I was standing alone in the basement, separated from one of the only people I knew at Paradise, a local house venue in Iowa City’s DIY scene, when I saw them. It was impossible to mistake them for anyone else. It was Zookraught, a three piece Seattle based dance punk band, and it was written all over their faces in stripes and twirls made from black lipstick in the back of their tour van.
It was my first punk show in Iowa. It felt a bit like standing above the pool from the high dive with everyone watching, except now I wasn’t 11. I was 20 and nobody knew me or knew I was going to do my first interview ever. Not even the three members of Zookraught who stood in a bundle together under the fluorescent glow of bright red and green light bulbs that hissed electricity from the ceilings.
I introduced myself and it was painless compared to the belly flop I had done at my fifth grade pool party. Even with the war paint, the three of them were intensely welcoming. In front of me stood Steph, on vocals and the bass, who stood with the classic Zookraught lipstick face streaks and curly, blue ended hair. Next to them Sami, the guitarist and vocalist, donning a crop top and the same piercing black makeup. Finally, there was Baylee, their drummer, who also joined in for vocals for their first full album release VIDA VIOLET.
The three guided me upstairs to the “off-limits” part of the venue where the hosts had set up beds for them all. I sat on the couch across from the three, who settled comfortably next to a steep and well collected bookshelf. The house itself felt like a museum for little objects and trinkets, where the four of us fit in nicely. With cots on the floor and pillows all around us, it felt like I had convinced my mom to let me have a slumber party with my friends in middle school, except Steph, Sami, and Baylee were not 13-year-old girls I walked the mile with in PE class. They were black lipstick laden, state crossing musicians who sat eagerly, mushed together on a worn, over loved couch while I fumbled for my audio recorder, and then we began.
What follows is our conversation edited and condensed for clarity:
Jillian Abreu: Okay, I’m really excited to see you guys play. I listened to your album, and right off the bat I wondered, how do you three handle the vocals? How do you prepare? What’s the aftercare with all that screaming?
Steph Jones: We’re being really diligent about doing vocal warm ups every day. We got a vocal steamer actually, right when we left for the tour. Baylee and I had a little sinus bug, so we’re still kind of getting over that, but we’re just trying to rest up good, stay really hydrated. The vocal steamer has been really nice and doing vocal warm ups before our set every day is like extremely crucial. We’ve never been on a tour this long before, so it’s a little intense, but we’re making it work.
Sami Frederick: Yeah, we’re cycling through a bunch of different warm up exercises, and it’s kind of fun to do those in the band, because they’re all really hilarious. You know, it’s fun to engage with the little theater kid part of yourself and be like:
(At this point Sami and Steph begin doing vocal exercises that sound a little like ‘me-me-me-ma-mo-me-me-moeee’ when written down or ‘Mommy-made-me-mash-my-m-and-ms’.)
Baylee Harper: We’ve been saying “Mommy made me mash my beans and toast.”
Sami: The UK version.
Jillian: I really like that. I was gonna ask what vocal warm ups you do, but you just demonstrated beautifully. I’m kinda at a loss for words.
Sami: Classic beans and toast warm up.
Jillian: I personally love beans and toast.
Baylee: Really!
Steph: You actually enjoy beans and toast?
Jillian: I was always eating them as a kid, really. Yeah, I’m so serious about beans and toast. I think it’s because we watched a lot of Wallace and Gromit.
Sami: Oh I watched so much Wallace and Gromit as a kid.
Baylee: We have some beans in the van, if you want some.
Jillian: I would love one. I would absolutely love one.
Sami: We can split a can.
Jillian: You guys all want to share a can of beans after the show?
Sami: Yeah, let’s do it. After the show, a little nightcap.
Jillian: Oh yeah, hot and sweaty post-show. Give me a can of beans, stat.
Sami: It’s the first thing I think of when we’re done, honestly.
Steph: Sometimes we drink them on stage.
Jillian: That’s amazing. Did you guys see the last set? They had some impressive props too.
Sami: Yeah, it was great—
Steph: They were terrifying. I was so scared.
Sami: Mortifying.
(The last set had been a lovely local punk band named Fear Boner, who were very creative, and literal, with the props they worked with. Think sex shops and rubber.)
Jillian: There was a very threatening prop.
Sami: Yep.
(We all laughed awkwardly at this point.)
Sami: I don’t know if were allowed to mention it.
Jillian: I think the beans could be more threatening though, and mysterious without any explanation, pour it over your head.
Sami: Yeah, a loose can of beans in the pit is pretty threatening.
Jillian: I think that could cause some serious injury, but yeah, could be pretty hardcore. I did want to ask how you all gravitated towards what you are now, how Zookraught came to be.
Sami: I know for myself when it comes to live music, I’ve always been really drawn towards physical music and what feels the best to play. I like exuding a lot of energy when I play live. So, I feel like when we write music, we kind of write it towards that, towards being able to play it really physically, towards the live performance, you know?
Jillian: Totally! I love the phrase dance punk. Maybe I’m just really not in the scene, but listening to your music was the first time I heard of it and I was like, this is the perfect description.
Steph: We get a lot of “experimental punk”, and what else do we get a lot of?
Baylee: It’s pop music that you can shake your ass to, that you can be in the pit and you can dance to, but it’s not violent. It’s like dancing with your friends. It’s like you’re giggling in the pit.
Jillian: A giggle in the pit. That is such a good way to put it.
Steph: I feel like we don’t take it like, too seriously. It’s never too serious. We’re here to have fun.
Jillian: “Red Hot Summer”. Oh my god, yeah. When I listened to that I was freaking out. I was just quietly sorting books and listening to Vida Violet and it came on, and I was texting one of our directors saying, “This one’s so good, oh my god!” The music was so cohesive and immersive that I forgot I was at work. I really felt like I was living two different lives.
Steph: Oh, thank you! We worked hard on the flow of the album.
Jillian: And the last song, “Waterparks of America (And Other Places Too)” is so wonderful. What was your inspiration?
Steph: That’s a funny one. We were gonna have band practice one day, and then I was sick, so Baylee and Sami met up and wrote and structured a whole song. They told me the next time we met up, “You’re gonna sing on it, because what we’re playing is too insane. You’re gonna sing it.” So I said, “Okay, what should it be about?” and Sami, without missing a beat goes, “Waterparks!”
Sami: To be fair, I did not say that seriously. You took it very seriously.
Steph: I ran with it. Yeah, I went home and I read a bunch of articles about waterparks and wrote down all of my favorite facts.
(At this point, the band right before them, Wojtek, began their soundcheck, and an overwhelming buzz of bass moved through the floor up to the living room where we sat. Sami mimicked it with a loud ‘BBWWOAAAAAWWWW’ and we all laughed, because Sami is funny.)
Jillian: I was wondering, how did you all meet?
Baylee: Well, me and Stephanie played in a band together, my first band. I was only 16, but Steph was 21 when we met, and I joined her band that was already kind of up and running. We did that for about two years and then our band split up, so we started Zookraught as a complete joke and just started writing some songs together, but then Covid hit so we didn’t really do much.
We did a little bit of writing with a saxophone player. Originally, we were like, we’re gonna be bass, drums and sax, and then I kind of got on the guitar train because I didn’t really love just the sax. Then Steph started listening to System of a Down, and texted me: I’m down for a guitar player. So, we hit up our friend and he started kind of helping us put these songs together. They’re all on YouTube. They’re called “Outside Sessions”.
Steph: The originals.
Baylee: Its unrecognizable from from what we do now
Steph: Almost like a completely different band.
Jillian: I’m so glad you have that up there.
Steph: Yeah, and after the “Outside Sessions”, both Ian and Sam who had been in the band weren’t able to continue, and Sami and I had a mutual because she had just started working at this music school that our mutual kind of worked at, and he had helped us make the sessions.
Sami: He showed me this video of them playing in their backyard, the “Outside Sessions” and told me they were looking for a guitar player, and I was like, “This is really weird, but I’m just gonna learn these songs and go try it out.” Right when we got in the room together, I was like, this is totally working.
Steph: The vibe was totally there.
Baylee: Yeah, and we had a couple other people who were auditioning for guitar, but we just knew with Sami. It was really an instant click.
Steph: So we told Sammi, we have one more audition, but we’ll let you know.
Sami: I remember going home after the audition just sitting on the couch, waiting by the phone.
Steph: Then 45 minutes after we saw her, we messaged her asking her to join.
Jillian: Ah! That’s so lovely. Oh my gosh. I was wondering, you guys have mentioned some artists in conversation, and I wanted to know what core musicians or bands drew you all to music, or made you want to have your own band?
Steph: I grew up surrounded by music because my dad is a guitar player, so I always felt like I was gonna make music.
Sami: I think what made me want to start playing in a band were a lot of post punk bands. A lot of early 2000s bands on the record label Three One G, like The Locust. A lot of noise rock stuff. Fugazi was a big one when I was in high school. I just worshiped at their altar. I’d always watch their live videos.
Jillian: Did you have any favorite songs?
Sami: “Suggestion” is probably my favorite punk song of all time. Wow. Yeah. Love that song.
Jillian: Steph, what about you? You’ve got a Hole t-shirt on.
(At this point our conversation was interrupted by the full force of Wojtek instrumentals, and the four of us decided on an exodus outside to the porch. The sun had made itself scarce by this point, and the glow of the house was really all we had to see each other by. The pale fluorescent of my phone screen felt like a scary story flash light, and we all laughed for a moment at the theatrical spookiness the interview had adopted.)
Jillian: Thank you so much for taking a detour with me into a dark alley. Here we are. So, tell me about your musical influences, please.
Baylee: I think, for me, it was really similar to Stephanie. My brother played guitar, and I saw him performing on stage. The community around music is what’s honestly influenced me more than anything else. I grew up homeschooled, so I didn’t really have a community of friends, so joining the Seattle DIY community was kind of the biggest influence of all.
Jillian: I was gonna ask, did you all grow up in Seattle?
Baylee: No, I’m the only one.
Sami: Yeah, Baylee is the only Seattle native.
Jillian: What was the Seattle DIY scene like?
Baylee: When I was younger, there was not a lot of DIY stuff because of the TD: the Teen Dance ordinance. Twenty years ago, there was a law passed that all ages shows were not legal. That’s something that our scene is still recovering from. But now I’m 23, and we have a lot of really cool DIY stuff. So, making sure that all ages stuff is included in what we do is really, really important to me. I was able to go to the School of Rock, so as far as influences musically, it was a lot of classic rock and crunch, like movie stuff. But like, I was able to kind of see my friends playing these covers, and that was always really cool, but I didn’t really get to go to shows that local bands were doing because it was either too expensive or it was at a college house show where things could be dicey.
But now we have a really awesome community around DIY stuff in Seattle. I think a lot of us older people are like, that was bullshit! There’s always been house shows and an underground punk scene, but I think that it’s a lot bigger than that now. There’s The Vera project and The Black Lodge, but there’s also just really cool houses that are setting up whole stages, like building stages in their backyard and having like, 300 to 500 people packed back there and it’s very special. There’s a very good energy around safety and making sure that everybody’s taken care of, making sure there’s no weird predatory behavior as well.
Steph: And the community does a lot of benefit shows, which is really cool to use that amount of people and energy for something really, really good. We’ve gotten to play a couple of benefits ourselves.
Sami: There’s just a lot of positivity in the DIY scene.
Jocelyn: Hey, how’s it going?
Steph: This is our merch person, Jocelyn. They also do some of our artwork.
Jillian: Oh my gosh, That’s amazing!
Jocelyn: I just came over here to tell you that he was just checking his mic and went, A one, a two. A skiddly diddly doo.
Steph: No! That’s Crazy! That’s mine! They’re stealing our stuff!
Jillian: Wait, so Jocelyn, what art have you done?
Jocelyn: If you go look at the vinyl, the painting on the back of the sleave was mine. I’ll hand you some stickers in a little bit, with a painting of my friend Emma in full Zook-age, screaming her lungs out, and there’s a t-shirt that has the catwalk single artwork, and we have some patches of that too.
Jillian: Patches! That’s wonderful. You’re all merched up. I have to say, I love face paint. The Zook-age. I was wondering where you guys got your inspiration for doing that? Is it the same every show, or do you guys mix it up?
Sami: We did this the first time when we were on tour in Chico, California and it was on a whim.
Baylee: It was our very first show out of town.
Steph: We always knew we wanted to do some cool makeup, like we had the idea to do this color blocking. We knew that we wanted to dip into doing cool face makeup.
Jillian: It’s working.
Steph: Yeah, we had the idea in our heads, and then we were like, what if we just did something with black lipstick? It took us a while to settle into the rhythm of like, the designs that we have now, and sometimes we’ll do like our full faces, like have stuff coming out of our like, the sides of our mouth and stuff. But when we do the classic design, we call it diet Zook. We’re diet Zook on this tour because we only brought two lipsticks.
Baylee: We’re not full Zooking until we get more lipsticks, but you have to order them online so it’s a bit stressful.
Jillian: You can only get them online?
Baylee: Lime Crime!
Steph: It’s the brand Lime Crime, their Velvetines lipsticks. You can only get them online.
Jillian: Oh my gosh, we’re gonna do a little shout out for them. That’s amazing.
Sami: A little product placement.
Steph: Imagine if we did have a sponsorship. Lime Crime, please.
Jillian: So is this your van?
Sami: This is the van that we are renting from our dear friend Pat who lives in Seattle. He drives for a bunch of bands like Frankie and the Witch Fingers and Monster Watch, and cool west coast bands.
Steph: He also has a really funny talk show called Guest List: Talk Show, on YouTube.
Baylee: He interviews bands, and it’s very funny. Very dry humor.
Steph: He uses green screens, and like crazy backgrounds.
Sami: Yeah, the whole interview is in front of a green screen, and then he spends hours laying out weird designs behind the bands and over-editing every single part of the subject matter. It’s really intricate.
Baylee: It’s really cool.
Steph: He did one for us too.
Jillian: This was perfect timing, because I was gonna ask if you guys had any particular shout outs you wanted to give.
Sami: We just played our album release show with two other bands from Seattle. One of them is called Anthers. They just put out their debut EP. It’s amazing. The other band is Black Ends. They just put out an LP, and they’re a legendary Seattle band. They’re incredible.
Baylee: The Guest List Black Ends episode just came out today too, so shout out. Such a cool thing about Seattle is how much media coverage we have, like there’s a lot of photographers.
Steph: There’s some really great photographers.
Baylee: There’s a lot of great photographers who just want to help and are incredibly talented. It’s crazy the difference that can make in your ability to present yourself online, so big shout out to our photographer friends. Should we names some?
Jillian: Yes!
Steph: There’s Jimmy Humphries. Luciano Ratto. Lux Lain. Brenden Fuller, younger, very young photographer. Incredibly talented. There’s so many other ones too. Rhea under @bat_roof, and Harper King, but she doesn’t live in Seattle, she lives in LA.
Baylee: We’re probably missing some.
Sami: I feel like it’s a huge part of what we’ve been able to accomplish is the support from the photographers that we have out there, because they do such an amazing job of capturing what we do live, and capturing the community around specifically the DIY shows.
Jillian: I love how involved you guys are with like, the community and like being aware of those people, because you contribute so much to their lives positively, so it’s so amazing that you can notice that on the other side, it’s really great.
Baylee: I think that it’s a body, you know? There’s not just one element that’s keeping it alive. Everybody’s working together to make it happen. You need people, like the people here, to have spaces that are safe, where you can come and have a show. You have your bands who are playing, you have your friends who are helping you out, like our friend Jocelyn, your visual artists and the photographers, and then the people who go, the people who show up to the show. The people who attend shows are like the biggest component in what makes it. There wouldn’t be shows without the people attending in the first place. The music lovers and listeners, they’re vital to the community. They’re everything.
Jillian: I love the way you put that Bailey, it being a body. That’s the perfect way to describe it. I was wondering how touring is going for you guys, if it’s been like, super challenging, or like what moments on tour have brought you together the most?
Sami: Well, I think that the music and the shows keep us going, and we were just talking about this today. We’re like siblings, you know? So, it comes with its own set of challenges, and the fact that you’re around people constantly, you’re around the same people every single day. We’re driving.
Baylee: It’s hard. We’re not eating very well because we need to save money. We don’t always know where we’re gonna be sleeping.
Sami: We’re not sleeping a whole lot.
Steph: You don’t know when you’re gonna get a shower, and we have so much laundry to do.
Baylee: None of us showered today.
Jillian: I think you all smell great.
Sami: Thank you.
Baylee: We’ve toured a lot. We started with short tours and then built up, like we toured two months total last year. But like five days, and then, you know, ten days, and then twenty days, a month, and now we decided to just take this year and plan a really long tour. So, this is like our longest tour yet, but we have a lot of experience touring with this group already, and we know each other. There’s another thing we were talking about which is like being okay with something coming up and like talking it out. Because that’s just gonna happen, you know?
Sami: Yeah, there’s always stuff that comes up, and I feel like the communication is key, and being able to talk through tour is so much just about problem solving,
Baylee: Yeah, trying to remember to look out for each other and everyone’s on the same team.
Steph: And also taking like 10 to 15 minutes to yourself when you have a minute.
Steph: That’s like a vital part of making sure you don’t definitely get too grumpy.
Sami: You know home is great. We all miss home, but also in a certain way it’s nice, because we find home with each other.
Baylee: And in all the places we get to go, people are so nice. It’s so fun to stay with people.
Jillian: Are you all staying here tonight?
Sami: We are staying at the house tonight!
Jillian: Was that your bed laid out on the floor?
Sami: That was my bed, yep!
Jillian: Oh my gosh, so I was in like your hotel room.
Steph: Another touring band is also staying here, from Miami.
Baylee: Wojtek!
Sami: It’s gonna be great. We’re gonna have a movie night.
Jillian: Are you all gonna lay on your stomachs and kick your feet and paint your nails?
Baylee: That was the plan!
Jillian: Oh my gosh. What color? This is amazing.
Steph: Oh, definitely red. Oh yes.
Jillian: I was wondering, we’ve been talking about elements of touring and conflict resolution, working together and communicating, how do you see that aspect of your relationships crossing over into making an album, as a group of three, and communicating your creative ideas together?
Baylee: We talk about this a lot too! It all feeds in the same thing. So, like our live performance, our music, it all comes from the dynamic the three of us have with each other interpersonally. Like having a good dynamic, and like respecting and loving each other and listening to each other, because we’re very collaborative, and we’ve always worked together on the songs we read.
Sami: It’s a very collaborative process, and I think that we kind of lucked out in the fact that our temperaments kind of just work together in a certain way. Some of it’s just luck like that, but it is also just working and listening, as much as you feel like sharing I guess, if that makes sense.
Jillian: Absolutely, that’s so wonderful. I think with creative projects, just creating is the most vulnerable thing you can do. So, when you have a community, or like core people that you feel really comfortable around and you feel like you can communicate with, it’s like the best feeling. I’m very glad that you guys have each other. It’s made some really excellent music. I love the album. I had a silly question. I was wondering if the album was a movie, what movie do you think it would be?
Sami: That’s a really good question. That’s interesting.
Baylee: I grew up without television. I get made fun of for not knowing this.
Sami: This sounds really weird, but I feel like Pee Wee’s Big Adventure works because that movie is so goofy on its like surface level, but also it’s got these parts that are so full of heart, and then these parts that are really spooky, and these parts that are like really emotional, and I feel like that’s our album, because like, yeah.
Baylee: There’s some goofy moments, but yeah, really real and raw.
Jillian: There’s some really gorgeous lyrics that I loved reading. I went on Bandcamp and was reading all the lyrics.
Steph: You went on the Bandcamp!
Jillian: Yes! I was so glad when I saw it there!
Steph: Lyrics on Bandcamp! Because Spotify charges you fifteen dollars a month to put your lyrics on the tracks!
Jillian: It’s so corrupt!
Steph: Yeah, they don’t pay us anything. We pay them to put our music online!
Jillian: It’s so donked. Its totally donked up.
Sami: So donked.
Jillian: Lyrics play such a huge role in music, at least for me. I loved reading all the lyrics, like really taking the time to listen and feel it all together is great, but reading what you’ve written alongside it gives it like a whole other level. There’s so much frustration, but also such a great release in so many of those songs on the album. Are you all working together when you’re writing that, or do you kind of go off and write things on your own and then bring it together?
Sami: It’s a little bit of both.
Steph: Sometimes we will sit and like the three of us will collaboratively write all the lyrics, and sometimes it’ll be like, “Oh, I have words for this part.” So, we take that and ask, “What can we sometimes edit together?” or like, “Oh, I’m struggling with this line. Let’s figure that out.” But it’s definitely a mix, and a lot of the stuff that we write about is like things that have happened to us, things we enjoy. Sometimes we’re just writing stuff to write stuff.
Baylee: “Matchstick” is like, kind of a bunch of bullshit.
Steph: But one of our very good friends said he could find meaning!
Jillian: That’s good, that’s good. I was wondering. You have a special shout out on your Bandcamp to somebody named Jimothy.
Baylee: I was hoping you would ask!
Jillian: I was itching to ask!
Baylee: Last year we went on a national tour, just the three of us. This time, we have a merch person, Jocelyn, they’re awesome. She helps us make our food, she helps us with loading in and out. We knew after last year that we really needed that, because doing it all ourselves was so exhausting.
Steph: We were going a little crazy.
Baylee: So we had created an imaginary friend.
Sami: Yeah, we created Jimothy.
Baylee: We love Jimothy!
Steph: He’s still here with us.
Sami: He’s with us, in the room.
Jillian: I feel him.
Sami: We would be done with shows, get in the van, and like Jimothy would come out, and go like, “I just wanted to say, you guys played a really good show tonight.”
Jillian: If you could characterize him, what does he look like?
Baylee: He’s a little taller and skinnier, and he’s got his ears pierced.
Sami: He just got his ears pierced.
Baylee: He started hanging out with us, and then he felt comfortable. He’s got curly hair. We also sent him up to the nice college in Bellingham. Its like an hour north, in the woods.
Sami: Yeah, we miss him when he’s gone.
Jillian: So he’ll go for a little learning retreat, and then he’ll come back to you guys.
Baylee: Yeah, we play in Bellingham a lot. He’s at all of our Bellingham shows.
Sami: Right now, he’s a college boy. He’s studying full time.
Jillian: What’s he studying? What’s his major?
Sami: Liberal Arts. Minor in Environmental Science.
Baylee: He rides a bike. He doesn’t have a car.
Jillian: He must love touring with you guys. A van. That’s much faster transport.
Baylee: That’s what he always says!
Sami: He always says that, in the back, with his bike.
Baylee: He brings his bike in the van.
Jillian: Does he ever just ride his bike behind, and hold onto the back of the van, just to tag along?
Baylee: Is he that much of a daredevil?
Steph: Nah, he rides in the back.
Baylee: He’s really quite soft spoken, he’s coming out of his shell, though.
Sami: Touring has been really good for him. He’s loved meeting all the new people.
Jillian: I feel like that’s really what punk music is all about, helping people come out of their shells, learn who they really are. Clearly, you’ve been a great influence on Jimothy. It sounds like he’s doing great.
Baylee: We now have like, probably eight or nine different characters with different lore and different voices. We’ve decided we can make a whole movie.
Jillian: You should welcome them onto your next album.
Sami: We’ve talked about writing a concept album about all of them. There’s a new one created every couple of weeks.
Baylee: I think we should talk about Paul.
Jillian: As long as you have time. Don’t you go on soon?
Sami: We got a little time.
Baylee: Okay, so we have a character, my favorite character, his name’s Paul. He’s like a middle aged dad. He’s been out of his kids life for like, a while probably. I don’t know.
Jillian: Does Paul have a mustache?
Baylee: I feel like he’s more clean shaven. He goes to his daughter’s punk shows, and he’s very uncomfortable, but he’s trying to support his kids.
Sami: You ever see like, an out of place parent at a punk show?
Jillian: Oh yes. My best friend’s dad. Every single one of her shows.
Sami (in a gruff voice): What time does the show start? Nine o’clock, and you guys play at 11. And your Mom knows? Your Mom knows about all of this?
Jillian: So you’re doing a perfect impression of my best friend’s dad right now. Like the most Ned Flanders man you’ve ever seen.
Sami: That’s Paul!
Jillian: So you have Jimothy, you have Paul—
Baylee: Karyl.
Sami (in a coarse, over-smoked New York accent): You’re such a sweetheart, oh, we got a—we got a guest room for you. I feel like Karyl is in upstate New York and like, is like somebody’s aunt. Her walls smell like cigarettes. Wallpapers peeling.
Steph: She regularly gets perms. She’s the only woman that goes to her salon and stuff.
Jillian: I’m in love with this.
Sami (in the Karyl accent, again): You want some soup? I put some soup on the stove for ya.
Jillian: This all reminds me of my Great Aunt.
Sami: She’s everybody’s aunt.
Baylee: Always has a glass of red wine.
Jillian: That’s good. That’s really good.
Baylee: Spelled K-A-R-Y-L, and then we have one more character I think we should bring up who’s this like, this older, kind of British guy who’s like a sound engineer. Nigel. He talks all about the drums in this room.
Sami (in a very slimy, British accent): I appreciate the way the drums sound in this room. See, I’m a bit of a drummer myself, and I always listen to the drums first, and I love when drummers tune for the room. I can tell you’ve got a good ear on you. I listen to a lot of albums. The drums sound fantastic.
Baylee: He really likes the way the drums sound.
Jillian: My God, I feel like Nigel just took over your body.
(At this point a friend of mine walked up and joined the conversation, only to realize it was an interview, and profusely apologized.)
Sami: It’s all right!
Jillian: This is a community. A loyal listener.
Friend: Iowa City World City!
Sami: I like that!
Jillian: Oh yeah, that’s the slogan for Iowa City’s scene. Iowa City World City. Probably even going to be chanted here tonight. There’s a longer story where one of our directors at KRUI went to a show in Chicago and mentioned it to somebody that they were from Iowa City, and this drunk man nearby was just like, “Iowa City World City!” and from there it’s been sticking around.
Sami: I like that.
Steph: Yeah, that’s fun.
Jillian: It is, it’s definitely stuck with me. I mean, I transferred here this year, and I feel very prideful in Iowa City World City. It’s awesome. It’s been wonderful.
Sami: I can see why.
Jillian: Yeah well, I want to give you guys enough time to really get in your groove. Do your vocal warm ups, do the beans and toast chants. But yeah. Wow. I love you guys so much. I’m so excited. So so excited. Thank you so much.
Baylee: Is there any song you want to hear tonight?
Jillian: Waterparks. Definitely.
From there, the three escaped my long trap of an interview and ventured into the basement to warm up. The air that night was alive with a sense of energy. People were cooling off from the last show, sweaty from moshing to Wojtek. There was laughter. It was someone’s birthday. The owner of the house brought out a giant platter of orange slices, and everybody sang, even if they had no idea who was turning a year older.
Waiting in the backyard with the rest of the people in the scene, I felt a sense of community that was unlike anything I had experienced back home in California. People ate orange slices and introduced themselves around a fire and a bunch of hanging lights. There were loud outbursts of laughter, greetings that boomed over the chatter of the gathering and split crowds to allow for embrace. The summer was coming to an end, but there were many more shows to follow.
When Zookraught played, the energy of the crowd was like a long awaited explosion. They earned their title of dance punk. Restless bodies thrashed around the music as it vibrated through the foundation of the house. When I left later that night, the band was getting ready for bed, changing into pajamas, washing off face paint, settling in the living room for what I assume would be a long night of movies alongside the hosts of the show and the band members of Wojtek.
Sketches by Jillian Abreu
