Strike Twelve Says Punk Rock Is Not a Phase, Mom

Playing punk rock has never been a phase for San Diego trio Strike Twelve. Since 2003, when guitarist Matt Turek, bassist Joe Treister and drummer Dan Bahou first got together as the Delivery Boys for their high school talent show, the bandmates have made it a point to consistently work on and release new music, even after they began their own careers and started families over the years.

On its latest record, Last Band Standing, via Thousand Islands Records, Strike Twelve shares its longstanding mission statement with album opener “Not a Phase,” which includes the lyrics “A lot has changed since our high school days, but our love for punk rock will never fade. It’s our passion. It isn’t just a phase.”

Treister calls the tune the band’s “flagship song for the album” and a reminder that "we’re in this because we love it, and we’re going to keep doing it.

“We have become a family. We grow together and adapt as things change for us,” he adds.

That also means doing almost everything themselves, including writing and recording demos at Treister's and Turek’s home studios. Treister calls the band’s approach a necessity nowadays and “our only option.”

“It gives us flexibility to do things the way we want. We’ve never really wanted to make a career of this. We all have our own careers" — Treister is a pediatric ICU doctor — "but we chose them in a way that we could maintain our other passions at the same time,” he says. “We’re fortunate to be able to go on these little tours and trips and not worry about making our plane ticket back. But as we continue to work on our songwriting and things like that, we’re finding that more and more people want to buy things, and we can make our plane tickets back.”

Strike Twelve is embarking on a Rockies run this month, including a stop at Herman’s Hideaway on Saturday, August 19. Local punk bands Reno Divorce and the Frickashinas are also on the bill.

The Strike Twelve dudes initially met Jeremiah Ludemann, currently of the Frickashinas, a decade ago, and even crashed at his place the first time they played in Denver. Since then, Ludemann’s been out to the West Coast with the group No Bueno! to gig with Strike Twelve. After Treister and company recently checked out Reno Divorce at a Punk Rock Bowling event in Las Vegas, the three bands decided to team up on the current mini-tour. Treister says he's grateful for the opportunity to "go on new adventures.

“This Denver trip is the first one where we’re flying out with just our instruments,” he explains. “This is kind of like a test of, hopefully, a new direction we take where we start hitting more remote spots for three days at a time and team up with a band and share gear and get to explore new cities and areas.”

Making such connections and booking tours independently is part of the beauty and freedom of keeping everything in-house, according to Treister.

“I think it’s pretty hard to be anything else within our genre," he says, "unless you’re a legacy band and rode the wave of the earlier generation that's more popular and has a dedicated following from before we started."

Pulling from the more melodic pop-punk groups of the mid- to late ’90s, such as Green Day, Blink-182 and the Offspring, Strike Twelve continues to be committed to creating music reminiscent of those heydays, when the three musicians were first picking up their instruments and discovering the genre.

And while pop punk is seeing a resurgence, “we’re not super good at paying attention to what’s popular and riding trend waves,” Treister admits. “But I think the pandemic did put a new fire under a lot of people’s belts, because they saw what they loved taken away for a while and have a new desire to take it back.”

After the pop-punk album of nursery rhymes and kids' songs the band released in 2020, Life Is but a Dream, Last Band Standing hits more like a statement by lifelong friends who have a die-hard passion for what they’re doing. Songs such as “Isn’t the Same” and “Feeling Defeated” offer a look into Strike Twelve’s collective mind.

But it comes down to a question that Treister asks himself whenever he goes to a show: “Does this band enjoy what it's doing?”

“It’s not so much how well they play their songs or does it sound like the recording, but how does their face look when they’re playing it, and how do they interact with each other in between the songs?” he says. “That’s our biggest strength: We’ve been the same three people playing together for over twenty years, and we have great stage chemistry. We’re having a great time when we’re up there, and I think moods are infectious. If we’re having a good time, you’re going to have a good time.”

While the three amigos are content with regularly hitting hometown stages and traveling out of state every now and then, they’re also open to making Strike Twelve a more full-time endeavor if other opportunities arise, but they’re not ready to quit their day jobs anytime soon.

“They ask me that often at work,” Treister says with a laugh. “I think no, but would I ask for a month off to go to Europe? Absolutely.”

Strike Twelve, 7 p.m. Saturday, August 19, Herman's Hideaway, 1578 South Broadway. Tickets are $13-$200.