign trail made up of a pair of clueless octogenarians, Russian disinformation and a laptop of dickpics  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?

Personally I think every one of us would take a sound and functional government over what we have now, but it certainly lends itself well to scathing criticism in lyrics. To answer your question though, the current political dumpster fire has not been great for anyone, ourselves included, and like everyone else, we’re just trying to navigate it and survive the best we can, and as we begin to write our next batch of songs, I have no doubt that the sheer exhaustion we’re all feeling will be well represented.

We are living in a “just deal with COVID” world and everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked, and the upcoming election sure as shit isn’t cooling any temperatures.  What impact, if any, does the current cultural and political landscape have on the band and the scene in general?

Honestly, we’re just so tired. And the scene is tired. There was a real push immediately after all the “lockdowns” ended for shows to go back to full throttle, and every show was packed for a while, but between COVID, the “booming” economy that continues to crush the working class more than ever, the return and rise of mainstream LGBTQ-phobias, and the recent escalation of a fucking US-sponsored genocide in Gaza (and various other places around the world), it’s been hard to really be excited about anything so frivolous as live music. People are just trying to get by, and we get it. But many of us see it as our chance to stand together and continue to live in defiance of the world on fire around us, and for those of us, music is how we get by.

You got to feature a few friends on the “Just Devils” record.  What did the outside artists bring to the writing and recording process?  Do you have plans for any more collabs in the future (or on the SPI stage)?

For most of the features, we already had something written, and we pieced it out to someone we thought would fit the part well, like “Here, do this and send it back.” In some cases, like Joe Scala’s feature on ‘Castigation: The Simulation’, we sent him a blank slate and said “Here’s what the song is about. Make it yours,” and he wrote his own part and absolutely crushed it. JP Gericke’s guitar solo on ‘Corner / Office’ was a similar situation, where we just had absolutely no idea what to put at the end of the song, and he immediately got our vibe and threw together one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. Mike Diglo’s feature at the end of ‘Robber Baron’ was an interesting one because we listened to the rough first mix together in the car on the way to SPI Fest last year and I kind of mouthed what I imagined a cool solo would sound like, referencing bands like My Chemical Romance and Bayside, and he just internalized it and wrote a killer solo that was so strikingly similar to what was already in my head I almost teared up the first time I heard it. Lastly, when Eric Fazzini agreed to play tenor sax for our album, we had several parts written out in midi, which we sent him and he recorded, but then as time went on, he just kept sending us more and more parts saying “here’s an idea I had. If you like it, use it, if you don’t, scrap it,” and a whole lot of those ended up being some of our favorite horn parts on the album.

There’s a karaoke machine at the SPI afterparty, what song are you singing?

“First of all, I AM the karaoke machine at the SPI afterparty.” – Justin Belden
Second of all, “Bandages” by Hot Hot Heat for Justin, and “All Coming Back To Me Now” by Meat Loaf for Aaron.

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

I don’t know if we could pick just a few because we’re so stoked for every band. But if we had to pick one, I’d probably say Mutiny. So stoked to see them play their first show headlining day one. Speaking of that Friday lineup, I hope the venue is still standing the next day for day two.

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

We just want to say thanks for giving us your time. We hope everyone will come out to SPI Fest and get wild with us. It’s a really special festival by a really special label, and the lineup is killer and absolutely something you’ll look back and regret missing out on. As always, all our upcoming shenanigans can be found on PWRUP dot band (meta flags the url so we just spell it out). Sending out all the love and respect to our friends near and far. Big love, PWRUP