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L.A. ska-punks The Interrupters make long-awaited Victoria debut

ON STAGE What: The Interrupters with Skinny Lister and Sharp/Shock Where: Capital Ballroom, 858 Yates St. When: Friday and Saturday (Oct. 18 and 19), 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30) Tickets: $35 (plus fees) from ticketweb.
The Interrupters 2.jpg
The Interrupters, with Kevin Bivona, his twin brothers Jesse and Justin, and Aimee Allen, are performing at the Capital Ballroom.

ON STAGE

What: The Interrupters with Skinny Lister and Sharp/Shock
Where: Capital Ballroom, 858 Yates St.
When: Friday and Saturday (Oct. 18 and 19), 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30)
Tickets: $35 (plus fees) from ticketweb.ca
Note: Saturday’s show is sold out

Los Angeles ska-punk quartet The Interrupters have never played Victoria during their seven years as a group, so why does guitarist Kevin Bivona know everything about one of our longest-running music festivals and have framed photos of one of the city’s top tourist attractions on the wall of his home studio?

His grandmother, among other reasons.

“She went on vacation there maybe 20 years ago, and took a bunch of pictures of some gardens, I don’t know what they were called,” Bivona said of Butchart Gardens.

“I found the pictures at her house, and was saying: ‘Grandma, these pictures are amazing! You took these? They look like postcards.’ About a year later, I moved, and my housewarming gift from here was a bunch of those pictures from Victoria framed. I actually have pictures of Victoria in my recording studio at home, so I already feel connected to the city.”

Bivona’s band will make its long-awaited Victoria debut tonight, with the first of two shows at the Capital Ballroom. That he was eager to chat about the Victoria Ska and Reggae Festival, which celebrated its 20th year of operation in June, is not altogether surprising.

North American festivals dedicated almost exclusively to the genre’s hybrid of reggae and rhythm and blues are rare, so it was inevitable that it would come up in conversation with one of the top ska bands in North America.

The popularity of the form has been surging in recent years, however, so maybe more festivals akin to the one in Victoria are on the horizon.

“There’s an umbrella that ska falls under, and that includes punk rock, reggae and other genres. When we go on tour, it doesn’t matter where, there’s a scene in every city.”

The Interrupters — which also features singer Aimee Allen and Bivona’s twin brothers, drummer Jesse and bassist Justin — have been steadily ascending the radio and digital charts with Fight the Good Fight, their third album.

The album has performed well in North America, and has posted some of its best audience numbers in Canada, where the single She’s Kerosene hit No. 1 in two formats on the Canadian rock radio charts.

Some of the songs on Fight the Good Fight are reminiscent of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, who broke similar ground in the mid-’90s as a female-fronted ska band. (Rancid, whose frontman Tim Armstrong has produced records by The Interrupters, is a far better comparison.)

The ska genre has always had more male stars than female ones, so Stefani and Allen were bound to be mentioned in the same sentence. But the ratios are changing. Bivona said he can see the difference in The Interrupters’ audience as well.

“As our band has grown, I’ve noticed that our audience is a real even split between males and females. Which is not totally common in the punk-rock world, which is mostly male. I think it’s great when we get out on stage and look at the front row, it’s all girls of varying ages. They look up to [Allen]. That’s one of the things that drives her, to give it 1,000 per cent when she gets on stage, to really care about the message, to really care about the lyrics. I know she does not take that for granted.”

Allen has an unmistakable stage presence that has given the group something of a secret weapon, to the point where live shows by the band are must-see engagements.

The Interrupters’ performance Saturday is already sold out, but tickets are still available for the group’s appearance tonight.

Fans at both shows are going to get their money’s worth, Bivona said.

“The whole experience is about the energy, whether you’re in the crowd or on stage. It’s a big dance party. That’s what a lot of people love about it. It’s an escape from reality; it’s a moment of unity. It’s all of those things — a moment you don’t get too often nowadays.”

The group will join Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer on their epic Hella Mega global stadium tour next summer, arguably the biggest career moment to date for The Interrupters. Bivona is excited to clear Canada off its to-do-list first, given the band has had its biggest success on radio in Canada.

“We haven’t done a full Canadian tour since we supported Less Than Jake in 2014,” he said.

“We’ve played Vancouver, we’ve played Toronto, we’ve played Montreal, but we haven’t gone across. We haven’t hit Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, cities like that. It’s something that has been building up, and with the success of this last record in Canada, it was the perfect time to do it.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com