The Chicago band Knuckle Puck got its start in the early 2010s playing covers around the suburbs. But over the last decade, the five-piece has built a cult following with their mix of emo, pop-punk and hardcore.
The band’s debut album, “Copacetic,” turns 10 this year, and the group is playing Riot Fest this weekend in celebration with an album-play performance. The record found early success and was lauded by audiences for breathing new life into pop-punk.
“We’re just grateful that it’s really clicked with people after all this time,” lead guitarist Kevin Maida told WBEZ.
Maida, along with lead vocalist Joe Taylor, stopped by the WBEZ studio to chat with morning anchor Clare Lane ahead of the group’s Riot Fest performance on Saturday.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
You guys formed in 2010 kind of right when emo and pop-punk acts were fading from the commercial airwaves. What drew you both to the genre?
Kevin Maida: Blink-182. You know, those [legendary] bands. And I think at least for me, I just wanted to be in a band that, locally, played a really good show. I never thought we would go out of state. I just wanted to play where we grew up,
Joe Taylor: The bands but also the shows. That’s something that I gravitated towards– just the energy at the pop-punk shows. Even if the genre seemed like it was in a lull, to us it didn’t.
Maida: I think also where we grew up, there just weren’t a lot of bands that had the same kind of grit that we were looking for, or the same pace. So we were like, well, let’s start a band.
What was the scene like [in the south suburbs] when you guys were growing up?
Maida: I remember it being mostly like, more on the poppier side, which is what I mean by like, lack of grit. There’s nothing wrong with it, but we just weren’t feeling it, we just wanted to hear fast songs, upbeats, a bit more aggression.
Knuckle Puck came onto the scene at a time too, when people were saying emo is dead. How do you feel about the state of the scene today?
Maida: You can see it in how widespread popular it is, and just how big those shows have gotten as well, even with like American Football, playing these massive shows now. I think at the time when we started the band, it didn’t really feel like, Oh, we gotta save [the genre], it was just playing music with friends that you weren’t hearing at the time, you know?
Taylor: I never thought that we were like an emo band. So when people started saying that, I mean, I’ll gladly accept it. But does any genre of music ever really die? I feel like I just heard a new band that sounds like Limp Bizkit, you know? So does it ever really die? Do we need to save it? No.
“Copacetic” is turning 10. How has the project aged for you?
Maida: I think it’s aged beautifully. We’ve been hearing it by playing the record a bunch this year, and I’m still super proud of those songs in that record. At the time, it just kind of felt like we were just recording the same thing we always do. We’re just really grateful it really clicked with a lot of people after all this time.
Taylor: It’s crazy that so much time has passed for real, it’s wild, it’s been such a long time. At the time I was 21, 22 and I couldn’t even imagine myself being 32 years old, you know?
Maida: I guess I always envisioned myself to look different, like I thought we’d be half balding and stuff, and like we have all these guts and bellies and gray hair if we have hair, but I think it’s aged super well, and I think we’re all still very proud of those songs.
How would you describe your music today in comparison to when you guys recorded “Copacetic”?
Taylor: I feel like everybody’s a little bit more involved. In the beginning, it was mainly me and Nick [Casasanto] writing songs and bringing them to the group. That’s largely what “Copacetic” is. Then with each album and each time we got together, there was more and more input from everybody. A lot of that in the beginning, too, was that we just didn’t have time to have everybody’s input. It was just kind of like, “These are the songs and we have to record them.”
You’re going to be performing at Riot Fest this weekend. Back in 2017, a young woman complained that she was injured by crowd surfers during one of your sets. Do you approach your performances any differently at all now, or is that just sort of a part of the scene?
Maida: No, there’s security there and there’s a barricade, especially a large festival, and we, of course, don’t want anyone to get hurt, but we also want everyone to be safe. But also, if you’re not feeling comfortable in the crowd and you feel like it’s too much for you, there’s no shame or judgment in wanting to step back and just watch. The last time I stage dove, I thought I broke my nose, and I was like, “Maybe I just chill for now on.” There’s a risk involved, of course, but we always want everyone to be safe.
We’ve been talking a lot about the past decade for you. What’s next on the docket for Knuckle Puck?
Taylor: We have a Japan tour coming up. We have some exciting stuff for next spring that we can’t talk about yet. I’m sure we’ll fall back into working on some music. And 2027 is coming up, which is like the 10 year [anniversary] for “Shapeshifter.” We did a remix remaster of “Copacetic,” so we’ve talked about doing a similar treatment for “Shapeshifter.”
Maida: This year, at least for me, it’s kind of felt good just living in the moment instead of thinking “OK, what next? What next? What next? We gotta keep working on this.” It just feels like this is the first year in a long time where we’re able to step back and enjoy the fruits of our labor and just enjoy playing these shows. I don’t have to worry about anything else or prove anything else right now.
Clare Lane is WBEZ’s All Things Considered host. Haley Blomquist is a WBEZ producer. Camila Trimberger-Ruiz is an intern on the WBEZ Arts & Culture Desk.