Interview with co-founder Mark Stern and H2O bassist Adam Blake | By Nick Harrah
Billed as “the biggest punk rock party in North America,” tickets for this year’s Punk Rock Bowling And Music Festival went on sale Jan. 9, and co-founder Mark Stern of BYO Records and Youth Brigade couldn’t be more stoked for the 2016 installment.
Make that installments.
Now in its 18th year, the festival has grown to the point where it seemed natural to branch out from Las Vegas to the East Coast and institute a second PRB in Asbury Park, New Jersey. “We are trying to keep the lineups a little different in each city, so that has been a challenge,” Stern says. “But overall, it’s coming together really well, and the response has been great!”
What is now one of the biggest punk festivals around began almost 20 years ago as, unsurprisingly enough, a few punks getting together to bowl. Stern recalls, “We used to bowl all the time when there wasn’t any shows, so we started bowling with all the BYO [Records] staff and then, decided to start a little weekly tournament in Santa Monica with punk labels and bands. We had about 10 to 12 teams getting together every week—Epitaph, BYO, Hopeless, etc.—and it started getting pretty competitive. We heard Fat [Wreck Chords] was doing a tournament up in San Francisco, so we talked to them and all the labels about combining the tournament and doing it in Vegas for a weekend. That was in 1999. We had 28 teams sign up for it and it was the best weekend for everyone.”
“We had the bowling tournament at The Gold Coast Casino, and we all stayed there and caused complete mayhem!” Stern continues. “We had the awards party at The Double Down Saloon with one of Me First And The Gimme Gimmes’ first shows; it was packed to the ceiling. After that year, more labels found out about the weekend, and we ended up selling out the bowling the next year. We would host a big show at a hall or big club where all the bowlers got in for free, and then, we would sell the remaining tickets to the public to help pay all the artists. Then we would bowl all weekend and have the awards party on Sunday night. That’s the way it was all the way up until 2010. The event grew; there was a waiting list to sign up for a team and the shows were getting bigger, so we decided to make a festival out of it.”
Punks will convene in Sin City May 28 through 30 for three days of all-ages festival fun featuring over 20 bands and headlined by FLAG, Descendents, and Flogging Molly, as well as five nights of club shows, bowling and poker tournaments, and just the kind of general debauchery you’d expect in Las Vegas.
Stern—who started PRB with his brother Shawn—says he is pumped. “We take over the whole downtown area,” he explains. “Everything is in walking distance, so you can just get your hotel and you are right in the middle of everything for the whole weekend. Pool parties, gambling on sites like offshorepokersites.com, the festival, movie screenings, lounge acts, club shows, you name it!”
Three-day passes for the Las Vegas PRB are $120 each, and VIP festival passes are $350.
But what happens in Vegas couldn’t stay in Vegas any longer. Punk Rock Bowling will then head to Asbury Park June 10–12 where Descendents and FLAG will headline the inaugural East Coast festival at The Stone Pony Summer Stage, which will also host club shows over the weekend. Tickets are $50 per day.
H2O bassist Adam Blake says he can’t wait for it all: the bands, the fans, and, oh yeah, the bowling. “I think the East Coast fans of punk rock are gonna come out in force and really make this a great show,” he says. “Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing Dag Nasty, as I have never seen them, and of course, playing with the Descendents is always a blast! As far as bowling, I can certainly see us getting a few games in!”
The East Coast PRB came about because Stern saw a need and filled it. “There are a lot of punks on the East Coast who can’t make the trek across the country to Vegas,” he says. “It’s expensive, and a lot of people wish they could make it, but it’s not financially feasible. So, having hung out in Asbury and watching the town really flourish—not unlike downtown Vegas—we thought it would be a great central location on the East Coast. We have a lot of friends out there through The Bouncing Souls, and the response from everyone has been very positive. We can do almost everything out there that we do in Vegas. There is a curfew and you can’t gamble, but other than that, I think the setup is going to be great! The people at The Stone Pony are awesome and have welcomed us over there with open arms, so we are all very excited to make this happen.”
“Punk Rock Bowling has become such a must-see event over the last few years, and of course, it’s a huge honor for us to get to be a part of it again,” Blake admits. “The lineups for both New Jersey and Las Vegas are so balanced and diverse that I really think there is something for everyone!”
Stern is happy to have his own band, Youth Brigade, play Punk Rock Bowling for the first time in seven years, but he’s also excited to see bands like Buzzcocks, Millencolin, Dillinger Four, and Dag Nasty play PRB for the first time. “Bands come out and bring their A game,” he shares. “It’s not a big festival, and I have bands who play in front of 50,000 to 100,000 people on other festivals who tell me they are nervous to play. I think, because it’s a festival of peers, everyone wants to really bring something special to their set.”
For all the logistical challenges entailed in pulling off now two Punk Rock Bowling fests, Stern says sharing his love of punk rock is what it’s all about. “For me, it’s why I do it,” he asserts. “I was promoting shows when I was 19 years old, we ran one of the best punk clubs in L.A. when I was 21—Godzillas, 1982—played music, toured the world, we ran a record label putting out our favorite bands for 30 years, and now, we get to throw the biggest punk rock party in North America.”
Stern concludes, “It’s exciting to find new bands, work with old heroes that I have never had the pleasure of meeting before, and just get to see our punk rock community come together every year and enjoy what the whole weekend has to offer.”
Tickets and passes for Punk Rock Bowling 2016 are available at www.punkrockbowling.com.
