Interviews: Celebrating 4 years of Ska Punk International with Chris Reeves

On October 30, 2020 Chris Reeves (aka Cool Chris) released the first episode of the Ska Punk International podcast with the goal of shining a light on the amazing ska and punk music that exists all over the world. He dipped his toes into releasing records in 2021 with the benefit comp Songs For Moms and hasn’t stopped since. Now, with 35 artists on the roster and over 40 releases (including albums, EPs, splits, comps, reissues, and singles), SPI has grown into a global powerhouse, putting out records from bands all across the globe and building an outstanding community around the label while doing so. You can feel the incredible amount of heart that Chris and his team pour into each thing they do, whether that’s releasing records, throwing the annual SPI Fest, putting together benefit comps and merch drops, or interacting with fans both on and offline. It is clear that Ska Punk International will continue to put out music they believe in and expand their community for many, many years to come.
Punknews editor Em Moore caught up with Chris to reflect on four years of SPI, talk about what goes into getting music ready to release, discuss the importance of building community, and so much more. Read the interview below!

This interview between Em Moore and Chris Reeves took place over Zoom on October 22, 2024. What follows is a transcription of their conversation and has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Photo Credit: Carly Reeves

This month marks 4 years of Ska Punk International, which you originally began as a podcast during the early days of the pandemic. How do you feel you’ve grown as a label and as a person during this time?

That’s a big question. As a label, it’s pretty clear because I was interviewing some bands and people I looked up to and now I’m releasing stuff with them. I’m actually a part of their process and helping them grow their music and their shows and all that. As a person, that’s a bigger question. A couple years leading up to 2020 I was looking for a new thing to do that would make me more happy. My mom passed in 2016. I was running a business with my wife and we were both pretty unhappy. It was an advertising agency and it was doing well. We’re both creative people and when you start something like that you end up not doing any fun stuff. You’re only pitching stuff and doing budgets and doing payroll and that sucks. Also, to keep the lights on you end up doing deals with people that suck and you’re actively aware like, “Wow, this person is the worst. I can’t believe I have to take money from them just to keep people I care about paid”. You do what you gotta do but it really wears on you.
We got an opportunity to not do that anymore so we took that. My wife took more of a corporate job and I started doing freelance work like podcast editing, HTML marketing, email stuff, and just random things from contacts I had. I was still not super happy. I did really enjoy doing podcast editing and production but there was something missing a little bit. When things slowed down, most of my podcast work stopped and my wife was like, “Stop talking to me about all these songs that I don’t care about” because she’s not that into ska-punk. She’s fully supportive of the people who make it and of me, but our music tastes don’t cross there. [laughs] We cross on other stuff. She was like, “Find someone else to talk about it with” so I was like, “I’ll start recording some stuff. I’ll put it out into the ether and see what happens” and things have gone from there.
I personally am feeling much more happy and fulfilled as a person. Obviously, I am stressed out about stuff. There’s always things that can go wrong, it’s a small business, that’s the thing. I still barely pay myself. But a lot of great stuff has happened. The label started as a podcast that I didn’t expect to make any money from, so I still have the same mindset. It’s clear that most of this is because I like doing it, it’s fun, and it makes me happy. I like getting to know the people that I’m working with; we become close, we become friends, and I like to watch them grow. Many times I’ve been watching sets from people on the label and I can’t help tearing up and crying because I’m seeing them play a bigger show than they’ve played before and I’m so proud of them. I’ve never really done anything like that with my life, so I think overall I’m a happier, more grounded person thanks to all of this.
It’s hard for me to not be the kind of person who is focused on the things that need to be better but I do look back like, “Wow, now this is part of it and now we do this!” I can list 11 different people or bands that are involved who are doing so much more stuff than they were before we connected. It’s hard to not feel like, “We’re doing some stuff right!” They’re all proud of themselves and that’s really what I want. They’re definitely showing me how to be better and that’s good. I wake up every day and I have messages from so many different people which is incredible. For years I was the kind of person who had 3 close friends and now I have 30. It’s very cool. I love it.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned about running a label so far?

I mean, most of it sucks. [laughs] I idolized Asian Man Records growing up and labels in other scenes too, like I always thought Stones Throw was very cool for hip hop. I was the kind of person who would always watch what different labels were putting out and if they had a new thing out, I would buy it. I’ve always been the kind of person who would trust the label. I always thought it would be cool if there was a way to do that which is why when the podcast started working, it was pretty clear that I was going to try that. But having spent so many years thinking how cool that would be, you realize pretty quick that most of it sucks. [laughs] There’s a reason that some will pop up and then they’ll disappear. It’s called work for a reason, it’s a lot. You’ll announce a thing and be like, “This is great!” and then you realize, “Oh no, I have to ship all that. Oh shit! That means I have to ship 150 things”. [laughs] But again, the overall thing makes me happy so I’m not really complaining.
A lot of people will tell you that I suffer from success a lot. There will be a new thing all the time like, “Oh my god, why is this a new rule??” Recently one of the things we use for credit card transactions on our website put a hold on our account because we sold too much stuff. We needed to figure out a secondary way for people to order stuff because things were happening. We were also working on getting the company to release the hold and tell them, “This isn’t fraud!” The message we got was literally, “You have an increased sales activity. We’re putting a fraud marker on this account”. Like, “Oh sorry, I’m doing better at my job!” It happened in September and it took until late October for that to be cleared up. Things like that happen constantly. I don’t know what else to do other than, “Here’s a new thing I have to figure out”. [laughs]
There’s so much of it that sucks and that’s what you realize really quickly. It sounds like it’s gonna be so much fun - and there is so much fun stuff. When family or people from my wife’s work ask me what I’m doing I tell them, “I do some freelance marketing stuff but I also run a label”. They’re like, “What!?” and they look at you like you’re crazy. They’re usually like, “That must be so much fun!” and it is! But I’m also on the computer a lot. I’m hunched over doing shipping a lot. It’s a lot of work. You have to be like 10 different people. Fortunately, people from the label have been so willing to step up and be part of helping. There’s no way I would survive without some of them who have been willing to do that.

You love ska, you love punk, and you’ve been listening to these genres since you were 14. How do you feel these scenes have changed during the time you’ve been interacting with them?

A lot. I remember going to my first shows when I was 15 as very different from the kind of shows I’m going to now. There are still some like that, but for the most part, the shows now are a lot more inclusive and feel a lot safer. I definitely shouldn’t have been going to some of the stuff I was going to when I was 15 or 16. Those shows were rough. Going down into the pits you would get your ass kicked, people were just throwing punches and getting mean in there. My very first show was seeing Mephiskapheles and Buck-O-Nine. I definitely got hit in the face and had bruises on my arms at a Mephiskapheles show. That’s insane! [laughs] I was like, “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever been to, I need to do this again very soon. This is what I am now”. It’s not what it’s like now. It’s so much more inclusive and it feels like everyone takes care of each other way more. That wasn’t really a thing, even in the 2000s. It’s so much better now.
I think that - except for a few bands - most weren’t really speaking up about anything and now that’s almost across the board. Not just in songs but in between songs bands will speak up about different things that are going on. I think that’s much more important and keeps everyone in the scene more aware. A safe space is very, very important but it's one thing if you’re safe and only having fun, and it's another thing to keep everyone informed about stuff that’s going on so they can question more about the world. That's very important too. It’s like a complete change from how shows were when I was 15, 16, 17. I consider our stuff more of a punk rock label than a ska label. Straight-up ska shows or straight-up punk shows anywhere across the board are just overall better.

One of my first shows was PUP and they talked about some things that were going on at the time and since then I've been noticing it more ad more. There’s been moments where I’ve been like, “Oh, I didn’t know this was going on”.

I love that! I think the third or fourth show I went to was the Ska Against Racism tour that Mike Park put on. I was 15 or 16, it was right around the time of my birthday, and I remember my dad drove us. It was in ‘98 if I remember right. I remember being too young to even really think a ton about racism other than in history class, just being young and stupid about it. But then having a whole roster of bands talking about it and there was a whole table of info about things that were happening. I was like, “Woah, this is crazy!” That’s always been a thing but I didn’t really see that again at another show for 20 years or something. That stopped being a thing for a while.
It’s way more common now to have Punk Rock Saves Lives or another cause at a show. We’ll do that too. I just love that it’s way more common now. I think that and the safer spaces go hand in hand. It’s hard not to think about that coming into election season. I think it’s very important for the scene to be thinking about keeping everyone more informed so they can critically decide what’s important to them.

Do you feel that US bands do that more or international bands do that more or is it universal?

I felt like it was probably more of a US thing but I was lucky enough to go to the UK with Hans Gruber and the Die Hards earlier in the year and I saw they’re doing it as much, if not more, at shows there. At Manchester Punk Festival there was tons of literature about everything going on over there and that was pretty cool. I think it’s more of a universal thing, having been fortunate enough to see it. I don’t think it’s just a US thing. Bands from other places will be talking about their specific political issues.
My wife and I went to Japan in 2019 for our 5-year anniversary and we went to a show there. We got to see Oreskaband and the Autocratics and some other bands and there was some literature stuff there. It was in Japanese, so I didn’t know what it was talking about, but there was definitely tabling that wasn’t just merch. I didn’t really fully put that together because it was a little rushed that day. We barely found the place and it was so overwhelming to be at a show in another country. When I started seeing the similar way it was happening in the UK, I flashed back and it was kinda like in Ratatouille when he flashes back and connects all of that shit when he eats the food. [laughs] I was like, “OH, I get it now!! Sick, that’s cool!”

You’ve also played in punk and ska bands and you’ve DJed. How do you feel these experiences have helped you with running the label?

It’s a weird thing and I think about it a lot. It helps that I understand “musician speak”, I think. I’m not really doing much of that now, I don’t feel like I have a lot of time. I still goof around with songs or beats a bit but nothing very serious or anything. Occasionally I’ll DJ things, I did Michi and Diglo of Mega Infinity’s wedding a few years ago. I will see people being like, “So and so is so great at doing these things because they’re in a band and they get it”. I think it’s important that I’ve done that and some of the bands I’ve been part of have been out of town, have gone on mini-tours, and played in other states. I kinda get how that works but I did it a while ago. I also DJed in other places. I’ve gone to other cities and gone on little tours by myself in the car with my turntables.
I’ve done those things but because I’m not actively doing it, I feel like I can see more of a perspective of how everything works in the bigger picture. A lot of musicians have tunnel vision focusing on this show or this tour or this thing and they’re not seeing the whole picture. I think I’m outside of it enough that I can help them see more of that big picture. Like, “I get that you’re worried about your load-in. I get what you’re worried about but let’s also look at everything. Let’s look at how your show the night before ends at 10 so you have more than enough time to get to the next spot for this time. It’s gonna be fine” or “I know you spent a long time on the release but we have this set up and this set up. It’s gonna be fine. There’s a whole strategy, there’s a whole plan, and it’s gonna be fine”. I think that I can see and understand and be empathic to things that they’re thinking about or worried about but I can see outside of it and how to help in a way that maybe not everyone can.
I know that my experience with working at an advertising agency and previously running another small business is a little bit different compared to many people in the scene and some of the growth we’ve seen is due to that. I’ve already dealt with a number of different problems that might come up. I think that combined with some of my experience in, and love for, the scene is what’s unique to me and why I’ve become close with so many of the bands so quickly. I can understand what they’re talking about and what they're dealing with. They don’t have to do the usual shit where people come up to them and are like, “Nice set bro” and maybe they didn’t watch their set. [laughs]

It’s always a learning experience. If you don’t know something, you’re gonna figure it out.

Yeah for sure. You always keep learning and that’s the main thing. I’m not perfect, I’m always just waking up every day to try to figure out how to do things better. No one is perfect. Everyone should be trying to work on themselves and what they’re doing to do it better. We talk about that kind of stuff a lot.

What helps keep you on that self-improvement path?

My schedule can be really crazy because I’m not only doing the label, I’m working two other jobs, so really I have three jobs. Organizing the schedule can be really hectic but on days where I only have to do the label or only one of the jobs, it’s important that I do things that aren’t any of that. Just leave my phone in another room, watch some garbage on TV, play video games for like 3 hours, read, go on walks, and just disconnect. I think that’s really helpful. I’m not great about it, to be honest, but I know that I won’t wake up and feel like I wanna be a better person if I don’t take care of myself in some way.
I love to eat like shit and do things that aren’t great for me but I’m not as young as I used to be so I’ll wake up and feel like garbage but, as I mentioned earlier, luckily I have many close friends now and many of them will check on me pretty often like, “Good morning, how are you feeling today?” I’ll get 3 or 4 texts like that every day and it’s nice to be able to be like, “How am I feeling? Why do I feel bad? Why does my back hurt?” before responding. Then I’ll be like, “Well, this is what I’ll do, I’ll stretch and I’ll go on a walk and eat some breakfast before I get to work”. That’s a long way of saying I try to somewhat take care of myself. I have a routine and within that are things like eating a little bit better, taking vitamins, and that type of shit. I think that keeps me out of the loop of feeling bad.
Everyone, except for my wife, does not live where I live and so it can be easy to get into a doom spiral to be like, “None of my friends are here and I’m doing a lot of this shit by myself. Everyone that’s helping me is somewhere else”. It can be really easy to feel bad about stuff like that but generally, I don’t because I’m making sure my mind is in good shape for the most part. I think that helps me feel right about saying, “Alright, what can I do better today?” I think if I felt like I hated myself or whatever I wouldn’t even do that. Of course that’s happened, but I’m doing my best.

Trying not to burn the candle at both ends.

Yeah, that for sure happens with 5-6 days in a row of 12, 13, 14-hour days. One foot in front of the other and trust that everyone you’re putting your trust in will also be there for you and it’ll be fine.

You have 35 artists currently on the roster.

Do I?? [laughs] I know there’s a lot.

You’re almost at 40!

Almost at 40, damn.

So far this year you’ve released 9 things including Eevie Echoes and the Locations’ debut album, a reissue of Ripe by Skavoovie and the Epitones, and a split between Hans Gruber and The Sensations. What goes into getting an album, an EP, or a reissue ready for release?

They’re all different. Some things are the same, but most of them are pretty different. The Sensations and Hans Gruber split was in the making for a year and a half. Hans Gruber and the Die Hards are always coming to me with wild ideas and they had an idea for a split. Going to the UK earlier was part of it, but they’re really focused on getting into different countries and other markets and want to keep expanding. They were coming to me with ideas about how to work on that and there were a few different ideas for Japan but I was like, “I think the split is the one we can most likely make happen”. I had played the Sensations and a couple other bands from Japan on the podcast and had messaged them online a bit so I knew them and Hiroki from I Hate Smoke Records a little bit. We sent an email like, “Hey, what do you think about this idea?” and within a few hours we got back, “Great idea! I’m a huge fan, let’s do it!”
That was a long time ago. [laughs] It took a really long time going back and forth with emails and with both bands writing and recording their songs. It’s a very bizarre thing to be so excited about something for that long. A lot of days I would be like, “Yeah, I have to go to the grocery store and this sucks but oh my god, we’re doing something with the Sensations in 6 months!! Woah! Ok, I’m gonna go do this thing that sucks and it’s gonna be fine”. Really what went into that was a lot of patience and a lot of emails. Our email chain had like 80 emails in it, it was a lot. There was never any confusion or anything, it was mostly us going back and forth like, “Hey, what do you think about this? We have this demo! We have this demo!” and figuring out the names, figuring out the credits, and figuring out the art.

For an album release, there’s not a lot of me being involved in those things. If I’m already familiar with the band or friends with them or they’re on the label, they’ll text me like, “Hey, we have this thing that we’re working on” or “We’re going into the studio” or “Here are some demos”. I’ll be like, “This is great! What do you need help with?” Then they’re always like, “Nothing. We’ll let you know how it’s going!” So I just get updates. That was kind of the same thing with Stuck Lucky. I had met them before and we got to know each other and decided, “Let’s do this together. This is a perfect fit!” I got updates until they were done and then it was like, “Ok, let’s plan when we’re gonna do this based on everything else that’s going on. Let’s figure out a schedule”. They came up with all those promo videos and the phone number and stuff we did. That was all them and me being like, “That sounds fun as hell, let’s definitely do that!” You put vinyl in production and just kinda go, basically. I’m not really that involved in album stuff, they’ll just get it done and send it to me and we’ll figure out a plan together.

With the reissues it becomes a different thing. For bands overall, I usually have a list of things I’m interested in because, as you listed, we do have quite a few artists so I try to be more conscious of bringing stuff on because the artists I bring on will want to do stuff and doing stuff costs money. I keep a list of who I’m watching and what I’m interested in doing if the opportunity comes up, including a list of reissues that I would be interested in. I don’t think of us as a reissue label but I’m also a fan of quite a few things and, as I stated before, I’m doing this for fun so I would be really dumb not to do some things that are on my list. Ripe by Skavoovie is an album I’ve always loved. We’re not really known for that kind of sound on our label but they’re such a weird band compared to other bands that aren’t punky ska bands. Their songwriting is so weird and interesting. When I was 16-17 I wore that CD out. I had to buy it a second time because it just stopped working. I got so many scratches on it from putting it in and out of my CD player in my car so often. That was on my list and it came up organically.
Ansis, their singer, introduced himself a few years ago when he joined a ska Facebook group I was in and was like, “Hey, I’m the singer of Skavoovie. I do illustrations and stuff. Excited to be here!” I responded in a comment on that post, “I love your band! ‘Japanese Robot’ is one of my favourite songs of all time!” This was in 2015 or 2016. Later that day I got a DM from him and he was like, “Don’t share this with anyone” and sent me a .WAV file of a live version of “Japanese Robot” from ‘98 or some shit. I was like, “Woah!!!” We would talk occasionally since then and occasionally I’d be like, “What do you think of this band?” When they were announced for Supernova I saw multiple people in the comments being like, “Woah! Will Ripe ever be on streaming? Will Ripe be on vinyl?” within minutes of the announcement. I was like, “Wait a minute!” So I messaged him like, “Hey man, you know I’ve always loved that album! I would love to help you do that if you want to!” He got back to me pretty quick like, “I’ll double-check with the band but that seems like it would be pretty fun!”
Then, after that, you figure out the intricacies of the business side of it like percentages and stuff. There was a lot of back and forth over email about figuring out new versions of the art and how we’re going to make stuff special. They had to track down the masters too because it had been a long time with that one. That took a while, it was 10-11 months.

Really each album has its own distinct stuff but the splits and reissues are quite a different beast. That goes back to when you asked me what I’ve learned, I would not have imagined how many damn emails are involved in this. There are so many emails or DMs. That’s most of your time. Of course, I listen to music, but it’s while I’m packing records or responding to emails. I literally did it yesterday, I was listening to demos and mixes while I was doing other stuff. That’s the only way to get it done.

You have a spot on your website that gives people information if they want to submit a demo to the label. Do you have an artist or a band that you’ve discovered this way that’s made you go, “Woah!”?

Yeah, a lot of them! A lot of our artists have come from recommendations of others that I already trust. If Kurt and Rosie from Hans Gruber are like, “You’ve gotta hear this band!” that is something I’m going to listen to. With Runaway Ricochet, for example, I met Saxton at the first SPI Fest. They drove down for that and ended up crashing with me and Michi and Diglo from Mega Infinity at Kurt and Rosie’s house. We were all one happy family on the floor, very wholesome. [laughs] I met them there and I’d heard a few songs they had online because Kayleigh from Kmoy had told me about the harmonies the band was doing. They were on the list that I mentioned earlier, but we hadn’t really talked about doing anything. Then they went on a tour last year on the East Coast and they hit basically the entire SPI Circle of Trust. It was like every day for a week I was getting texts or videos of them live. Aaron from PWRUP sent me stuff, Michi and Diglo sent me stuff, and Kayleigh called me and put her phone in her pocket while the set was happening so I could hear stuff. They all were like, “You gotta hear this band! Their new stuff is bonkers!” That happened organically.

The first one that I can remember where that happened over email was with Lumpy. I try my best to listen to every single thing like that that comes in but especially back then when I had a little bit more time to watch my email. I got a cold email from Lumpy kinda late at night and I was sitting here writing stuff so I listened immediately and was like, “Holy shit!! This is crazy!” I hadn’t really heard anything like that before. That’s the first one I remember that kind of happening with and that was in 2022. As far as someone who I didn’t know who they were or anything, I think that’s the first one that completely caught me off guard.

Most releases that I get will blow me away. A lot of bands will make fun of me and how I respond when they send me in-progress stuff or masters because I’ll be like, “HOLY SHIT!” Craig, Common Sense Kid, makes fun of me for that because he says that’s my “most American” thing. Kmoy’s Precure Album definitely blew me away but I already kind of knew Kaleigh from Discord. We were already friendly and I had heard some in-progress stuff before hearing the full thing but it still blew me away. I think I cried the first time I listened to it. The harmonies are so crazy on that album.

Plastic Presidents really snuck up on me, but they were recommended to me. Eichlers actually told me about them first and then Hans Gruber and the Die Hards did. Russ played with them in Omaha in really early 2022 and texted me like, “Dude, you gotta hear this band! They’re fucking crazy!” Hans Gruber told me about them later that year but they hadn’t put anything online yet so when they finally did and it was awesome, I immediately reached out.
You know which one came out of nowhere? Yours Sincerely. I didn’t really know Nina and that one came in cold. I think Kayleigh and Beth of Tape Girl had suggested she send her album over. It was fully done already and it’s incredible. Both Yours Sincerely and Lumpy are so underrated in our catalog, incredible albums. I think those are probably the two where I didn’t know much or anything about them and they completely blew me away.

I think the way things are now, a lot of our list of stuff comes from recommendations from other people or are people I’ve already met or seen play or they’ve been on my list for a while and I’m targeting them. I saw Simple Minded Symphony’s video for “Mixed Up” and I was like, “Man, this band has something special”. I remember the day that I saw that, I was in the middle of a lot of things and I was like, “I don’t know if I can take on more stuff or not” so I waited a while. I get nervous sometimes when I can just feel that someone is on the way up. I don’t know how to describe it, but I can see it sometimes like if I’m watching a band or a video or a clip, I’m just like, “OH they have it”. I get nervous that they’ll get snatched up so I try not to wait too long when I feel that. [laughs] It’s like a spidey sense like SPI sense or some shit.

You can’t spell spidey without SPI!

I try not to wait too long when I’m feeling that like, “Fuck it, I’ll figure it out later”. I would rather start talking to them and be upfront about how things are and that I believe in them than not. That happens way more often than just getting cold stuff. Stuck Lucky came in cold, I just got an email out of nowhere. Even though I had met them before, I never would have asked them because I’ve been a fan of them for so long that I just thought, “They’re set. They’re good”. Then I got the email and I was like, “Oh my god!! What!?” I had just taken our dog to the vet and I was in the parking lot about to drive home when I saw that email come in. That kind of thing is a little bit more how it goes.
I spend a lot of time trying to keep up with what’s going on and who is doing what stuff. I don’t ever want to come across as out of touch, at least with the part of the scene that I’m interested in. There’s definitely other parts of punk rock overall and even ska that aren't as interesting to me, but the parts that I am interested in, I want to know as much as I can. I try.

Get the mental notebooks filled.

And actual notebooks! My Notes app has lists and lists and lists of stuff. I have so many lists of stuff I’m interested in. If anything that’s on there comes up, I’ll figure it out.

You held the second SPI Fest earlier this year in Windsor, Connecticut. Do you have a favourite memory from this year?

That’s really hard because those are like one big reunion. There’s something that I hold very dearly from almost every set. There’s a few that I didn’t get to see as much of, especially earlier during the days because I was running around and doing things, but I definitely caught one or two songs by every band. So many very cool and so many very emotional things happened.
For me personally, one of the coolest things that happened was that it was the first Mutiny show. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that had to be figured out and it was pretty hectic so it hadn’t really landed with me until it was happening that it was actually happening. Efrem was sick. They were staying at Aaron from PWRUP’s house and Efrem landed, went and shut himself in the room he was staying in, came out to do the set a day and a half later, and went back to lay down again. There was a lot of uncertainty around that. The band is based all over the country so they’d played the songs separately but not really together and they had to rehearse. They were rehearsing in PWRUP’s rehearsal space at Aaron’s house and Efrem was supposed to be doing it too but he didn’t really have a voice so he was more resting his voice than anything. He knew the words and he’s a pro with Death By Stereo and Voodoo Glow Skulls and stuff. He knows how to put on a show. The rest of the band were rehearsing non-stop for 2 days to get tighter and find their live chemistry and stuff. Then they started their set and they were shredding. I was like, “Oh my god, this is real!” [laughs]
That was a crazy project for me to even be involved with. I’ve seen Death By Stereo many times over the years and I have long been a fan of Efrem. I’ve been a fan of Voodoo Glow Skulls and I’ve seen them play with Eric and Jose a few times over the years. I hadn’t really met Chris from Dissidente before this stuff came together but now we are talking on the phone all the time. He’ll call me on the phone to ask me what I had for breakfast. It’s like, “Oh my god, these people who I’ve looked up to I’m actually close with!” That hit me when I was watching this band and it was very overwhelming to me even though they’re loud as hell and shredding. I had this moment of, “That’s fucking Efrem Schulz and he’s working this hard for our thing!” In the middle of the set, he comes into the pit and he’s screaming so loud and putting everything into his performance. He’s leaning on people in the pit, he leans into me, and he whispers, “Love you dude” and then he keeps doing the song. It makes me emotional even thinking about it now. We had about 500 people or so there and in the middle of it, he still remembers that kind of thing. For me personally, that jumps out. That was on Friday night.
The next day was the Kmoy set, which was a very emotional set in general. Kayleigh came out to her parents during the set and so everyone was crying in the pit. That was bananas. The Kmoy band hadn’t played that many times before that but her parents also hadn’t seen her play with Catbite up to that point either. It was a thing she was nervous about with her parents being there and being such a different person on stage and everything. So a lot of us were a little nervous about it. Me and Brit from Catbite were on parent watch and when they came in the door we were like, “Great to meet you!” That was incredibly emotional and cool seeing a whole room full of people being there to support her and her parents were really great about it. Of course, you’re going to be worried, but they were great. That was really cool.
The SPI sets are different for every band because they’re not all going to have big moments necessarily. The whole point is to set them up with a room full of people so they have photos and videos that look insane that will help them do more shit for the next year. Most of the bands are having a hard time getting booked on other shit. I love having them all around together and I love being around everyone in one place for 3-4 days but if we didn’t do it anymore because they’re all booked on a ton of cool stuff, I would be like, “Everyone, let’s plan to go to a cabin and just hang out”. [laughs] I wouldn’t necessarily plan the show and all the shit that goes with it. That’s a lot of work. Even though places like Supernova will take my calls and emails, we can still only get a couple bands on there because there’s so many other things they want to do or whatever. It’s really hard to get the attention of festivals and you need a festival as an anchor to go on tour really because it’s so damn expensive so it’s really important that we can set them up with as many tools as possible because they’re all very impressive bands to me. All of them are incredible and they should all be doing this as their main thing but that just isn’t how the world is, so the whole point is to set them up. You’ll see Mega Infinity, Runaway Ricochet, and PWRUP just destroy. The room knows all the words and you can see on their faces that they’re all like, “WOAH”. That’s very cool. I’m watching that 25 times in a row at SPI Fest, basically. Just watching my friends have the set of their lives over and over and over again. It just fucking rules. It’s so cool! [laughs] Some of them are more emotional than others, but they’re all crazy good. It’s a whole weekend of watching people I’m proud of do their best.

We never talk about it but they all plan a little bit extra stuff, they'll maybe do bits or covers or collaborations like, “Oh you’re going to be here? Great! Can you come on and do this with us?” They all just bring it. They’re all just so tight. There’s never fuck ups or mistakes, they just nail it. They just crush it. This was the second one and some of them played the first one so there was more understanding of, “Ok, this is what it is”. Some of them planned to play some new stuff so they could get people remembering, “Oh, this is what they’re gonna do next!” and that was very smart. Plastic Presidents and Joker’s Republic both played some new stuff that really stood out to me. The crowd went crazy, especially for that new Plastic Presidents stuff, so watch for that eventually, dear readers. I was really impressed by that. In some ways, this is almost like our yearly showcase of stuff.
It’s a lot of work to put those things together and a lot of people helped me pull that off. So many people in our crew helped make that happen. It’s the best, everyone brings it. For me when I go to a show, sometimes I’m like, “I”m going to remember this one thing that happened for the rest of my life” but that weekend everything was like, “I’m going to remember all of this the rest of my life”. Each set had at least one thing that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life. It’s crazy how on-point everybody is all of the time in addition to just being people that I love. For people who came to the festival, they’re seeing some of the wildest shit they’ve ever seen and I love it. I’m so proud of it.

What does the future hold for Ska Punk International?

More releases, of course. There’s a lot of stuff that I want to do and I’ve talked about some of those ideas on Twitter because I can be unhinged on there. I really wanna do stuff beyond just releases. Of course, we’ll do more SPI Fests, we’re working on the next one now. It would be really fun to get into skate videos. A lot of the bands that I grew up really liking, I learned about after hearing them on a skate video. I’ve tweeted about trying to figure that out before and I’m still trying to figure that out. I would really like to get into something like that. Music videos are my favourite. I love the records themselves but I grew up watching 120 Minutes and a lot of MTV and I’ll still just watch music videos. I have saved playlists that I’ll put on. A couple times I’ve done a quick stream where I’ve played some videos on our YouTube channel or whatever. I wanna find time to do that more.
We haven’t done an SPI Direct in a long time but that was really, really fun. I wanna do that again but the more people we bring in the harder it is to wrangle the stuff. Both of those happened when it was a perfect storm and I realized, “Oh, we have a lot of stuff we could talk about right now!” That doesn’t always work that way. Doing an SPI Direct where I only have 2 or 3 things to talk about is not as fun as the first one when I could talk about 10 things. Right now, most of our artists are working on another album or a split but they’re in such different spots that we can’t necessarily show anything or talk about anything other than the fact that it exists. It’s been really hard to pull it off again but those are so fun. I wanna do that again. I like doing stuff that other labels aren’t doing, that’s my favourite. [laughs] I love doing stuff that maybe people aren’t gonna expect or would make them go, “Why are they doing that??” I want to bring the podcast back. I loved doing it and it’s just a time thing.
The future is just to keep going. Compared to some other years and just in general, it’s tough in the world. We’ve had a tough year and there’s a lot of stuff that hasn’t gone our way but at the same time, we’ve still released some killer shit this year that I’m really proud of. We’re still here and still surviving. I’m very thankful that people like you even wanna talk about what we’ve done and maybe what we’re going to do. Despite a tough year, we’re still here. More than anything for the future I just want to keep going even though stuff will be frustrating and I will be stressed out. I’m still enjoying this. I still love all the people involved and if that’s the case, why would I stop when things are frustrating or not going perfectly? It’s just a matter of figuring it out and keeping moving. Sometimes I wish I started this a long time ago but that’s not how it worked and it started when it started. What’s important to me is to keep moving forward and keep helping everyone do what they consider their best work at that time and their next thing might be their best work. If that’s what we’re doing, then that’s a pretty cool legacy to me.
I don’t really think about the future the future, I’m such an idea person that I’m always thinking, “What can I do next?” There are definitely things like the SPI Direct that are insane to me that they worked - I guess "worked" is relative but we got a lot of views on that and a lot of shares. Sometimes I’m like, “Damn, that’s crazy that that works! What else can I get away with?” [laughs] So I don’t really think about the future, it’s more like, “What else can I pull off that I have time to do?” The short answer is a lot more releases. There’s more stuff this year. Obviously, we’re planning some stuff for next year with some of the existing people. There’s lots to look forward to. We’re cooking up some stuff for sure. Eventually another SPI Fest. There’s a million things to figure out with it but things are cooking, things are simmering.