Interview by Joe Ruzicka, Photos by Brandon Emmert
Kent, Ohio, anarcho-punk feminist band SAP has been tearing up the DIY scene for nearly two years. There newest EP “Waste Away” was released September 8th, is six songs long, and just what every punk fiend is looking for to fill that gaping hole in their chest. The five-piece consisting of Lead Guitarist Dominic, vocalist Rayne, drummer Peter, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Scotty, and bassist and vocalist Garet had a chance to chat with writer Joe Ruzicka about how SAP came to be, the new EP, and the punk community.
Electric Daze: Could you guys introduce yourselves?
Scotty: I’m Scotty. I play bass, but I’ve jumped around. When the band first started, I was the singer then I moved over to rhythm guitar when Rayne joined on vocals.
Rayne: I am the singer. I am the Hayley Williams of this band. I also do songwriting, but we all kind of do songwriting.
Dominic: I play guitar, I make noise with the guitar and sometimes I’ll write.
Pete: I hit stuff, and I am the muscle. I play drums, don’t get it twisted.
Scotty: Also on the new demo, there is a 5th player to SAP and it’s Garrett. He was playing bass for SAP when that was recorded, he also recorded the album. He is an original member.
ED: So how did SAP get started?
Scotty: I don’t remember exactly when.
Rayne: I believe it was your sophomore year at Kent?
Scotty: Yeah, to preface I’m originally from Youngstown. So is Rayne. I had been at Kent for about one school year, going back for weekends and summers. Since I was a freshman, and I was nervous. Anyways, I had already been playing in bands and stuff. I was in a band that was my high school project, no shame about it. Then Rayne and I were in a band, we were in a couple bands together. When I moved to Kent we were in a band called, Ride or Die, we were like a queercore band. That’s the band we played with originally in Kent, and booked shows there. I wasn’t originally involved in the scene yet, and I didn’t really know how to be? I was booking shows and stuff at bars.
Dominic. There wasn’t too much of a scene really.
Scotty: Yeah as far as I know there wasn’t too much of a scene in Kent. Peter was in a band called Cool Dads, which he still is in. Basically I wanted to be in a new band, and I was doing a lot of shows in Pittsburgh. There was a lot of crust and anarcho punk there, and I saw Behind Enemy Lines, went to Skullfest, and there’s an organization called Peace Through Strength. I thought it would be really cool to be in a band that could do shows with Peace Through Strength. They’re whole idea is that they raise money for different anarchist groups and various political projects in the Pittsburgh community.
ED: So is that how you got involved with PunkyTapes?
Scotty: Yeah, sort of. They were in Ride or Die, on and off since they lived so far away.
Rayne: We’ve been friends with them for around 4 years?
Scotty: Yeah, Justin, from PunkyTapes, is one of my best friends so that’s how we got involved with them.
ED: So what exactly is Anarcho-Peace punk, I know you mentioned Peace Through Strength and their goals.
Scotty: Yeah, originally the whole idea was to very affirmatively write songs about environmental issues.
Rayne: Which is why we’re called SAP. A lot of people think it’s an acronym, but it’s actually just tree sap.
Scotty: It was also Peter’s idea.
Dominic: Or Sad as Punks.
Peter: A tribute to my senior class president.
Scotty: Yeah, Peter also secretly named it as a tribute to his senior class president.
Peter: We’re all very much about gender identity, and fluidity. I went to a conservative leaning school, and he was a conservative identified student at the time. He was extremely well spoken, and one I still respect to this day a lot. He earned class president because he tried really hard at school, but was also very open about his politics. Then senior year, he got class president. Then halfway through senior year, he was like yeah I’m gay. I thought that was awesome. It’s kind of honor in him, but he probably won’t read this. Just to touch on that.
ED: So could you talk a bit about the Kent DIY scene?
Peter: I’ve lived there my whole life, my parents work at the university. I went to grade school in Kent. Everything is within half a mile of itself, and it goes back to 4th and my Grandpa taught at The University when I was at grade school. The town used to be super hippie when I was in grade school, Jimmy Johns was a record store, there were various record stores, and several art galleries. I was working with a band called Half an Animal, I designed a t-shirt for them. I saw them play in Kent, and that was how I remember Kent sounding before it got commercialized. Then I talked to them afterwards, and they told me how Turnip Records used to do shows. Then I was talking to the singer of Wallcreeper, and he told me about how there The Vineyard, which was this church that at night would do shows. Light Years and Lumeria played there. I remember in fourth grade going to my dad’s office, and under my dad’s office there was this bridge. Someone set up a generator, and did a show under the bridge. That changed my whole way of thinking about everything. Before that, I just knew music through rockstars and my dad would always play The Rolling Stones. So I thought that if you’re not rich and famous, you just don’t play music that’s it.
Scotty: Kent has always been a pretty DIY place, you can just be there and be like, oh this is DIY.
Peter: Even as a kid visiting art galleries and record stores, people would always offer me records and stuff.
ED: It’s funny because I always think about the more mainstream part of Kent with all the college kids that go there, then I found out about the Workshoppe like a year or so ago. I was shocked that it was in Kent honestly, I just never thought there would be a punk scene in Kent.
Peter: It’s funny because Garrett(owner of The Workshoppe) and I used to go to grade school. Garrett sort of resurged the DIY scene in Kent.
Dominic: Our initial practice space was actually in The Workshoppe.
Scotty: Yeah when I was first starting SAP, and I was asking around about who could play bass at the time. Garrett was fifteen at the time, and he was already running his own DIY space.
ED: How old is he now?
Scotty: 17 now, everyone thinks he’s older because he’s huge. I thought it was cool, he joined the band and we had a practice space. Then I got really involved in booking at The Workshoppe, and we’re all really involved in booking at The Workshoppe along with maintaining it as a safe space.
ED: Could you talk a bit more about the DIY space around Kent and Akron?
Scotty: We’re not too involved in the Akron DIY scene, but there are definitely some really cool spaces around Akron like Hive Mind.
Peter: Akron has a really good DIY scene, and each venue has really specific sounds. Although Hive Mind deviates from that a bit. Hive Mind has a lot of noise, and some experimental artists. Around Akron the twinkly emo sound is very popular and prevalent at venues like It’s a Kling Thing!, and Overlook. Hive Mind is really cool because it’s both politics and music.
Rayne: They’re trying to be a co-op, I’m pretty sure. They also have a gallery.
Dominic: Yeah they’re trying to be a non-profit.
Peter: They’re doing a lot of really good work.
Scotty: Hive Mind is really cool because they’re all leftists, and a lot of anarchists. They all sort of have the same ideals as we do, and a lot of the same interests.
Rayne: Then there’s MART which is Brian’s new venue at his house since it’s a storefront
Dominic: Then there’s Lich
Scotty: Yeah Lich is really cool, Lich is actually how we got involved in the DIY scene.
ED: So what are some of the other venues around Kent?
Scotty: Workshoppe, Bum House, and Stone Tavern is sort of gone but they still book shows at this place at Michelles. Everything is sort of separate in Kent, something may happen for a few years then it will dissolve. Kent is very much a college town.
ED: Do you guys primarily try to just play at DIY spaces?
Peter: That’s usually where we get most of our offers, but we play at some venues.
Scotty: We’re not really a bar band, we usually play at house shows. We would play at Now That’s Class, and other shitty punk bars.
Dominic: When we did Skullfest, there were people playing on stages but we did the Breakfast show. So we were in a garage, and felt right at home.
ED: Has the Kent DIY scene influenced your music at all?
Scotty: When we first started, I was really interested by the hippie thing that happened in Kent. You asked what peace punk is, and it was a big movement in the 80’s with bands like Crass, and that’s originally the music I was really into. Even bands like Aus Rotten were bands that we wanted to sort of emulate. Our sound has changed so much over time though, and we do not sound like any of those bands at all. We’re primarily just a hardcore band at this point.
Rayne: We’ve all been influenced by so many different things.
Dominic: Yeah, I originally started doing my guitar riffs from doom metal. I still do honestly. More recently I’ve been into more things that are a lot more punk.
Scotty: Yeah I originally found Peter when I went to a Cool Dads show, and thought that he was crazy and wanted to start a punk band with him.
Peter: Yeah he took me to a G.L.O.S.S. show then. I originally saw Cloud Nothings at The Grog Shop,and Perverts Again opened up for them. Perverts Again completely changed my attitude about everything.
Scotty: Also once we brought Rayne in, that completely changed our sound.
Rayne: I grew up listening to metal, and then like Slipknot, Machine Head, and then Lamb of God when I was younger. That was the kind of stuff that I wanted to make in the band.
ED: So how is your recent release on bandcamp?
Scotty: So two of the tracks on that were on our first demo which is, Resistance is Peace, those two tracks are Cat Calling Scum. Cat Calling Scum is really influenced by Kent State and living in a college town, and seeing men thinking they own that space. I wrote that song after my friends told me they witnessed some frat dudes catcalling some girl and grabbing her. I was thinking about why I lived in a place where men think they own this space.
Peter: I can tell you to as a kid not having a car, and biking around a college town. You get yelled at alot by college guys driving around. Using the f word, yelling at you. I’ve lived in Kent my whole life, and it was so much different. It all happened in the past five years, and has been built to please rich college kids.
Scotty: We work downtown, we’re like the poor college kids that actually have to work.
Rayne: I remember walking around the, I guess, richer side of the college campus/town and I didn’t know anything or anyone there. I didn’t even know what this is.
Scotty: We’ve been here for three years, and have seen it change. Peter has been here his whole life.
ED: So are you guys part of this wave of punk in Kent would you say?
Scotty: No, not really. Even The Workshoppe is not necessarily a punk venue, it’s punk in idealogy but it also serves as a space for other genres. We’ll book any kind of band.
Dominic: We don’t always book punk or grindcore bands, it’s honestly more so indie and other genres.
Scotty: We’re more interested in booking bands with more similar ideas with us, and booking people with voices that we want to hear.
ED: Yeah it’s funny, I just initally associated The Workshoppe with Speedfreak so I presumed it was a punk venue similar to The Yellow Ghetto.
Scotty: Yeah it’s funny since SAP and Speedfreak are the two main Workshoppe bands since we’re in town. When we book indie bands, finding supporting acts can be fun. Sometimes we do mixed genre stuff.
Rayne: Luckily each of us have various side projects.
ED: So what your guys’ side projects?
Peter: I’m in Cool Dads.
Dominic: I have cold keys which is a dance/house music project, (), Mucha Lucha which is a power balance project that I’ve been working on, and then I did Red Venom.
Rayne: I’m in a band called Human Petting Zoo, which is a ukelele pop music project.
Scotty: I’m primarily just focused on SAP right now, I used to be in a lot of bands. Me and dom are looking to get a new projected started with our friend Darion in Cleveland. He’s involved in the band Meca Gee and Meteor Moves. We’re looking to start a debeat band. That’s another cool thing about Kent, there’s a lot of cool up and coming bands that we can’t talk about yet. Our goal is to get more people to start creating, not see how many bands we can start. We’ve been trying to help people get started, I’ve been doing it since I was 12.
Rayne: That’s what’s really cool about The Workshoppe, we bring people into the scene and help them become a part of it. They become a part of the DIY process, especially with freshman.
Scotty: We try to avoid cliques as much as possible, and if we have any social capital we use it to help people who maybe think they can’t be in a band.
Rayne: We’ll book your first show.
Scotty: We try to offer them spaces to practice. We all borrow each other’s stuff.
ED: How is the creative scene in Kent as a whole?
Scotty: It’s huge, it’s bigger than us honestly. There’s so many creative people at Kent. We’re friends with a lot of fashion people. There’s a group of fashion people who used to do shows at this place called The Hoe Garden. They’re going to be doing shows again, we’ve even played there.
ED: Yeah there’s so many Kent creatives that I know, it’s crazy.
Scotty: Although I consider ourselves a Kent band because we live here, but honestly we started out in Pittsburgh and played with friends around there. Now we’re trying to play shows around Cleveland, and in Columbus. We’re associated with a lot of bands all over the place. No matter what end you’re on in Kent, whether you’re an indie kid or a hardcore kid everyone knows everyone and supports each other.
Connect with SAP on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SAPkentpunk/, on bandcamp at https://sapsapsapsap.bandcamp.com/, on Instagram at @sap_anarchopunk.
As a big fan of Mac Demarco myself, I have come to appreciate his sluggish, grimy, and slobby self. His unpredictably gross antics like sticking a drumstick up his ass onstage or lighting his farts on fire, have gradually morphed into somewhat of a norm for his audience, and it is evident to us all that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Demarco’s actual music takes on a very whimsical, drugged and slightly sloppy approach that somehow, exemplifies his own behavior.
With the release of his newest album, This Old Dog, I think it is safe to say that many of his long-time fans will be somewhat astonished by the growth and maturity displayed within this album. Compared to his earlier records and EP’s, Demarco’s third album is less cluttered, with less emphasis on the vast array of sounds and groggy layers of distorted guitars that he typically uses. However, Mac continues to take us on a musical journey throughout this entire album, and introduces us to his wide encyclopedia of influences and sounds. This album reveals Demarco’s more acoustic and melodic side, while branching out from his earlier chilled content to explore more timeless themes.
Starting the album with the song, My Old Man, Demarco dives deep into the realization of his own narration. After five straight years of touring, he seems aware that he growing older and when he looks in the mirror he is seeing a reflection of his father who he barely knew, staring back at himself. “Look in the mirror, who do you see?/ Someone familiar, surely not me.” It’s an almost intimidating element for a man like Mac, whose world seems to revolve around the youthful and childlike features of his lifestyle. Up next, we have the gloomy sounds of “This Old Dog.” This song shows uncharted territory for Mac, with more personal apprehensions revealed about his flaky father along with developments of new sounds beyond his normal range. “Baby You’re Out” is a quick transition from the previously somber sounds to something that stumbles delightfully through its chord changes, miraculously hitting every fourth step along the way. “For the First Time” brings back Mac’s cheeseball-synth balladry back with a very vibrant and drug-tranced vibe. “One Another” to me sounds as if it has come from an 1980s toy advertisement, with a melody that drives you to snap your fingers and dance. Next is “A Wolf Who Wears Sheep’s Clothes”, with Mac channelling his inner Jimmy Buffett, complete with a strong harmonica lead and bouncing guitar. The album closes with “Watching Him Fade Away”, a bare, slow moving song that is bleak but also very atmospheric and effective. The singer is coming to terms with the idea of letting go of someone he never quite had. DeMarco’s deep and tender vocals slice through the sounds of a warped organ, as he produces such imagery within our head of his father slowly drifting from his view. Even though his father was never truly there for him, he cannot seem to feel any hate for him.
If you thought his earlier albums put you in the setting of a dark and stuffy atmosphere, this album throws everything out into the open full of fresh air and sunshine. Hopefully, listeners can branch away from his earlier sounds to experience this vulnerable and deep side of Mac that he is willing to share with all of us, if you decide to listen.
Throughout my life I never felt like I was artistic or creative, since I could only draw stick figures in art class, and I didn’t really see the art in photography as a kid. This had all begun to change when I had submitted “Big Black Car” by Gregory Alan Isakov as a song to a road trips playlist contest hosted by Skype-Moments and Spotify where the winner would win a Nokia 1020 and a few other things. Although I didn’t think much of it at the time when I discovered I won and received the Nokia 1020, but I had truly found something I loved. I remember taking my first picture so vividly, it was a picture of historic downtown Willoughby which was just outside of my old home. At the time I had just took the picture, edited it in the base Microsoft editing app, and posted it on Instagram to my twelve followers and said “Just got a Nokia 1020, will be sharing more pictures soon! :)”. As I look back on it I was awful, and my photos weren’t that good, but I mean we all have to start somewhere. Then I got my Nikon d3300 and took pictures of my friends band, Nameless, and some actually came out decently. From there I was shooting shows at a local underground punk venue that a few of my buddies played at, but I never took it that seriously. Once I got my Canon 6d though, everything had changed. I went to my second “real” concert, and shot: Broken Beak, Told Slant, Bellows, and The Hotelier at Mahall’s, an iconic old-fashioned bowling alley that also serves as one of Cleveland’s music venues. This was when I had realized just how much I loved concert photography, and I started taking it serious. I ended up going to shows every week, and have met so many beautiful people whom I would never have met if I stayed in my little bubble. Without photography I feel that I would never have truly connected to music and the people involved in it as I have this year. Overall music and photography have played an integral part in my life these past six months, and I am extremely excited to see where photography takes me.
Joe is based out of Cleveland, Ohio, and shoots with a Canon 6D.
Follow Joe on Instagram at @joeruzicka32.
You can view his work for the magazine here and his personal photography site here.
