Asbury Park is the reason. The languid beach community of Asbury Park, New Jersey, has long been a port-of-call for many a disaffected musician from Springsteen at The Stone Pony to countless punk and hardcore festivals at Asbury Lanes and Convention Hall. Against this backdrop of rock and punk history comes BEACH RATS. “I had moved to Asbury Park,” recounts guitarist Brian Baker. “And it turned out that Pete [Steinkopf] and Bryan [Kienlen] from the Bouncing Souls were sniffing around and had the idea to do a fun side-band with Ari Katz from Lifetime. They had recently played together at a memorial for Dave Franklin [Vision frontman, R.I.P.] and had a blast. That was the foundation of it. Like most of my career, I walked into a pre-existing situation, ready to go. They were talking about it and I was immediately like, ‘I want to be in a band! Bands are great, let’s go!”
With a membership that includes four impossible-to-avoid New Jersey punk stalwarts (rounded out by Danny Windas, AKA “Dubs” on drums) and Baker, an architect of American hardcore, the common denominator for BEACH RATS was simple. “We all live at the beach and everybody goes to the beach when they’re not working,” says Brian. “There’s a vibe. Being a year-round beach person, seeing the town empty out at the end of summer, there’s definitely a bond. We all see each other all the time. We’re friends and we enjoy getting together and creating stuff on the fly.”
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