I spy a band that’s on its way to becoming the latest torchbearers of hardcore parks in the Bay Area, and its name happens to be SPY. The quintet mostly found its identity during COVID, demonstrating the outfit’s resourcefulness—one of the quintessential qualities of punk-rock. Of course, it didn’t hurt that frontman Peter Pawlak had also paid dues in the deathcore band Rings of Saturday for a couple of years a decade prior to the formation of SPY, which is balanced out by bassist Thomas Sherry, guitarists Drew Satterlund and Cody Kryst, and drummer Josh Mendoza.
As to be expected from a new hardcore band, SPY’s catalog is relatively thin so far, having only released one LP and a slew of singles and EPs that total a combined 45 minutes. That includes the newly released Seen Enough EP, released as the five-piece’s first material recorded with Deafheaven’s go-to producer Jack Shirley, as well as SPY’s introduction to the esteemed Closed Casket Activities catalog. Staying true to hardcore’s sometimes-reckless expediency, SPY started writing the new EP in early 2024, touring a bit to get a sense of how they wanted the instrumental passages to sound on the record. They recorded the instrumentals in April, the vocals in August, and completed Seen Enough the following month.
Pawlak credits Shirley with what he likes most about the EP: Its sound, which he says captures SPY’s “live vibe” more so than the hardcore band’s previous releases. The key was that SPY, for the first time, played all the instrumental sections of the record live to tape simultaneously. For more info on the new release, read our Q&A with Pawlak below.
You guys formed during a revival of hardcore. Do you feel like you’re riding a certain wave, especially in the Bay Area?
The last five-plus years have been a crazy time for hardcore. The timing feels really fortunate. I look back and think, “What if I’d formed this band in 2015 or 2016?” I don't think it would’ve had the same response, right? But who’s to say if the wave keeps growing larger or if it comes crashing down? I’m not really sure what to expect.
As a hardcore band, do you feel a sense of obligation to maintain San Francisco’s punk tradition forged by Dead Kennedys, Op Ivy, Pansy Division, and Rancid?
Definitely—but not so much to the city as to the whole Bay Area: San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco. Everywhere in between, including the suburbs. I’m really proud of the Bay Area, and to get to keep pushing things here and adding to an existing tradition that’s already awesome.
How did you get involved in hardcore? Was there a show or a record that cemented you as a fan?
I had an interest in bands like Slipknot or Korn when I was in elementary school. But when I was about 13, I started listening to “heavy” or “alternative” music. I found a lot of bands on Myspace—deathcore, metalcore, or Warped Tour–type stuff. I started discovering smaller bands playing slightly different styles of heavy music. I started going to local shows and read up on the history of hardcore-punk, metal, and all the ’80s stuff. I started checking out old hardcore records by Black Flag and Poison Idea. They were the earliest proper hardcore bands that I liked.
Is there one early performance that really stands out as being especially integral to the development of the band?
The first time we played in New York [at Saint Vitus Bar on September 30, 2021] was a mind-boggling experience. It was really early on—maybe within our first 10 shows. We got flown out. That was way beyond anything I could’ve expected or hoped for. That was one of the early times when I realized there was a demand for SPY. I knew there were people who liked the band. It gained a lot of traction over the COVID no-shows period. But that was a moment where I realized, “Oh shit, we could really go out there and play shows all over the country and people will come out.” Because the show did really well. It was a small venue, but I think it sold out. So from that point, I started to plan our first US tour.
Were you booking your own shows at that point?
Totally. I refused to start working with a booking agent for quite a while, even though the offer was on the table. I did it until 2023. I love booking DIY shows and working with a community of people throughout the country to book a whole US tour. You’re really involved in the whole process, and you know a lot more about the little details of every show. But there’s only so much that I can do on my own. Eventually I caved in and I was like, “I’m probably a little bit in over my head here.” Still, I really valued that experience, and I feel like it kept us really close to the heartbeat of the DIY scene.
