I was sitting in the crowded Gardens with three of the four members of the local Laramie band, PERKS, while they exchanged jokes over a couple of beers. PERKS is one of the very few pop punk groups known in town, which got me thinking about their role in the music scene in Laramie. So, I sat down with three of the members to talk music, and in between the many Blink-182 references and laughs, I was able to get some answers to my questions.
(1) What is the music scene in Laramie like?
CONNOR NOVOTNY: It’s good. I never thought that I could be in a place in Wyoming where you can go to music pretty much like five nights a week. That’s like crazy.
WILL SAFFEL: It’s better than it was last year. It’s gotten a lot better.
NOVOTNY: It’s big enough that people like PERKS, you know? There’s a niche for us in this town, which is pretty cool.
(2) Based off what I’ve experienced, there’s not a whole lot of pop punk in Laramie, what’s that like being a band with a rare genre here?
SAFFEL: It’s hard for me to say how the audience feels when we’re playing, but yeah, they’re usually pretty stoked. Or at least it seems that way. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it has more to do with being lighter hearted. We don’t really touch on serious topics.
NOVOTNY: It doesn’t get too dark in the world of PERKS.
RHANDEN LIND: Our problems are pretty solvable.
NOVOTNY: I think what I’ve noticed, and I’m probably the last member to get into pop punk or punk at all, but I think that people who are into heavier stuff usually got into it through being into pop punk.
SAFFEL: Sometimes it’s goofy to play shows with a bunch of really hardcore bands.
(3) How do you think being in a college town affects your band, if at all?
LIND: I think it definitely affects the music scene. Anything that happens in Laramie can’t happen without it being affected by what happens at school. I think there’s a relation, but…
SAFFEL: But, a lot of the people that come to our shows are not students.
LIND: Yeah, I feel like there’s delineation between college life and Laramie life.
(4) What did you like about performing on campus? Was it different from your other shows?
NOVOTNY: It’s fun to have money to make it sound cool.
LIND: Yeah, the sound is always better, and we did get paid. [Laughs]
SAFFEL: That was the first time in, I don’t know how long.
NOVOTNY: That’s why the university is good to support local bands, because it is hard being in a band and not getting paid.
LIND: I will say StudioWYO does good work at trying to bridge the gap that we were talking about earlier.
(5) What’s some advice you would give to a band that is just starting out in town?
NOVOTNY: Never say no to a show.
SAFFEL: Try to make friends with the people who organize stuff. Luckily, we were already friends with them. There are a lot of shows that happen, so it is definitely doable.
LIND: Good news about the people that books shows is that they’re all pretty friendly. They like helping people out. Talk to people in bands and figure out how they do it.
PERKS will be performing at Hero Depot downtown this Saturday at 8 p.m.
You can find a video of PERKS performing and answering more questions online at uwbrandingiron.com.
The band Perks.
