Downtown Boys talk punk shows & accessibility in advance of their Monday show in Lawrence

With 2015’s Full Communism on Don Giovanni, Providence’s Downtown Boys drew wide acclaim for music that attacked capitalism, anti-LGBTQA fascists and more, all with an angular punk edge. That edge has been honed razor-sharp on the band’s sophomore LP, Cost of Living, out now on Sub Pop. Opening cut and lead-off track “A Wall” takes aim at Trump’s America, and “Violent Complicity” and “Tonta” demonstrate the group’s ability to write stop-start post-punk and furious straight-ahead rock numbers.

I spoke by phone with the band — minus singer Victoria Ruiz — from its practice space just days before the release of Cost of Living about their upcoming tour and accessibility in the punk scene.

The Pitch: You have your album coming out in two days and you’re practicing? That’s some dedication.

Joey DeFrancesco (guitar/vocals): We’ve been on a bit of break this month, but the tour starts the day the record comes out , so we’re just getting a couple practices in, to get into touring shape.

When I was talking with the folks putting on the Lawrence show, they’d said that the band had requested openers that were women or people of color. Is that something you’re striving for on this tour?

Mary Regalado (bass): We’re playing with Warm Bodies, and I requested them.

Joe DeGeorge (saxophone): And Ebony Tusks. My brother recommended them. [DeGeorge’s brother, Paul, is helping promote the show, put on by Paige Batson of Petri Productions]. It just felt like this was a good opportunity to create outside of — we’re touring a lot of regular rock ‘n’ roll venues, and it felt like this would be a good spot to create a new, fresh space with a kind of diversity.

JDeF: It’s not a policy we set out for every place that we play, do you know what I mean? But, like, it’s something that we generally strive to do when we recommend what bands we want to open for us and that we want to play with. It’s not a policy, but when we’re recommending bands to our bookers, it’s something that we’re conscious of, and it also just ends up being the music that we like the best and want to play with. It’s not something that’s possible everywhere we play, but I think that it’s something everyone should be conscious of when they’re creating bills.

Norlan Olivo (drums): I would say it’s, like: you book a tour, and of those 30 dates, 25 of those shows were all bands with white people in them, and then Downtown Boys. Maybe that’s a problem, too, but I feel like you shouldn’t have to think that hard about including different people on the bill.

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Does being on Sub Pop allow you step to a more traditional kind of venue?

JDeF: I think it’s always been more of who we have a connection with as to where we play, and what size of place that we’re able to play. Even this tour is a mix of places. I’ve never been to the White Schoolhouse, but it feels like a pretty DIY production to put a show on there. We’re playing places like that. We’re playing the Vera Project in Seattle that’s also a DIY, not-for-profit place.

And then, we’re playing legitimate, sort of larger venues, so it’s a mix of things. Just where it makes sense for us to be playing, and balancing accessibility to those spaces, balancing costs, and just sort of balancing the economics of what makes this sustainable for our band to continue doing. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s kind of expensive.

Just this practice, we’re all kind of stressed out, because our van is broken, and are we going to have enough money to rent a van if it’s doesn’t get fixed? What are we going to do? It’s constantly scraping by, so it’s just this whole constellation of things that you have to consider when picking a venue, but most of the time, we don’t pick the venue — you just take whatever’s available, so there’s less thought put into it than maybe some people imagine, in terms of where we end up playing.

You’ve mentioned people you know, in terms of where and with whom you play. What kind of connections do you strive to make when you play a town?

NO: I think it depends on the town and the people who come out to the shows, but I think that a lot the times, definitely like, local people of color — especially young people of color — in those communities, and just people who have sort of been disenfranchised, or who have been oppressed. Whether they’re trans people or queer people of color, or disabled people: whoever that may be, I think that people definitely connect to the music.

Because people that don’t connect to the music, I think that maybe they’ll connect to the actual musicality and not the message. Sometimes I feel like people will be like, “Well, I don’t know why you’re talking about this, because blahblahblah,” but, ultimately, I feel like people who don’t connect with the music or the message — maybe the band is not for you. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we’re not going to cater to everybody and like, the white punk who went to an Ivy League school isn’t going to totally vibe with our music, and that’s okay, too.

Our music — and music in general — isn’t going to always cater to entire subsets of people. Some people are going to vibe with it more. There’s definitely cities where we feel it more: McAllen, Texas, for example, is a city we really like to play in, or certain cities on the West Coast are cities that we vibe with and really connect with the people there.

JDeG: Mary [Ruiz, vocals] often passes the mic to local activists at our shows and gives them a chance to speak when that opportunity is available, too. Sometimes, these concerts end up being a place where activists can come and have a voice, using our band as a vehicle.

In terms of accessibility, what do you mean in terms of people who can come to your shows?

JDeF: I think it’s a constant balance of things, because there’s a beauty to the punk basement and having it there, but of course, there’s a certain limitation to who can find out about the punk basement, you know what I mean? When you play in a more above-ground venue, you can advertise it, and people can find out about it. I know when I was growing up, I didn’t know where any of the punk basements were. [laughs] I don’t think there were any.

So, you either create your own, or you look on the website of the venue in town to see what shows are coming. Of course, that can go too far in the other direction, right? When you’re playing only larger, shitty corporate venues, then you run into other problems, so I don’t think there’s an unlimited argument that bigger is more visible.

I do think that you do have to balance who is more able to find out about your shows with who is actually able to get there, and once they get there — who feels comfortable there? A lot of those punk venues aren’t comfortable for an artist to be in, whereas another venue might be. I think the kind of show we’re doing in Lawrence is pretty cool — it’s kind of a DIY space, but it’s the kind of show that can be advertised and talked about, too. It’s a good mixture of something being accessible, while still being independent.

Downtown Boys play the White Schoolhouse on Monday, August 21, with Warm Bodies and Ebony Tusks. Details on that show here.