Here is something you’ve almost definitely never thought about: Rural punks! Punks in the country!
How does that even work, exactly? Does a shredded Black Flag T-shirt go with a Dodge pickup? Can one maintain a deep-seated rage against pigs (the police) while feeding pigs (the farm animal)? Is piercing your eyebrow with a safety pin in the middle of a cow field more or less transgressive than doing it in the bathroom of whichever shitty warehouse show is happening on a Thursday?
Thanks to Modern Farmer, we can now ponder these questions throughout the day and for the rest of time. Tyler LeBlanc interviewed the founder of the Grind, a zine for rural punks founded by a woman whose honest-to-God, government name is Gretchen Bonegardener.
You can read the whole interview here, but we’ve cherry-picked the best excerpt:
MF: What does the Grind offer a country punk?
GB: Mostly service stuff, a good chunk are of our articles are how to’s. For example, in the newest issue, we look at things like how to hunt prairie chickens and how to sharpen a chainsaw.
MF: You’re obviously not a fan of city life, so, what’s your favorite part of living in the country?
GB: I like the lack of people telling me what I can and cannot do. I can go sit on my front porch and shoot off my gun, and blast music as loud as I can and nobody cares. I mean I don’t do that all the time, but I can, and that’s nice.
All of a sudden, the rural punk life makes complete sense. We’ll just leave you with this, a soundtrack to your reflections:
