Sargent Pitviper to perform at KEPW punk extravaganza June 14

Presenter: Four punk bands will perform Saturday, June 14 at Growers Market, 454 Willamette. From Sargent Pitviper, Amy Stetson:

Amy Stetson (Sargent Pitviper): I would say the first band that I really got into was The Adolescents and for me, that really felt empowering ’cause I always liked angry different things.

[00:00:31] Amy Stetson: You know, I liked the thought of being aggressive and not exactly what everybody pictures is like a girl, because my family is very like, you need to look a certain way. And I just don’t fit that and they’ve kind of accepted that.

[00:00:44] So I think to finally hear something that kind of validated how I was feeling with music like in that immediately, like, once I heard punk music, I picked up a guitar within, like, a month. Because I was just like, ‘Yeah, no, I want to be part of this.’

[00:00:58] And I’m really excited to have gotten as far as I’ve gotten, I think, ’cause like how many like 16-year-olds have been organizing their own shows and things like that.

[00:01:24] Amy Stetson: I’m in a punk band in Eugene called Sargent Pitviper. A lot of my friends are in local bands. Because of my band, I hang around a lot of local musicians and I always go to see my friends play as well as other bands I’ve never seen.

[00:01:39] There’s a new band we’re playing with called Narcissist and they’re a little bit younger. I might end up getting to know them a bit, but I just, I go almost, at least once a week, I’ll go see a show. And I already have band practice three times a week, so I talk to a lot of local musicians.

[00:01:58] We have an EP out on Spotify, YouTube music, Apple Music, and then we have an album we’re currently recording.

[00:02:05] I want to make a really big impact even at my age, like, throughout my whole lifetime. And I think punk is something that I can make an impact with that’s accessible to people that don’t exactly fit into, you know, what everybody wants.

[00:02:22] But, yeah, I’ve kind of been called, just, ‘angry.’ Like, everybody’s thought I was angry or, like, mean. And, you know, obviously, punks don’t think that of me. So, I think, having an outlet, like, I can just play guitar to calm myself down. I’ve learned to manage my emotions a little bit better. Especially with having like bandmates. God, you got to learn when to stay quiet with that (laughing).

[00:02:51] So, like, I think my band has taught me a lot of adult things because I started, I was 14 years old, I wasn’t even 15 when I joined my band. So it was like learning to do something that adults do, you know? I was treated fairly in the punk community, like I was an adult—even though I wasn’t.

[00:03:07] But I was treated like: You got to set up and get paid and stuff. It was my first job and I think managing emotion with that, it gave me a lot of maturity and that was, it was easier to manage my emotions, being a lot more mature, through punk.

[00:03:23] So, funny story: So, I’m a lot younger than the rest of my band. So I’m 16. My bandmates are—one of them is going to be 19 in a month—so I am a little bit younger. But I was a freshman last year and I ended up not liking one of my bandmates. I just didn’t like him. And I didn’t even know if he was, like, he played music or anything like that, but I just kind of thought he was rude or, like, overly confident.

[00:03:49] And then one time we got to talking about music and we realized we had a lot in common. And then he was, like, ‘My band practices at the school every Friday, do you want to come in because we’re looking for guitars?’ And like, at first I said ‘No,’ because I was like, ‘No, like, I don’t like you,’ but he asked again, I ended up saying yes.

[00:04:07] And then, I was about the only guitarist in the squad. I really sucked, but like, there’s nobody else. So I got on there, I got a lot better playing with them all the time. And we’ve been a band for coming up like about a year and a half.  But my bandmates now, I just came here from band practice actually, so I have my bassist Ocean, she’s been one of my friends for years, and then I have my singer Mish, they’re super cool, a lot older, and then Kaden, who’s 18. He’s the one I didn’t like.

[00:04:43] We play places like Blair Alley, Washington Jefferson Park, Wandering Goat, Ghost Town Outfitters. So a lot of different places. We’re also starting to play in Portland.

[00:04:55] I go to punk shows in Portland and Eugene. And Portland, I would say the crowd is a little bit more classic punk, like the idea of punk. Here it’s like you’ll get more people that aren’t necessarily punk but other cultures and stuff. And something unique to Eugene is you don’t really see non-punk people wanting to get into punk shows really anywhere else but like hippie towns like Eugene, you know.

[00:05:22] Portland punks generally like faster-paced stuff; Eugene you can do a little bit more, you can do covers and things like that. But Portland, we really try to bring it, because it’s such a bigger audience, so like doing only things we’re confident in in Portland as well.

[00:05:40] Presenter: That’s Amy Stetson from the Eugene punk band Sargent Pitviper. They’ll be performing at what’s being called a punk extravaganza Saturday night, 7 p.m., at the Growers Market at 454 Willamette.