How did you become involved in the local music scene? It was 2010 and I was a freshman in high school. I was already listening to a lot of metal and adjacent stuff but wasn’t aware of local shows or anything like that. There was one day in between classes that a kid (who was a senior at the time) came up to me and was like “Hey, you play guitar right? Wanna fill in for my band?” So I learned their set in like 4 days and played my first local show that weekend at this place called the Logemann center in Mequon. This was the first time I was surrounded by a bunch of people that liked the same music that I did and I was just like “Where the hell has this been my entire life?” I ended up joining that band, and from that point forward I went to as many shows as I possibly could.
INTERVIEW WITH
What inspired you to take on the role of hosting shows?
JJ KAISER
This whole thing was an accident. When I was starting my old band erase//evolve, we were trying to book our own first show with a bunch of our friends. At this point there were not a lot of DIY spaces that were accessible to us. The Cocoon Room had just closed, and The Borg Ward was back and forth on the idea of having heavy shows. My bandmates and I made a list of a bunch of VFW halls and community centers in the area and spent a day driving around to talk to the owners to see if there was anyone interested in hosting our show. Every single one told us (nicely) to fuck off. My basement was the last resort, but it was the only option that we had. I hosted my first show there in January 2016 and it (for the most part) went okay. About a month after that, the Borg Ward closed permanently and for a few years we were without a consistent spot to run all ages shows. Things kept getting moved to the basement, and as a result I started meeting and booking a lot of bands. Things just snowballed from there. I realized that I wasn’t half bad at doing this, and I accidentally became a promoter.
Conducted by Jennavieve Growel
Photo by Chris Wilson