Austin Finn of Julia Louis Dreyfest

 Ed D: So firstly, who are you?

Austin: i am austin finn, i play in the band idaho green- we're originally from billings but moved to new york in 2016 and have been here ever since. i also help run julia louis dreyfest in billings every summer- that's mainly me and my brother jordan, who plays drums in idaho green as well.

                              Taken by Gannon Padgett

Ed: Awesome. What was your introduction to diy spaces and culture?

Austin: the first show i ever played actually was at our friend julius's garage (or, i should say, his mom's garage lol)- we would've been freshman in high school so i guess i would've been 14? julius and our friend dan were in high school band and played trumpet / trombone, so naturally we started a ska band, doing covers and stuff. julius's mom is this awesome naturopathic doctor/hippy lady that let us kind of do whatever we wanted, so we figured it'd be fun to do shows there and invite our friends and make it kind of a weird party / not party. it was more of like a talent show of our friends at first, and eventually it evolved into having touring bands play- tiny moving parts even played at that garage in like 2009 lol. but i am forever grateful for julius and maggie for letting us do what we did there, that definitely laid the groundwork of the "you can throw a show anywhere" mentality

Ed: Nice, what was the landscape of Billings at that time? Kind of but not necessarily diy related. And what years was that initial period?

Austin: yeah my initial introduction would've been no earlier than 2008- at that time we had julius's garage, and arguably this place outside of town called the Yellowstone Perk, that looking back, was probably some kind of tax fraud scheme (especially considering how it "burned down" lol) but it wasn't really a "DIY Space" per se- but we also had our friend's cody and ashley that would occasionally throw shows in their basement, and that was really about it. but, its definitely important to say that before my time (probably like 2001 - 2005?) there was a place called garage alley that was (as i understand it) a proper punk diy spot. They paid the lease and all that but it was definitely not up to fire code lol. not to get too into the weeds but there was basically a generation above me of punk bands, guys and gals in their late 20s when i was in my mid teen years, that brought us into the fold, and garage alley was sort of the HQ for that, i wanna say Mat Regele from Noise was the one that had the space in his name but i'm not certain although his band, Noise Noise Noise, definitely were like "the band" for me in those days. and kelly la croix and nels jensen from that band sorta took me under their wing and brought me into the fold (note for you if you are curious- they'd definitely attribute the scene that they were a part of as thriving in large part to 1. Wantage Records and Eat Records in Missoula, and 2. the website MTPunk.com (this is like pre/mid myspace days lol))

but anyway, seeing Noise Noise Noise and tagging along with them on their missoula or bozeman one off trips and having them sorta bring me in to their world, and thinking that their world fucking rocked, sorta solidified doing the diy life at that time. that evolved into us doing dreyfest, and then starting idaho green, and i ended up playing in a band with Kelly and Nels, and then for me the next sort of chapter would be when I moved into a house with Caleb from Idaho Green called the Porterhouse, and we threw shows in that house for like a year and a half, in 2014. but maybe i'm getting ahead of myself!

Ed: So much good info! Was there a general community support? Like you mention your friends mom and the show space, was it like family and community supported in a broad way?

Austin: to a degree, for sure- from our circle of high school friends from 2007-2010ish, there was definitely a contingent of like probably 20-30 kids that all played in 5-6 different iterations of bands, basically, and that was kind of the basis of the little scene we had? where we'd play primarily at either julius's garage on weekends, or the perk whenever they had a date open for us. but that definitely was based off of the groundwork that was laid down by the generation above us with folks like kelly and nels and mat in Noise Noise Noise, etc. they were a part of an "older" scene of punks, but those bands were either like 5 string bass metalcore bands or skate punk/rancid worship bands that i never really got super into, and noise noise noise were the only/first band of that scene that i actually thought was legitimately incredible, and could sort of use as a mold to try to create some sort of scene within my younger friend group. or at least that they were interesting enough to me to where i felt like i needed to fall as deep as i could into the rabbit hole of the "lifestyle" that they were a part of, which got me in touch with so many amazing people from all over the area that were into diy punk/diy touring, like marty hill in missoula, billy leutzen in minot, johnny waylon porcupine in rapid city, as well as amos and his whole crew! amos played bass in a band with guys older than him, so he was sort of doing the same thing i was doing. one of his bands with wes roemmich played julius's garage back then and meeting him was cool, like in a "uncle Wes is coming to visit and your cousin amos is coming as well, why don't you go show him your room?" sort of way haha. so then we became friends since we were both in similar situations, sort of being the kid in the "real" punk band sorta thing

i should note that the budgets also should be in the same sphere as noise noise noise, as like a "legitimately incredible band"- they shared members with noise so i sort of think of them as one lol but just didn't want to leave them out of this

Ed: Hell yes man. What were the relationships like with people outside of Billings? Like the Missoula people or Amos and his friends? Were those like facilitated by MySpace or how did the cross pollination occur?

Austin: specifically missoula and amos- those were different networks for sure- being based in billings and playing missoula was sort of like being from dallas and playing austin, or being from sacramento and playing berkeley or something- we had a million friends from billings that went to college in missoula that had house venues and would hook it up, or we straight up had band members that lived in missoula that would throw a show at their house, which dan redinger, our bass player/trombone player did multiple times at multiple different houses haha. but with amos, that was probably more of a facebook thing, as far as keeping in touch went? he can fact check me on this but i would think that back then, we'd probably be in touch on facebook pretty regularly, and would dm about either us playing a show in colorado, us knowing someone who is trying to get a show in colorado, or him hitting us up about a show in montana, or him hitting us up about someone he knew trying to get a show in montana. between those 4 instances we would probably be dming each other once a month at least haha

it was also cool because it never really felt transactional, or a burden on either of us (at least i hope it didn't lol)- it felt like such an esoteric thing that we were sort of both exploring at the same time that we'd try to help out as much as we could in any way that we could that was really cool. in a "do-it-together" sort of way. plus it was just fun to hang out with that crew haha, that made it much easier to try and set stuff up for them, knowing that it was going to be a killer time regardless of what the show would be like, etc

Ed: Absolutely! Were there friendships and relationships like that across the country? Like the 20/30 Billings friends, did that become like a diaspora that expanded?

Austin: its weird because our timeline is a bit strange- basically, if you grow up in billings and are in the least bit arty or cool or whatever, the expectation is that you move to missoula or bozeman, which are the two college towns. but we just stayed in billings for those college years, like the losers we were lol. so the network was pretty limited, range-wise, but it was also pretty tight, if that makes sense- we had a pretty tight circuit of very close friends in missoula/bozeman/billings, which definitely helped out with trying to hook up out of state folks (exactly like amos!) that were trying to to play montana- we could hook them up with the missoula / bozeman homies to get a missoula / bozeman date, which (i'd like to think) sort of made the prospect of coming up here at all a little more enticing

...then we moved to new york, which, as it turns out, is a bit too far from montana to be of any assistance in diy tour community building for that little montana regional pipeline we developed haha

but that regional orbit was probably billings, fort collins, bozeman/missoula, minot ND, fargo ND and spokane. the folks that we knew in all of those places probably all knew each other, if that makes sense. some better than others but we were all sort of in the same touring circuit for the most part. seattle / minneapolis and even denver were like the promised land / white city off the horizon, where we'd try to play every once in a while but didn't really have any ins with. chicago might as well have been on the moon to us, those days haha

oh i should add rapid city south dakota to that list of towns that were in that circuit

Ed: I gotcha. What were the spaces like? Mostly house shows or bars too or just alternative spaces?

Austin: i'd say probably like overall, 40 - 50% house shows, 30 - 40% alternative spaces, 20-25% bars? something like that probably? for out of town shows- missoula was always either a house show or at this community center type place called the ZACC, which has gotten much bigger now and it's super rad. our little missoula posse also sorta took over the VFW for a while so we'd rent out the back room and throw shows there (until the old timers got mad when we threw a bernie sanders fundraiser show there and stopped letting us book there lol). minot was always either at a house (arvin's house or duff mountain) or at their local diy arty community center, pangea house. i've probably played minot a dozen times in my life and i don't think i've ever played at a bar haha. in billings, we weren't really touring when it was julius's garage and the perk, and both those spaces basically stopped doing shows at the same timeish, in like 2012, so after that, we'd typically just play at this bar called the railyard since our buddy josh booked there and didn't charge us lol. but when we had our house venue for that year and a half in 2013-2014, (the porterhouse, rip) we'd throw shows there, or when our buddy johnnie, who was drumming for us at the time, in 2014-2016-ish was throwing shows at his house (the muleskinner, rip), we'd throw shows there. or occasionally at our guitarists dad's house (stella's stakeout, rip). i think his dad still lived there, he'd just be chilling upstairs during shows, if i remember correctly? shouts to kelly, he rules. but yeah if there was a house venue available to us, that would always be the preferred place, 100% of the time. the railyard fucking sucked. i don't think anyone would be offended at that, everyone fucking hated it

Ed: Nice. When you moved to New York, what was the major differences (or similarities)? Like are there diy spaces there, or bar alternatives?

Austin: it is a whole different monster here- from a band perspective, oversaturation is probably the biggest issue (there's a million bands playing every night- why would anyone go to your show?) but specifically from a diy venue perspective- there are not that many diy spaces really, for a lot of different reasons, high level- it's expensive as shit, and i think there's sort of an inherent working class aspect to diy spaces, or at least an appreciation for diy spaces... if we think of a diy space as being synonymous with a "community space", and if we think of a community space as being the anthesis of like a country club or something, then there's an inherent link between the working class and diy spaces /diy culture. so then the diy culture is basically at odds with the people that would generate/cultivate that culture. i guess that's a long winded way of saying that the only people who are in a position to cultivate any diy culture are all rich kids that fundamentally don't understand why diy culture is important, and are just doing it for clout and all their bands suck. lol. with that said tho- jon daily and that crew that run east williamsburg econolodge are absolute mensches and run the closest thing to true diy i've been a part of in nyc / brooklyn- i'm pretty sure most of them are from long island or upstate (ie, relatively close to brooklyn), and it totally shows- there's no end game other than hanging out with friends and seeing good bands and going on tour and propping the community up, which is the way it should be!

Ed: Most definitely! Kind of to backtrack, were (are) you involved in the Dreyfests?

Austin: heh yes- super brief history- basically it was me and kelly from noise noise noise, and dan from idaho green for the first few years, probably 2013-2015 or so. we basically treated it like a family reunion of all of our friends from all of those towns that i mentioned earlier. then all three of us moved away basically, and i tried throwing it when i moved to new york in 2016 and that was really rough, but luckily our friends (and recurring idaho green members) phil (who plays in a sick band in billings/bozeman called Bull Market) and ty and their friend bree sort of took over after that, they did it for a few years but then bree and phil moved away and then covid happened so everyone basically gave it up, for the most part. then Jordan, my brother/next door neighbor/Idaho green drummer, and i figured we could pick it back up, since the groundwork was all laid out and there wasn't honestly all that much to do anymore (i say this now but i'm sure I'll be stressed out of my mind and pulling my hair out 647 different times between now and dreyfest 2025 lololol)

but honestly something i've always thought, with respect to dreyfest and diy venues/diy events is that there seems to be this obsession with making things "bigger and better" and more financially successful and all that, and i've always fucking hated that mentality. the risk/reward of trying to make dreyfest "bigger and better" is just so not worth it. the coolest thing about dreyfest to me is that it exists. that's really it. things like dreyfest are not supposed to happen in billings montana, they are supposed to happen in places like missoula, or boise, or eugene, etc. i just think it's super important for people from billings to be able to go to this event once a year and think "huh, this is really cool. and all my friends are here. and we're all really cool! in billings montana! and there's all this art happening everywhere! what the hell!" And all that something like dreyfest, this weird quirky arty punky fest thing in billings montana, requires, is for you to show up- it doesn't require super hip people with connections organizing, or a state college, or a bunch of outside money and sponsorships, it just requires you to maybe get a little bit out of your comfort zone and pay the 30 bucks for the wristband, and to just show up. that's how powerful you are! and that power only exists collectively! i dunno, i think that's pretty cool, and that's why i keep doing it every year lol.

Ed: That’s 100% the point of this blog, to inspire that recognition

Austin: That rules!

Ed: I think there’s a real power in just getting together with your friends or a space where you can go and like “celebrate” (whatever that looks like for a person) something you’re pumped on and meet people who are also pumped about that same stuff

Austin: yes 100%!!! yeah that idea of celebration is so important for sure- especially in the context of diy spaces or diy events, like "this place / event doesn't necessarily hold any importance to the rest of the world, but to me, and to us, everybody that is here, it's really important and special to us and means something very special to us and we're all recognizing that at the same time / in the same way" is such a cool important thing

Ed: Absolutely 💯 What would you say are your top three diy shows?

Austin: oh shit- that's a great question! i think in no particular order-

played the dollhouse in missoula with Toys That Kill and the Underground Railroad to Candyland- TTK & URTC were playing Total Fest in missoula and their set got cut short- i wasn't even mad, i was just... so bummed that i couldn't see their set lol. So i called up the dollhouse crew and asked them if they'd be ok with having them play a set later that night, and they agreed, and it was so incredibly sick. Shouts to Todd Conge for being the chillest chiller of all time

our last show at the porterhouse, the house caleb and i lived at in billings, was our tour kickoff show- the landlord (long story short) made us stop doing shows the show before but we snuck that last one in haha. played with Rob from the Taxpayer's band Trash Swan and it was very very nuts. it was also my birthday and my mom baked vegan cupcakes for me and came to the show and brought me the cake during our set and everyone sang happy birthday to me and then i think caleb smashed it in my face. i remember my mom was jokingly upset about that (but i still ate it!). that was the most wholesome night of my life in which i also blacked out. haha

played shea stadium in brooklyn, sorta early when we moved to new york, that was a big one mainly because it was very impowering, i guess, to be able to play at that sort of "important" NYC diy space, as cheesy as that sounds. i remember watching that oliver stone "untold history of the US" at the time and in between songs was spouting off all these facts about how evil the US government/corporations have been (did you know that during WWII, GM was building vehicles for the nazis in germany (through a subsidiary), and making money off of that, and when their factories got bombed, they SUED THE US GOVERNMENT for damages?? how fucking insane is that???) and having everyone sort of vibe with that, including some of the folks in the So So Glos haha, that was super reaffirming, in a "yeah, our band is cool, we belong here, these are my people" kind of way

Ed: Radical man! What about your top 3 most surreal DIY moments?

Austin: we played a house show in new orleans on the 4th of july and everyone was very very fucked up... some of the folks that lived there took some of us on the roof and they were firing bottle rockets at people in the backyard, including some of our band members who were tripping on acid. i think normally i would've gone into a guilt spiral from "being a part of that" but it was so bizarre that i couldn't react in any way other than just laughing. probably the closest i've ever been to being a bully in my life haha

one other time we played a house show in milwaukee with dowsing and live tetherball tonight (found the flyer- house was called the mosh haus) and i basically had the flu, and after the show, i slept in the basement by myself to sort of quarantine myself, and it was incredibly damp, there was 100% black mold everywhere... and i'm trying to sleep and it's pitch black and i'm in and out of sleep, feeling like shit, and i remember waking up and hearing a dog's heavy, rapid breathing, and looking up and seeing a dog's eyes coming towards me, but not really seeing anything else, just hearing it come closer and closer to me, which normally wouldn't be that weird but i'm really ill and am basically having a night terror, and it feels like fucking cerberus is coming at me... the dog gets right up to me and squats next to my head and takes a huge dump right next to my head. then i just hear the breathing going further and further away, and i hear the dog run up the stairs... woke up the next morning and the pile of shit is still there, untouched. so, crisis averted, for the most part. could've been a lot worse, all things considered! and miraculously i felt quite a bit better the next morning!

probably the funniest thing that has ever happened to me in a diy venue was a house show in minot north dakota at a house called duff mountain (shouts to charlie and VHS Dust / Mr. Dad / duffy and the beer slayers) and those shows were always great because everyone would party all night after the show and in minot, you can buy a 30 rack of hamms for like 12.99 or something insane. so we would just be pounding beers all day/all night, it was a... different time. anyway, the house at duff mountain was kind of unfinished, in weird ways, i think garret from duffy and the beer slayers bought it real cheap because it needed so much work and was theoretically going to do all the work on it himself or something. anyway, at some point during the night after the show, when we are all very inebriated, i'm hanging out in the kitchen by myself and our bassist/trombone player dan comes up to me and has dirt all over him and is kind of limping, and says "man i think i fucked up my ankle..." i ask him what happened and he shows me to this door in the kitchen, that looks like it's like the patio door, to go outside to the backyard, since there are windows on the wall next to the door and all that, but he opens the door and... there's nothing there. there's just like a 5-6 foot drop into the back of the house. turns out the house is built on a hill and at the back of the house, the ground floor turns into the second floor- it was a little more obvious in the light of day but at the time, when it's 2 in the morning and pitch black outside, you couldn't really tell at all. apparently, dan had opened the door to go outside to smoke and, like a fucking looney tunes cartoon, just stepped into the abyss, and fell on his face into this mound of dirt in the backyard. i guess they were planning on building a deck or something but hadn't gotten around to it yet, so they just locked the door when they had shows, and i guess didn't think anyone would try to unlock it and go outside without looking (fair enough!)? truly one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life. i remember asking charlie about it later and he was like "oh yeah, don't use that door" and i just though "got it, thanks" haha. i'm not sure he even registered what had happened, based on the fact that he didn't also die of laughter or get alarmed about someone...falling out of his house. and dan was fine, just twisted his ankle a bit and got dirt and mud on his clothes, but we were on tour, they were gonna get dirty anyway! could've been a lot worse though. but that will never not make me crack up whenever i think about it. it was tough to even type this up because i'm at work, trying not to laugh, thinking about it haha. 

Ed: Awesome man. Any final thoughts or anything you want to share about diy spaces or culture?

Austin: Ha i think I’ve talked too much already! I don’t think so! 

Ed: Not at all man! This is a ton of good info, thank you for your time and good luck on all your future endeavors

Austin: Same dude! Thank you for taking an interest in my experiences haha!