Ask a psych-rock fan if they could visit a moment of time, anywhere in the world, and chances are they’ll shoot back with 1960s San Francisco. Most fanatics of any genre would give anything to be plopped on a street corner in the middle of a movement: 1980s Seattle to witness Nirvana force feed grunge to the world, or the smoke-filled bars of Greenwich Village a couple decades earlier to witness baby-faced folk superstars like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
Ask an emo fan, and they just might say a 2005 Northeast Pennsylvania (NEPA to the well-informed) basement.
“What drew me in in the first place was finding community and going to local shows,” says Ben Walsh, guitarist, vocalist and co-founder of the seminal NEPA emo revival group Tigers Jaw.
Two decades after the beloved Scranton outfit was born from a high school jam session — the day after Walsh’s 16th birthday — Tigers Jaw still gets to play with the bands they grew up with, only this time on one of the world’s most iconic stages.
“So many, like, actual legendary artists” have played Red Rocks, adds singer and keyboardist Brianna Collins. “It’s just crazy that we get to be in that group of people that have gotten to that point.”
Tigers Jaw and the Pennsylvania emo-punk scene are legendary in their own right. Groups like Title Fight, Modern Baseball and Balance and Composure get credit for reviving a blend of second-wave emo and post-hardcore that first exploded into the headphones of angsty 2000s teens everywhere.
Now, after-school rehearsals have turned into sound checks for shows in front of 10,000 former teenagers, but the group is still just happy to be here.
“It’s pretty cool to have grown up together and to go from, like, literally all of us being in high school or early college,” Walsh says. “Now we’re having kids and, you know, getting older. The vibe in general that I get from everyone is that we’re all just very grateful to still be able to do it.”
Summer camp vibes
When Tigers Jaw, along with Balance and Composure, take their high school basements to the big stage with Virginia-born headliner Turnover, it will be a reunion of sorts.
“We’ve been friends with Turnover and Balance for over a decade and all of us there together, it’s gonna be so fun,” Collins says. “I feel like those six days are gonna be like summer camp vibes.”
Despite its members being spread out across Pennsylvania, Tigers Jaw still finds time to write music between touring — they’re making progress on their first record in four years, Walsh, 35 and Collins, 33, reveal. The album is still in pre-production, but the band expects to record after they return from Outbreak Fest in Manchester, U.K. in June.
“A lot of the songs are just fully collaborative from the jump, coming from jams together,” Walsh says. “It’s resulted in a really sonically diverse batch of songs.”
For day-one Tigers Jaw listeners, the band has aged into itself as its fans grew up, leaving teen anguish in their childhood bedrooms for homes and families of their own.
Early projects in the Tigers Jaw catalogue are packed with energetic, angsty anthems marked by raw guitar riffs and heavy-hitting lyrics: “I learned a lot about falling in love when I fell out of love / I learned a lot about being a friend when I was alone,” Walsh belts with a distinct adolescent voice crack on “Never Saw it Coming” off the group’s 2008 self-titled debut.
More recent albums, like the 2021 release I Won’t Care How You Remember Me, reveal a metamorphosed Tigers Jaw in the form of a mature, restrained indie-rock group, without shedding the emotionally charged hooks weaved into their songs.
“The definition of what a Tigers Jaw song is, or can be, has definitely been stretched in cool ways,” Walsh says. “I mean, if it’s us playing it, then it’s right for us.”
‘DIY ’til we die’
Scranton is perhaps most famous for being the home of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in NBC’s beloved sitcom The Office. But the real Scranton was built by coal miners and factory workers who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
Forming a band in a small, legacy industrial city takes a bit of grit in its own right, a roll-up-your-sleeves approach that Tigers Jaw still holds on to 20 years later.
“If there’s no venue, you figure out getting in touch with the VFW hall and doing a show there,” Collins says. “We do a lot on our own.” Walsh manages the band and Collins handles the creative direction and design for everything from merch to album art.
“As a band, functionally, we’ve been DIY ’til we die.”
After their stint with Turnover, Tigers Jaw will hit the pavement between dark, bar room venues from Texas to West Virginia for their own short tour in May — stages not too different from the sweaty basements where the band first cut their teeth 20 years ago.
In a large room, Walsh says, there’s a lot of separation between the stage and the crowd, and massive light rigs turn faces into indistinct shadows. “In a more intimate show, you might not have all that, or any of that,” he explains. “You are seeing faces and seeing facial expressions, and seeing people in real time, connecting with what you’re doing.”
But when Tigers Jaw is in the moment, playing side by side as they did in the Scranton dives that molded the band, none of that matters anyway.
“We put the same amount of energy into our performance, whether it’s playing to 200 or 2,000 people,” Walsh adds.
“We love playing this music. We love playing these songs. And regardless of what type of stage we are on, as long as it’s as a group of friends playing music together, it feels right in any setting.”
ON THE BILL: Tigers Jaw with Balance and Composure and Turnover. 7 p.m. Friday, May 2, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Pkwy., Morrison. $63