Fight To Unite: “Punk Rock Is Protest Music”

Few people have influenced punk rock in more ways than Shawn Stern. From starting the influential Youth Brigade as a teenager to launching BYO Records to running Punk Rock Bowling, Stern — along with his brothers Mark and Adam — has his fingerprints all over the last four-plus decades of punk music.

And now Shawn is launching his latest project, a two-day benefit show called Fight To Unite, this Friday and Saturday at the Belasco. The first night features some of today’s top punk bands, such as Lambrini Girls, Spiritual Cramp, Surfbort and XCOMM. The second night is the 35th birthday party for the now-defunct Fat Wreck Chords, with Dillinger Four headlining.

Aside from being undoubtedly among the best punk festivals in LA this year, Fight To Unite (presumably named after the iconic Youth Brigade song) carries a message with the music. A portion of proceeds will go to Siempre Unidos, a local organization supporting immigrant families torn apart by ICE. Stern also hopes the bonding experience of the event will encourage the LA punk community to support each other and enact change on a local level.

We caught up with Stern ahead of this weekend’s Fight To Unite festival. Our conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

Tar: How different was it to put together Fight To Unite compared to Punk Rock Bowling? 

Shawn Stern: Well, Punk Rock Bowling involves a three-day outdoor music festival that typically draws 8 to 10K people each day and four nights of multiple clubs shows — as well as a two-day bowling tournament, three days of pool parties and over 150 artists' performances. Fight To Unite is much smaller scale, with 32 bands in one club over two days. All that being said, the basics to make the plan, book the bands, organize promotion and production is the same — just on a much smaller scale. 

How did you decide on making it a benefit event to support Siempre Unidos? 

We realized within a few months of celebrating the 25th anniversary of PRB last year that this administration was going to continue terrorizing the immigrant community, trying to destroy civil rights and tearing down what democracy still exists in this country — all the while grifting on anything and everything possible. That meant life was going to become more and more difficult for the 99%, while the 1% of the billionaire class continues to exploit everyone and tries to pit us all against each other. So we decided to take the year off, and then found out several months later that the venue we used for PRB in Las Vegas was closing. 

Over the course of those months since our decision — as the chaos and turmoil of the grifter class continues to rip apart any sense of “normalcy” in this country — we believed it was important to bring the punk rock community together with a show. We can all take some time to enjoy the music and each other while raising awareness and some money for a group that’s doing work to help those affected by the inhumane ICE treatment of immigrants. We talked to friends who do work reporting on ICE in LA and they recommended we check out Siempre Unidos.  

In terms of the lineup, Friday is a much more “modern” roster with Saturday as a throwback to 35 years of Fat Wreck Chords. What went into balancing those two generations of punk rock?

It wasn’t something we planned on, but we want to support young bands that are up and coming — and whenever possible, local bands — because that is the future of punk rock as far as I'm concerned. And then it so happened that Fat Wreck is celebrating their 35th anniversary, and many of these bands have played PRB multiple times. That’s how this came to be. 

Given the current state of politics in this country, is there any message you’d want to convey to punk fans? 

Punk rock has always been political for me, and that’s why bands like the Clash, Sex Pistols, Stranglers, the Jam, Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts, Generation X, Stiff Little Fingers and so many others had a big influence on me when I first started hearing some of these bands on the radio back in 1978. Then when I started going to shows that summer and saw the Dickies, the Bags, Screamers, Weirdos, the Zeros, X and so many others that inspired me to get involved and write my own songs. 

Punk rock is protest music as far as I’m concerned. It always has been and always will be. I’ve always believed it’s important to fight against fascism, racism, sexism, misogyny and homophobia, and always work toward inspiring people to participate in changing what you feel is wrong in the world — whether that’s governments, religion or the protection of the Earth and our society. Living in “civilized society” requires working together — and that often is a struggle — but nothing good happens if we don’t participate. 

Is there any consideration of doing an annual punk festival in LA again?

We’ve had a discussion about this for almost 10 years, and we are always considering that. 

Is there anything else you wanted to add? 

We are living at a critical time in this country and the world’s history. We all learned about the difficulties of past generations — most notably during the World Wars and Great Depression of the last century — and think about how extremely hard it was to get through those times. It’s my hope that we will all learn from that history and make sure that the rise of fascism in Europe 100 or so years ago never happens again. It’s up to all of us to stand up and stop the madness because that is what is happening in America right now, and acknowledgement is only the first step.

Fight To Unite is at the Belasco in downtown Los Angeles on October 9 and 10. For more info and tickets, visit punkrockbowling.com.