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California hardcore punk band Scowl to perform in Chico for the first time in 5 years

Scowl’s vocalist, Kat Moss, screams into the crowd while performing live on Sept. 14, 2024 in Pioneertown, Calif.
Harper King
Scowl’s vocalist, Kat Moss, screams into the crowd while performing live on Sept. 14, 2024 in Pioneertown, Calif.

The last time the band Scowl performed in Chico was under an overpass near Big Chico Creek.

“A bunch of young punks were out there circle pitting, kicking up dust. All of our stuff got covered in clouds of dust and whatever smoke there was,” said Bailey Lupo, the band’s bassist. “It was really cool and it was just one of the most fun DIY experiences I think I've ever been a part of.”

That was in 2019 — the same year the Santa Cruz hardcore punk band formed. A lot has changed for the band since that dusty, generator-powered underpass show.

After around two dozen tours across the states and Europe over the last few years — headlining and also supporting acts like Limp Bizkit and A Day To Remember — Scowl has grown into a genre staple.

Alternative Press last year put Scowl on its list of the best modern hardcore bands. NME called the band a boundary-breaking act, while Rolling Stone magazine has sung similar praises.

Friday, Dec. 6, they’re coming to Chico for a headlining show at the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The Chico show will help the band tie up a busy 2024

Guitarist Malachi Greene reflected on Scowl’s busy year.

“It was sick. I loved it,” said Greene, “There was a lot of really cool touring, a lot of really cool fests we played, seeing a lot of good friends. [We] played some of my favorite shows we've ever played this year. So I'm just super thankful for it.”

Vocalist Kat Moss said the past year has left the group feeling ambitious, looking to possibly headline more shows.

“Support tours are so cool and touring in new places is awesome and I can't wait to do more of that as well,” Moss said. “But I personally am very excited to play more headlining shows and to share that space with the people who are Scowl fans or people who might become Scowl fans because of that show.”

This month’s run of gigs beginning in Chico will start a series of headlining shows for Scowl, who will perform in Fresno, Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo.

Chico reconnects Scowl with some early roots

Moss, a Sacramento native, said Chico was instrumental in their exposure to punk music.

“Chico's the first scene that I ever personally started going to DIY shows and saw actual DIY hardcore and punk and noise and sludge and just like, all sorts of weird, artsy stuff,” Moss said. “It was the first time I ever was exposed to that kind of space.”

Band members said Chico was a place that helped Scowl grow as a band from the beginning, which is why it became one of the stops on the upcoming run of shows.

“I personally had a big hand in saying ‘hey, we should do this. We should return to these cities,’ because it's places we haven't been to in a long time, places that we started in,” said drummer Cole Gilbert. “I feel like we owe it to ourselves and to our friends in the scene and the scene itself in these cities to go back and pay our respects.”

Moss agreed.

“Overall, it's really special for us to just do this run and hang out in some scenes we haven't been around in a long time,” Moss said.

Musically, Scowl has evolved in the last five years — untying itself from some of the limits of hardcore and blossoming into a punk-infused alt-rock powerhouse.

Moss snarled and growled her way through stomping drumbeats and thick guitar riffs in much of the band’s early material — a raw, brooding style of hardcore punk that helped the band make a name for itself.

Now, diverse guitar-rock influences shine through in songs like the band’s latest single, “Special.”

“I just think the band's more realized,” Greene said. “It's just expanded and become more realized of what we actually are and what we are influenced by.”

Looking ahead into 2025

Starting in March, the group will set out on its next North American tour supporting the bands Citizen and Movements. The tour begins in Tempe, Arizona and ends back on the west coast in Los Angeles.

The run was supposed to end in Las Vegas at the Sick New World Festival — where bands like Metallica, Linkin Park and Evanescence would have taken the stage — but the festival was recently canceled.

“It was heartbreaking to tell my mom I wasn't playing with Metallica anymore,” Gilbert said.

But the cancellation does not change band members’ excitement about Scowl’s future.

“It feels like a lot of these years have kind of blended together of just being on the road constantly,” Lupo said. “But it's worth it. And it's starting to feel really awesome.”

“It's just been this kind of moment of really taking in the experience and finally feeling like we understand exactly what we're doing and how to do it,” Moss said.

North State punk bands Earth Exit, Sedition, Level and Slugger will open for Scowl on Friday. The show starts at 7 p.m.

Erik began his role as NSPR's Butte County government reporter in September of 2023 as part of UC Berkeley's California Local News Fellowship. He received his bachelor's degree in Journalism from Cal State LA earlier that year.