After 25 years, Punk Rock Bowling still strikes hard with the spirit of rebellion

Brothers Shawn and Mark Stern were already veteran punk rockers when they first started Punk Rock Bowling 25 years ago. But they had no idea they were in the midst of a seminal moment by launching what would soon become one of the biggest, longest-running and most important annual events the genre has ever seen.

While they might be best known for forming multiple L.A. punk bands (the biggest of which being Youth Brigade) starting in the late ’70s, the Stern brothers were also responsible for BYO Records, 1984’s “Another State of Mind” tour documentary with Social Distortion, a short-lived but influential Hollywood punk house called Skinhead Manor and a host of other DIY punk rock undertakings. So when Andre Duguay, a BYO employee at the time, suggested the duo start a bowling league for SoCal punk rockers in the late ’90s, it made too much sense for them to pass up.

What started as a bowling night (at Santa Monica’s now-defunct Bay Shore Lanes) for local bands, labels and zines eventually grew to a weekend of partying in Las Vegas for the Sterns’ punk rock friends all over the region. Throughout the 2000s, the event remained primarily focused on bowling and debauchery over President’s Day weekend, but 2010 brought it to a new location that contained a huge outdoor space, opening up the possibility for a full music festival and rapidly turning it into a Memorial Day staple for punk fans around the world.

Suicidal Tendencies performs at Punk Rock Bowling in 2023.

(Rob Wallace)

But no matter how big Punk Rock Bowling has gotten, Shawn Stern has always made sure it’s kept its community-first ethos.

“We arrange [Punk Rock Bowling] as musicians first, so we look at this as, ‘If I go see bands, I want to have a good time,’” Stern says from the dining table of his Venice Beach home. The Sterns set out to create something that was the antithesis of the big corporate festival, where everything’s overpriced and it’s super packed.

“They’re not trying to make this a communal experience of having a good time and enjoying the music and the message,” he said. “It goes back to pagan times when we’d get together for the harvest and feasting. Humans don’t really need much reason to get together and party, and this is our alternative to religion.”

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Despite leaving Los Angeles for Sin City decades ago, Punk Rock Bowling maintains its SoCal roots year after year. Not only is Mark Stern back as the festival’s official booker this year alongside his brother, but both the lineup and audience always contains a heavy California presence. From legends like Social Distortion and FLAG to modern stars like FIDLAR and the Interrupters (all of whom are performing this year), the Stern brothers always make sure that multiple generations of their local scene is represented at the festival — and not just because it’s the community they grew up in.

Stern and his crew were surfers who got into punk rock because it was that sort of revolutionary music that the ’70s no longer had. “As much as I love Jimi Hendrix and saw a bunch of big concerts like Led Zeppelin, that music didn’t really speak to what I was feeling. As soon as the [Vietnam War] was over, that music became co-opted by big corporate labels.” Instead, Stern and his friends would hang out in the very small punk scene in Hollywood while all the bands were coming out of New York and the UK. The scene was very close-knit, and they didn’t have any pretension of getting signed to a major label or anything. Though it was totally grassroots, they knew that when the surfers really started getting into it, it was going to explode. “In those days, there were certain rebellious things with surfing that would work well with punk rock,” he said. “That’s what happened in the early ’80s, and it’s changed a lot since then, but it’s just kept growing.”

Perhaps more than any other genre, the evolution of punk rock (both in Los Angeles and around the world) is never more apparent than in the age range of bands at music festivals. This year at Punk Rock Bowling, not only will the Stern brothers be performing in their mid-60s with Youth Brigade, but some of the British artists that preceded them like the Damned and Cock Sparrer will be gracing the stage alongside great modern artists who could be their grandchildren (like the Bay Area’s Spiritual Cramp). And yet the fans — from teenagers to senior citizens — will flood the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center for them regardless of generation.

Shawn Stern, right, playing with his band Youth Brigade at Punk Rock Bowling in 2021.

(Jason Cook)

That cross-generational appeal isn’t found in a lot of other genres, but it’s a distinction that Shawn Stern believes punk rock shares with one of its ancestors.

“It’s all just folk music — protest music,” he says. “A lot of people try to rewrite history as though somehow punk rock’s not political, and I call bullshit. Punk rock for me has always been political and it always will be. That’s really what makes this music last, and it’s also what makes the blues last.” The music still reaches out to people, regardless of age, Stern said. “The words that I was singing in 1980 are just as relevant now, if not more so. ... Sure, some bands that are considered punk rock just write poppy love songs — which is fine if that’s what you’re into — but that’s probably why I don’t really like some of that pop-punk and emo stuff.”

Moshpit madness in the crowd at Punk Rock Bowling.

(Andrew Repcik)

As long as Stern is involved, Punk Rock Bowling will always keep that lineage of resistance. Particularly with today’s political climate, the lifelong punk sees his platform as an artist and a festival host as a crucial way to remind everyone to stand up against authoritarianism and fascism even if it’s not directly affecting you and your surroundings just yet. “We were writing about Reagan [in the ’80s], and now we’ve got someone who’s much worse than Reagan ever could have been,” he said.

Stern has already seen international bands have newfound trouble flying in and out of the U.S. this year, and as a Jewish immigrant from Canada, he’s taking the current situation quite seriously.

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“I think it’s important for everybody that listens to punk rock and comes to Punk Rock Bowling to remember that every day you have to question everything and fight against the authoritarian bent that this country is on,” Stern said. “They’re disappearing people in the streets, and that may not be you right now, but if you don’t stand up for those people, it could be you or someone you love in the future. A lot of my mother’s family died in concentration camps, so you don’t think it could happen to you or you always wonder what you would have done — I’m not saying we’re facing that yet, but I think we’re pretty close. But if enough people stand together, we can stop this — and I think the community of punk rock is just carrying on that tradition of protest from the beatniks and the hippies.”