We don’t know what to do with this free time,” explains Kat Moss, singer for local hardcore quintet Scowl.
“We’ve all been on tour for the last three and a half years. So we’re all like, ‘What is going on?’ I don’t know what to do with myself! I’m totally losing it.”
Her bandmates—drummer Cole Gilbert, bassist Bailey Lupo and guitarists Malachi Greene and Mikey Bifolco—agree.
“I’ve been going to so many shows because I don’t know what to do with my life,” Bifolco says unironically.
Lupo laughs, then states in a deadpan manner, “You get home from tour and you remember you can actually go grocery shopping instead of ‘What can I buy for five dollars at a gas station?”
It’s a valid point as the band finds themselves in a rare moment: between tours. Luckily for them—and local music fans—they don’t have to wait too long for their next show as their second annual Psychic Dance Party returns to the Catalyst on Nov. 30.
This year they are once again joined by a mix of bands hand picked by Scowl: Southern Californian synthpop rockers Male Tears, San Fernando Valley hardcore act Cosmic Joke, Los Angeles by way of Santa Cruz hard rock group Sluttony and Redwood City hardcore act Rule of Thumb.
“We pick bands we want to see,” Gilbert laughs.
Named after their 2023 EP, (and the extra play’s title track) Psychic Dance Routine, the annual dance party is one of the ways the skyrocketing band remains connected to the 40831 music scene that birthed them. Despite touring the world, playing massive festivals like Coachella, and sharing bills with punk rock royalty like The Misfits, Iggy Pop and the Circle Jerks, Scowl doesn’t forget who they are and where they came from.
“I feel like we are the little guys,” Greene admits. “We’re just a hardcore band that tours, but I want to put on [shows] for any of our homies or young, up-and-coming bands. We’re a band that can play a big fest but if someone were to ask us to play a house show, we’d probably play it.”
It’s been a busy year for Scowl as they continue to take the world by storm and spread the message of the 40831 hardcore scene. Along with constant touring and playing to thousands of people in the United States at festivals like No Values in Pomona and Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas, Scowl had one of their biggest moments ever this past summer.
In June they played France’s iconic Hellfest Open Air Festival—astoundingly attended by over 280,000 fans—gracing the Warzone stage with contemporaries such as Gel, Show Me the Body and Drug Church along with Cock Sparrer, a seminal Oi! British punk band. Those are just some of the more than 200 bands on the bill, including names like Saxon, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and Metallica.
“As a performer I felt like a rock star,” Moss exclaims. “It was so cool and I just want to do it again.”
“My family was already supportive of me,” Gilbert says. “But my mom called me about playing with Metallica before I even got to tell her.”
Bifolco says, laughing, “My dad just texted back, ‘Nice.’”
Last October Scowl marked another milestone in their five-year career when they announced they signed with independent label Dead Oceans. Based out of Indiana, Dead Oceans was started in 2007 and Scowl now finds themselves label mates with fellow popular acts Japanese Breakfast, Khurangbin, Bright Eyes and Phoebe Bridgers.
The announcement came the same day as the release of the band’s first new single and music video, “Special.”
Filmed in Topanga Canyon in Southern California and directed by Silken Weinberg, “Special” finds the band in the woods drawing straws. When Moss draws the shortest one, the rest of the band dons gruesome masks horror movie fans might find familiar as they hunt her down. In the end, Moss turns the tables and seeks her revenge.
The song itself is a thesis on self-identity, trying to remain true to oneself when fans and media attention put the band on a pedestal of prophecy.
“We chose that as a first single because we thought it was a good introduction into what is to come for the sonic landscape of Scowl,” Moss says. “Lyrically it’s genuinely so direct. I don’t want to be the idol. I don’t want this platform to be all about the band. It’s a desperate attempt to rip that apart.”
Psychic Dance Party begins at 7pm on Saturday, Nov. 30 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $32.22. 831-713-5492.
