Olympia Music History Project

Joshua Ploeg

Interviewed by Kelsey Smith

February 4, 2025

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Kelsey Smith 

My name is Kelsey Smith. Today is Tuesday, February 4th, 2025 and I am interviewing Joshua Ploeg for the Olympia Music History Project. Hi, Joshua. 

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Joshua Ploeg

Hello.

Kelsey Smith

So, I think maybe we can start with just talking a little bit about your early life- where you grew up, when you moved to Olympia, what you remember about first landing in Olympia.

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I'll run through the background real quick. I grew up in farm places. Bellingham on a dairy farm, Eastern Washington, like Ephrata, on alfalfa and wheat farms. I lived in town a little bit there, moved to Idaho, went to high school in Coeur d'Alene. It was pretty conservative, so I reacted wanting to be more liberal. And then I moved to Othello, Washington. And my sister lived in Olympia, and my counselor happened to recommend Evergreen for college. I'm like, “What a coincidence.” I was considering it and met with the rep and wound up going to Evergreen. I Lived with my sister. And when I'd visited Olympia previously, I was like, “Well, this place is wet and dreary, I love it, look at all these dirt bags, look at all this music,” so I took to it right away. Freeform education, sort of- I mean, I was in an economics program at Evergreen, so it wasn't that freeform, because that's a lot of structure. I bought into the vibe that Olympia was somewhat crunchy granola, but then it had a lot more goths than it ever got credit for. So, that's what brought me there. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And what year was that? 

Joshua Ploeg 

So I started college in 1990, 

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Kelsey Smith 

And did you go to Evergreen all four years? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

No! It probably added up to that, including my leave of absence and then not finishing.I don't know, I just got sidetracked, actually- by music and stuff. Then after that I was like, “I don't wanna do this,” so I started doing food instead, and I stuck with that. I got very distracted by the music scene, as we were talking about, and even at one point started working on a contract to do some things with music as kind of an ethnography, but I wasn't really serious enough about it. At the time that was an emerging field, and they had a couple of faculty there that were into that, but I wasn't serious about it. I just wanted to go to shows and play music and write zines and screw around. So I did.

Kelsey Smith 

And where did you live when you first came to Olympia? Did you stay there or did you move around?

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Joshua Ploeg 

I hopped around a lot. So when I first got there, I lived with my sister in a townhouse, at Pattison, like out by the bowling alley and stuff, on Martin Way. Then I moved downtown. I lived in the Elks building. I lived on Cherry Street over by the Capitol with my bandmates from the Mukilteo Fairies. I lived in the Central house… then Jon [Quittner] and Becca [Bolo]'s basement at three different locations. I lived in their basement a couple of times and hopped around, went to Seattle a bit. I lived so many places before I finally moved away, and I don't even remember when I moved away.

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Kelsey Smith

And that would be Jon Quittner and Becca Bolo. 

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Joshua Ploeg

Yeah. 

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Kelsey Smith

Okay, awesome. And so do you want to talk a little bit about when you said that you got involved in the music scene in the early 90s? You want to bring us through a chronology of your many bands that you were in? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Sure, yeah. I started out just going to shows and as often happens, and especially in a place like Olympia that turned into “Oh, would you make a flyer?” And I started making flyers. Then it was “We need some help throwing this show.” And I'd be like, okay, I'll help. And then I started booking bands, and then I started following bands around, trying to pretend to be their roadie. And then I started playing music. And the first band was Kiss Me Kill Me with a John Darlene from Honey Bucket. And he also was the original singer for The Accused, and he worked at Golden Oldies. I started a band with him and his partner, Carey Kramer, and we were called Kiss Me Kill Me. It was very cuckoo. I played the drums- though I couldn't play the drums at all. Then after that, that band technically never broke up and only played in Olympia on occasion.

But I started a zine, because other people had zines, and I was like, “I want people to know more about me.” And so I had a little queer zine that was very zany and cuckoo, I handed it out to people. And then Counter Commons was like, “You should start a band, you've got a lot to say.” So I'm like, “Okay.” At first I tried to morph Honey Bucket into- a couple of the guys from that were playing with me- to try to do something, and that didn't quite happen. So then I recruited Jason [Reece] and Rebecca [Basye] and Quitty to play music with me, and that was the Mukilteo Fairies, which would have been 1993 by then. 

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Kelsey Smith 

You want to give us full names of the band members? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah. Jason Reese, also known as Mosh Boy. Jon Quitner, also known as Quitty. And Rebecca Basye, also known as Rebecca. She doesn't have a punk name. That's not her style. 

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Kelsey Smith 

She's too punk for a punk name. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, kinda. She's got her own thing going on… I think she writes songs and sometimes people want to be known for that instead of sitting there. I mean, my dad always got on my case about using that fake last name. He's like, “Why don't you just use your real name?” And I'm just like, first of all, it's just the last name and people mispronounce my last name anyway. And that's how I got Joshua Plague to start with. And then later on I started using my real name to write cookbooks and do folk music, and then he shut up about it. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And you said the name of your first zine was? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

I didn't say, but good catch. It was And Now I Devour You.

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Kelsey Smith 

Amazing. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Because we had a whole series of Now I zines. I think there's nine of them, but in various sorts. 

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[00:07:05] 

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Kelsey Smith 

So tell us a little bit about Mukilteo Fairies, and then you can move to your next band. There were so many. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

We were just- spastic I think is the word I would use. Punk rock, but it was Olympia so we would always play with Olympia bands. So a lot of the time, the bill that we'd be on would be pretty funny. It might be us and like Lois and something else. The punk kids would come and they'd be like, “Why are you always playing stuff like this?” And I'm just like, it's all punk rock. it's all attitude. That's what matters. And we argued a lot, tried to tour, that was a semi-fail. Outpunk and Kill Rock Stars and stuff put records out by us, just 7 inches. And we weren't around for very long. It was fun to be in and we would run out- that's where the thing started- we would run out into the audience and try to get people to come up on the stage instead of us being up there. And short sets, about 10 minutes, stuff like that. It was fun, but it was really just a vehicle for me to screech around about and complain and kind of work through that. And then that was it, they decided they didn't want to do it anymore. And there was no way I would have kept playing without any of them. It was all essential people. And that broke up, but I still wanted to play music with Quitty, so I was like, “Okay, let's try something else.” Then I met Jordan Rain, our drummer for Behead the Prophet. I saw Michael Griffin play with Noggin, I was all hopped up on coffee in the basement of the Lucky Seven house, and he was in his late fifties at the time. And he looked like a mad scientist, just a shock of white hair, dressed in all black, playing noise violin through this crazy spray painted amp. I was like, “Wow, I want to play music with him.” So I got his contact information and I was like, “Check this out. Would you do hardcore?” He said “I guess, can I improv in that?” And I'm like, “Probably.” So I filed that away. And then Vivienne- who, on records, was “Dave From Beyond The Grave,” I had seen play in a number of bands, was friends with her at the time, and that was a guitar player I liked, and knew some of her material. And, so basically those four people- I was like, “Let's have a band of this.” I put them all in contact with each other. And I went on a road trip with Leeza Alderson out of the area. And I'm like, “You guys practice while I'm gone. I know this is going to work out.” And they practiced and they all were getting back to me. They're like, “It sounds crazy. It sounds crazy. What are we doing?” And I'm like, “Oh God, this is perfect. This is just right.” And we happened upon that band name, there's a whole story about that. Maybe ask Quitty that one and he'll tell it. [See our interview with Jon Quitner and Vivienne Lumière] And that's how that band started. It sounded crazy. And I applied some of the Mukilteo Fairies’ aspects, but all souped up. So everybody jumping around out in the audience, lots of racket, you could never tell what the fuck was happening. And, being near and dear to my heart, I loved every second of that band. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And would you like to say the name of the band, even though I already know it?

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Joshua Ploeg 

Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live. Nice short band name. 

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Kelsey Smith 

You're not going to tell us the story?

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Joshua Ploeg 

Well, I can, but you'll hear it again, but you'll probably hear it again from every band member. So I was on a road trip and, I think it was, Vivian and, Jordan and, Quitty, but not Michael, [he] hadn't come down from Bellingham, ‘cause this is the other thing- three of us lived in Olympia, Jordan lived in Seattle, Michael lived in Bellingham. So the whole time we were a band, somebody lived in each of those three different cities, so we would practice for a weekend or something, because it didn't happen very often. The three of them were in Seattle practicing and they took a break. And Jon did Hessian Obsession zines, and we all had different mental connections in some ways, and different reasons. And a couple of us Heshers at heart, truth be told, not fingering anybody on that one. But- so they went to the store. It was probably like QVC, QFC, whatever the hell it is in Seattle- and they were thumbing through all the metal magazines and some guy came up to them and was like, “Oh, y'all listen to death metal?” And they're like, “Hell yeah, this is good stuff.” And he's “What do you think of Deicide?” And Quitty's like “Oh yeah, Decide is great.” All this cool stuff, and the guy's crazy. He's got an upside down cross burned on his forehead, which at the time, I guess he did… and the other guy goes “Oh, I'm related to him and they branded me too.” And he showed his hand and there was a cross burned on it that could have been either direction, technically. And then he started grilling them about different songs and asked them what they thought of the album “Legion.” And, They said they liked Legion, and he's like “Well, what do y'all think of that song Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live? First track, second side.” And they're like, “Oh, that's a great song.” So, when I heard that story, I was like, “That's the band name. That's our band name.” They kept trying to stop me, trying to pick other names. And then finally, we even had a different name. I think it was the Better Off Deads. We played our first show with Angel Hair [at the Capitol Theater] Backstage in Olympia and the Fucking Angels, and I don't even remember who else was on that bill. But they changed their mind and acquiesced to my demands, and then other flyers had our real band name on it. I just was like, we have to have that band name. And it was funny to me, because I'm like, “Well, Glen Benton's gonna hate that.” But it was funny, he's never really said anything about it except I think once, someone asked him- that's the singer for Deicide- asked him what they thought of our name, and then some other band from Brazil that had a name from one of their songs. And I think all he said was, “I'm sick of these bands naming themselves after my songs.” I was like, okay. But I feel like it had some influence on other bands using long names afterwards. And a few of them have told me that it influenced them to just call their band whatever the hell they wanted, the longest name in the universe. Some are even far longer than our band name when you see the whole thing. And I think Spin put us in the top 40 band names of all time. [see article] They're not wrong, but anyway. 

Kelsey Smith

Behead the Prophet N.L.S.L. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, No Lord Shall Live. I liked the anarchist bent of that, and I got a kick out of it, because people are gonna misspell this, and spell the words how they want, so I'm guaranteed it's gonna be a P R O F I T sometimes. I'm like, people are gonna trip about the “Prophet.” Who are they talking about? Which, to be honest, even when I had heard the Deicide song, I hadn't paid attention to the lyrics, and when we picked the name, I thought he was talking about John the Baptist, who was- I'm an admirer of John the Baptist. But he was talking about poor old Jesus, because that's all they ever talk about. I found out after looking at it. But, yeah, it's an interesting name. It brings out different reactions with people. Obviously people get offended, which I don't care about. Let's face it, I just don't. Never have. But it created interesting interactions with people. And then when you say the second part and be like, “Oh, but it has a political connotation,” then they're like, “Oh, okay. Politician, like royalty.” It doesn't have to be offensive spiritually, although it can be. Conceptually you could be talking about a lot of people.

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Kelsey Smith 

I just always remember thinking of it as being hard to include on a flyer because it was so long…

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Joshua Ploeg 

It was long, yeah. And a couple of times the combination of the name with the artwork got a lot of pushback. Once in St. Louis, it was our name, but then somebody else had a crazy name.

And then the guy had Ronald McDonald's head on a pike- the artist that did the flyer- and the Hamburglar, and Grimace was all disemboweled, and the special division from their police came to the show ‘cause someone had phoned it in, and they’d do occult crimes. And I talked to them a little bit and they were like, “Yeah, it's stupid that we're here, we just want to make sure nobody's sacrificing a cat.” And that pulls at my heartstrings as an animal guy. I'm like, “Oh, if you thought a cat was being harmed, then you have every right to be here. I'll tell you everything you want to know.”

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Kelsey Smith You’re like, “Um, I'm vegan.” Okay, so Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live- what's the span of dates for that band.?

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Joshua Ploeg

1994-’99 technically, although we did stop playing a bit before that. We played our last show in 1998, I think. And everybody wanted to do different stuff. Tight Bros From Way Back When were playing. And I had gone back to my old habits, I would just follow them around. So I'm like, “Oh, I'm done with this too!” It was a unanimous decision, everyone's “Yeah, we're good.” And I think that was true. There was other stuff we could have done, but I don't know. I think everybody got their ya-ya's out and they had other things they wanted to do and say. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And you remained friends. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Oh yeah, absolutely. 

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Kelsey Smith

And I remember you had a reunion at Northern.

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, we did that. I'll say this also- I've always stayed friends with everyone in Mukilteo Fairies and Kiss Me Kill Me, every band I've been in. I don't know, usually everyone in the band strives to not have bad blood. Even if weird stuff or arguing happens, you get over it, you talk it out. So I'm a big proponent of that, rather than… I don't understand bands where it's super melodramatic for like years afterwards. Like, what happened, you guys, did someone poop in your sody pop or fuck your girlfriend? Usually that's it, I think. But no doubt, I'm not doing that to anybody. And that reunion show, that was good, ‘cause any unfinished business we had, musically… I guess there was a little bit of creativity that was different having us… Michael had passed away and we had Eric [Ostrowski] from Noggin, who's actually played with Behead The Prophet before as a sixth member. Each of us- me, Vivian and Jordan- have all done stuff with him before, different noise or other projects. so we had him do it. And I think when Michael died… for me personally, my dad had recently passed away, and I didn't really process it quite how I might have if that hadn't happened first. So I don't know, I had a little bit of leftover sentiment about that. And even though we remained friends, the four of us hadn't all been together since then. So someone asked Garrett from Magma Radio or whatever it was. And we're like, “We'll ask Eric.” And he said “I already talked to Eric.” “Well, let's do this then.” And we practiced and we played four shows. It was a lot of fun. It was very cathartic. I felt a lot more sewn up about Michael's death after that, too. I think it needed to happen. Because normally when someone would be like, “Oh, you should do a reunion with this or that,” I'd be like, “that's not my style.” I'm not super Nostalgic in that way, but in this case, it was a little different. 

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Kelsey Smith 

That's nice that you did that. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I think so. I needed it, to be honest. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live was known for their stage show. Thank you. And your use of flashlights, or like like headlights… 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Headlamps. We would use some of that, lamps, and stage scenes. We’d make scenery or wear costumes. And we had a whole series of shows where everybody wore the same color. ‘Cause I was like, “They're going to think the set was better than it was, because we're all wearing the same color.” And the other guys are like, “No way, that's not gonna work.” And sure enough, a couple of times- plenty of times when we did that, the set was tight, sounded great. But a couple of times it was just total garbage, and people were like “That was so put together!” And I was like, “yeah.”

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Kelsey Smith 

You also had a… I'm trying to think of what it's called, like the cone that you use at a protest?

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Joshua Ploeg 

Oh, you mean like a bullhorn?

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Kelsey Smith 

A bullhorn! I guess it's a bullhorn. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I've used one as a microphone. I had a telephone as a microphone that Vivian made for me twice that I broke immediately. We’d break a lot of stuff! A lot of the time things would be unplugged by the end or from the beginning, as the case may be. And depending on where someone stood at the show, it would sound completely different. ‘Cause all I could hear was violin and drums or someone from the other side be like, “I could only hear the bass.” It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It was fun. It was supposed to just be high energy. Yeah.

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Kelsey Smith 

Experiment. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, a group experiment.

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[00:22:08]

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Kelsey Smith

Would you like to talk about some of your other bands? 

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Joshua Ploeg

Well, the only other Olympia one I had was Lords of Lightspeed, because after that I did Warm Streams, which was Sacramento based, and garage-y. And then I did a more metal, kind of AmRep  [Amphetamine Reptile Records] sounding one in Los Angeles called Select Sex. I liked that band, and it had Ben Adrian from Indianapolis originally on guitar,  he’s a great guitar player. Brian Agston was our drummer. And this dude Brad Baker-and then later Kevin Na played bass. And then Warm Streams was Martin and Melissa, my good buddies, and Mike, and then later Andrew, but all that, whatever. It's not Olympia, and it's later. Lords of Lightspeed, on the other hand, was with the Weaver Brothers, who became Wolves In The Throne Room. And in fact, at least one song was in- they were in the Hoodwinks before, and it was a Hoodwinks song. And then later they played in a band with Bridget Irish, and it was a song with that, and then it was a Lords of Lightspeed song. And then it was a Wolves in the Throne Room song, and they're like, “At last, that song, we finally got it right.” I'm not in there screwing it up anymore. I remember one time, at practice, they noticed I was furtively writing lyrics for a song they'd written that was very catchy. To me, it was very catchy. And they're like, “Oh, cool. That was fast. You wrote it already?” And I'm like, “Oh yeah, I'm on it.” They're like, “What's the song called?” I go, “Dance with me.” And they're like, “Of course it's called Dance with Me.” And I'm like, “No, I'm changing my mind. It's called Gnarly Troll in the Forest, so you guys can calm down. Quit complaining!” But anyway, that band was kinda cool.

Kelsey Smith 

Can you name all the people in that band?

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Joshua Ploeg

Yeah, we did switch it around a bit. So it was Nathan and Aaron Weaver, and Chris Bugue, and Kelly Werner was in it, John Cale was in it- not the Velvet Underground one- and Aaron Davis played keyboards the longest with us. And then later Sean from Pipe played bass for a bit with us. 

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Kelsey Smith

That was later nineties, correct? 

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Joshua Ploeg

Yeah, I'd say that was 2000, 2001. And we weren't around very long and that band really wore costumes… “Let's put on a show.” One time at- I think it was either the last Yo Yo [A Gogo] or the first- what was the queer one? …Homo A Go Go, where I came out of a Trojan horse and they were wearing silver suits of armor and dragged the Trojan horse out there to some Led Zeppelin song and I popped out of it, and we covered Queen, I think. It was a little theatrical. Ta da! 

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[00:25:41] 

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Kelsey Smith 

So that actually brings me to a question. I think a lot of times your bands are dubbed as queercore because you are in the band. What are your thoughts about queercore and your role in all of that? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

I think it's funny. It was always funny to me to just be labeled that, which I'm into. That works for me. And my theory would always be there were more queer members than it seemed at first. Always true. Every time. First of all, people take their time defining themselves and can't let other people do that for you. So, hey. But, I always felt comfortable with that. I liked queercore. I've talked about this a bit at length. Part of what was fun about it, had to do with the Olympia aesthetic, which is a lot of very minimalist stuff, or different things, or performance art. Could be punk rock, could be queercore, so it didn't have to be some little box that people fit into with a specific Throwback punk sound or whatever. It could be a lot of different things. It's something different to everyone, and they could be included and feel included in it. So that's what I always liked about it, and I'm perfectly happy to be classified that way. It's fine. To an extent, I guess you can be “ghettoized” as queercore and then ignored by other punks or hardcore, but that never happened to us, so I don't have to feel that way. We always were welcomed at other types of punk rock shows or toured as hardcore bands were on labels like Sound Pollution and stuff. So it's fine. We’d get blowback or something weird would happen every once in a while. But I don't think we ever got the kind of harassment that someone like Pansy Division got touring with Green Day. Some of those guys really got in the weeds, or Tribe 8- they were playing bigger festivals or with bigger bands where the audience was not receptive to what they were doing. So, more power to all of them.

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Kelsey Smith 

And do you feel like part of that was because you just played a lot in Olympia? The kind of general vibe of Olympia was pretty inclusive… I feel like the boxes you're talking about, there was a lot of intersection between all those boxes and people didn't necessarily feel like they had to identify this one particular way.

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Joshua Ploeg 

Agreed. That's absolutely true, definitely. Olympia had a lot to do with it, but then somehow that was contagious… we'd go somewhere else and people would wind up being cool because they had adopted a similar aesthetic… yes. I'm agreeing with you, absolutely.

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Kelsey Smith

Do you think that Evergreen and Olympia had an influence on the music culture of that time?

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Joshua Ploeg 

Oh, one hundred percent. Evergreen, from the very beginning, had musical aspects and recording programs. And KAOS, a very freeform station for college radio at the time, for sure

had a lot of influence. People that worked there to DJ, volunteer stuff or sound engineering, went on to do record labels, music magazines, all kinds of bands, and it definitely influenced that. And when they would go to school together in groups, you would notice that they might have a certain aesthetic or sound. So there's like little periods of Olympia, but then somehow the locals that weren't even going to the college either at the time also would… it's generational, they might go to Evergreen later, but… Olympia traditionally has had bands where the people were in high school and part of the scene and doing their own thing, kind of helping to develop the sound. So like the college was influencing them, they're influencing the college scene. A little bit of back and forth. I think even some of those ‘60s Olympia bands were teenagers when they first started, if I'm not mistaken. So, starting young.

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Kelsey Smith 

Yep. And yeah, there was a lot of kind of cross germination. I feel like that. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah. A lot of back and forth, I agree. And, it's cool, you wind up with a lot of interesting periods of music there. And people have an idea of what Olympia music is, but then, as we've discussed, there was a hardcore scene there, punk rock, there's noise- very much a lot of noise  and avant garde stuff. Some of which, as you know, has gotten some degree of fame, and then there's grunge and the minimalist stuff and the stuff where everybody switches the instruments.

That's very inspiring. I found that. Like, “Now I'm going to play the keyboard.” “Do you know how?”” No.” I kind of love it. I love it. 

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Kelsey Smith 

Did you have any bands that were your favorites to play with, or do you have any memorable shows with any of those bands you just mentioned that still stay with you?

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah… we'd always play with Karp and the Rickets and different things like that. I mentioned Lois, I liked playing shows with her, it's a lot of different fun stuff. And when I would go to shows, I would always go see Some Velvet Sidewalk if I got the chance cause they're just off the chain, live performance wise. I love going to see the Melvins, of course. And both of those, they're very different, but they have in common that they were challenging sound wise, in a lot of ways. And the structure that they had, they were in their own world. I appreciated that. Mecca Normal is another one- very influential. And you don't listen to Behead the Prophet and go “Oh, they sound like Mecca Normal.” But if you really think about it, you might see how Jean and David influenced some of us. So there are a lot of different things.

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Kelsey Smith 

Do you have any memory of the first show you went to in Olympia? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I think it was at Reko Muse, and I'm trying to remember if I even lived there yet. And I get two shows mushed up, but somehow, Treehouse was played, I think. And my oldest nephew, like Steve, the singer for Treehouse, is his dad. And Witchy Poo, and I think it was the first Witchy Poo show, and it was very cuckoo. Basically it was Slim doing a bunch of stuff, and the other Witchy Poos just put on a helmet and watched him run around and do his thing. It was just a drum machine, and he did “Moonshadow” and he covered a Cars song. It was cuckoo and loud, and abrasive- and I'm like, “Alright!” And then Treehouse was very melodic, and grunge-ish, but they're more singer songwriter-y… I don't even remember who else played, maybe Helltrout played. But like I said- two shows getting mixed up there probably. But Reko Muse was an interesting space. It was small, it was collectively run. I first met Christina Kai and Aaron Olson there and a few other people and Slim, [who] I'm still friends with to this day. I  mean, that was 1990. I do know that. So. It's 2025 now, that was 35 years ago. 

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[00:34:32] 

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Kelsey Smith 

Oh my gosh. Holy moley… I feel like we covered this a little, but do you want to talk about what made Olympia appealing as a musical place? I feel like you moved to Olympia Maybe partially because of the music scene, also because your sister was here, but was there something that drew you to it? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, she went to shows and stuff and knew some of the music people… and I wanted there to be an active scene, so there was that. There was already zines then, which was hugely influential. And I really enjoyed making zines, that was where I would get very cuckoo.

Anything my bandmates wouldn't put up with could be at a zine, and they had that there. And the radio station that we talked about a little bit was there. There was some of the people like, Matt Groening, Linda Barry, the Sub Pop guys, all of that- OP, K Records and Calvin [Johnson] and Candice [Pedersen]- a lot of stuff going on. That was appealing, and that did play into my decision to go there. Absolutely. Evergreen was very freeform in a lot of ways, perhaps a little too freeform for someone like me that needs some structure. And, yeah- the atmosphere. You could be downtown and hang out on a couch drinking coffee at the Smithfield, or you could go on a walk at the Beaver Pond and be in nature, or go to the water, or walk down by the pier when it was old and dirty. So the atmosphere, the environment was cool. It drew me in. Just the whole coffee… it's rainy and dreary and people are so prone to be alone in that and get into their depression. And in Olympia, depression was more of an asset. You had commonality with everybody about it. You can relate to someone, even if they were a little nasty to you one day, it could be like, “Yeah, I'm not in the mood either.” And then they're fine a couple of days later. So, there was that. There was a lived, shared experience of the environment, which wasn't always pleasant to be in, the physical environment of it.  Really, I think it influenced a lot of music and writing there, and food. 

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[00:37:16] 

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Kelsey Smith 

When we were having group discussions and interviews, a lot of people talked about how the weather influenced the creative projects at Olympia.

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Joshua Ploeg 

Oh, definitely. I think it's very Evident in a few places. I guess a sunny Latin beach influences the sounds that come from there. A Viking fjord influences the sounds that come from there. And rainy, woody, moldy Olympia definitely influences the sounds that come from there. 

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Kelsey Smith 

And people would just get together and do creative projects, because they had to be inside. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

It'd be raining and you don't want to be alone because, especially if you're prone to be alone, sometimes you're just like, “You know what, this is not working. I need to see people.” Asd you'd have other people that were also prone to be in a dreary mood or grumpy that really light up when they were around other people doing a creative process.

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Kelsey Smith 

So you lived in a couple of houses where you had some creative projects going on in those houses. Do you want to talk a little bit about your- 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, even when I lived with Jason and Rebecca by the Capitol, they were creative. I lived with Jane Laughlin/Jane Hex, who did zines and threw shows and played music for a while.

But Central House was like a hub-place where everybody did something. I lived with the guys from Karp there, Bunny Foot Charm, different bands. Rebecca was a roommate of mine there that was in Mukilteo Fairies as well. People from Honeybucket, people from Reisler and Nancyville- good old Karl Steel- different bands like that. And Conrad [Keely], who's now in Trail of Dead, was a roommate of mine for a while. He's in …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead with Jason Rees, who was the drummer for the Mukilteo Fairies. So that's got a couple of Olympia people in it, even though they're Austin, Texas based. And we would throw shows in the basement… disgusting, horrible basement. And there are plenty of other houses like the Lucky Seven and stuff where I didn't actually live, but I might as well have some of the time. But yeah, a punk house becomes a hub of little creative centers around the city. Central House is still standing. It's amazing to me. I thought they knocked it down, but it turned out they just moved the garage over to the other side. I'm like, “Oh, it's a new house,” and someone's “No it isn't. Look at it really close.” 

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Kelsey Smith 

Did Christina live there, or did she live in another house on Central? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

I think she lived at Puget House, but I don't know if she lived in the Central House before me or not. Sarah Utter lived there after I did. I don't know, maybe. It's hard to remember some of this stuff. 

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[00:40:34] 

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Kelsey Smith 

Do you want to talk a little bit about festivals, other kinds of things that you participated in when you were in Olympia, or pivotal events for you?

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Joshua Ploeg 

I had a different band at each Yoyo A Go Go, and they were always fun. It was always fun to see people from out of town. And Homo A Go Go as well. And that was part of the beginning of my food switch, when I put on the Viking helmet and came down with my red wagon and called it a Lefse wagon and sold burritos and turnovers made with Lefse. So that. I don't remember for sure if that was the last Yoyo A Go Go or the first Homo A Go Go where I did that, but that was part of the beginning of the transformation to switch to chefing instead of trying to- I don't know that I ever tried to make money at music and stuff exactly- but I didn't want to do other stuff.

So I guess I tried. It didn't work. But the food, on the other hand- people liked that. So that kind of atmosphere where you need to be creative and do quirky things… So in Olympia, people know the bands, the record labels, and even the zines, but there's always some other stuff going on. There'd be someone just singing a cappella. Nikki McClure is a good example of that.

Or someone does a skit. One time I had a salad bar, I did a cooking show at a show one time, there'd be a puppet show, or a dance performance. So different stuff would happen, and it created an atmosphere where you're like, “I have this weird idea. You know what? I can do the weird idea, because I live in fucking Olympia, and that's fine, and it's gonna fly like a bird, they're gonna love it.” Which, maybe not, but I don't know. I even did classical chanting. And, yeah, the festivals were great because they bring in people from different places, and certain things that maybe deserved wider recognition would get it. Some of our more talented people than me. And, yeah, it would bring people. We'd see similar scenes maybe in Japan or the UK where there were people or Toronto where there were people doing something similar and connecting that. That was always great about those fests. I had one I named after myself that was like six shows in a row, and I performed at each one, and the different guys… and it was just some of my friends, and I called it Plague Fest. That wasn't a real festival, but again, it's Olympia and you could do that if you wanted to.

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Kelsey Smith 

Where did you do that? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Plaguefest? It was mostly at the Midnight Sun, but also the Arrowspace and I think one house participated. I don't remember which one. But it was a pretty funny idea. Speaking of Karp, we were talking about before- but Jared performed as Fascio, which was a very rare occurrence and quite fabulous on one of the nights.

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Kelsey Smith 

I think Jared got interviewed this week by Markly. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Maybe he asked him about Fascio, the alternative Italian pop, Svengali persona. One of his alternative personas. He's got a few. 

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Kelsey Smith 

Maybe he mentioned it. Who knows? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

I can only hope. 

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Kelsey Smith
And so Plaguefest was basically you, and then you would just invite people to perform with you.

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Joshua Ploeg 

Well, yeah, I had bands and then I would stick myself on it somehow. So we had  Lords of the Lightspeed, we did karaoke to my bands, which was pretty funny. Didn't quite work, Julie did some. And one of the guys from Teen Cthulhu and a few other people. And we had The Special Friend- who can forget that- it was with Becca and Quitty. We would cover songs half assedly and be mocking a lot of terrible music that made people cringe to begin with, and then we would perform it in even more embarrassing fashion. Our whole goal was to have the audience just be mortified on our behalf, and not want to be seen there. Success sometimes.

It was actually pretty good sometimes, though.

Kelsey Smith 

That's for sure one approach you could take. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

How could I forget the special friend, Kelsey? That was amazing. Now that band started by- hey, get this- so in Olympia, you would want to put on a show. I’d throw shows and I tried to be nice and some band would play and I’d be like, “Oh, they're all right.” And I'll put your show on, but then I'd have trouble getting bands to play because the local band, a good one, like Karp or C Average are playing so much, they don't want to step on one show or another. If they're going to be trying to play two or three times a week, if they said yes to everything. So sometimes you’d have trouble getting anybody to play. And, so I would just write stuff on there. And that's how The Special Friend started. I had- I don't even remember who it was, some band from the Bay Area- and I was putting the flyer up and Quitty was there. And he's like, “What's the special friend?” And I'm like, “I don't know. Do you want to do something?” So that's how that happened. 

Then Becca joined us because she saw it and she was like “Okay, I need it on that.” That was crazy. That happened another time too. Nathaniel had written “Drenched In Blood” on a flyer, and me and Vivian and Quitty and him began a band called Drenched In Blood.

Because of that- they're like, “Who's that?” And he says “It's not anything.” And I'm like, “No, it is now. Now we're starting a band. Get ready, get your guitar out.”

Kelsey Smith 

Did you try to do a local band sandwich usually, where you'd have a local band and then an out of town band and then another local band? 

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Joshua Ploeg

Yeah, that's usually the best idea unless the touring band is very popular. What used to piss me off is I would sit there- like pulling teeth to get people to go see some touring band, and then they'd come back the next year and be more popular and then everybody goes… where were you last time? 

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Kelsey Smith

That is definitely a thing in Olympia. At Northern, I'd be like one of eight people at the show for this amazing band that went on to open for somebody famous the next year or something. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah. That happens in a lot of places, but I'd say in Olympia, it was like show burnout. So much going on for a town that size. Like on a weekend it would be like six or seven shows on a night.

Just crazy. 

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[00:48:04] 

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Kelsey Smith 

Did you have some favorite venues? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah. Yeah, I did. I loved the Midnight Sun, I love Barbara Zelano, and it was a great place to throw shows. I had fun. She was very tolerant of me and my shenanigans. Arrowspace was cool, a different vibe. But at Midnight Sun, the sound was pretty good in there. And I did love the Capitol Theater, the Backstage was just so funny, but it was hard for me to fill it with some of the janky ass bills I tried to put together. When Patty [Kovax] ran it, she was also very tolerant of me and my shenanigans. I would be short on the rent there a lot and she and Jeff Bartone would always come up with a solution to that. So I appreciate the tolerant venue managers and owners of Olympia.

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Kelsey Smith 

What was Patty's last name? . 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Kovax.

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Kelsey Smith

Okay. What else would you like to talk about? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Just one other thing she assigned me to do one time, to make up for not paying the rental fee for the backstage, was to sift through all the promos that people were sending. And Michelle Noel had me do that before, also. She was the one having to sift through it. It was literally a garbage bag full of tapes, and I'd sit there listening to all this crazy shit. And sometimes, something good would be in there, like Violet Ray or Botch, and I'd be like, “Wow, that's not bad.” Or I'd see someone I know and I'd just call them up. I'd be like, “Hey, I got your tape. Guess what? I get to tell you you’re booked!” So that was fun. But anyway, an exciting time in the life of a booker in Olympia, Washington, sifting through a garbage bag of cassettes. I might even still have a few of the shittier ones or the good ones that I wanted to keep, because sometimes something was just so bad, it was hilarious and you want to remember it forever.

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Kelsey Smith 

There were often lots of small cassette labels that came out of all of those demo tapes.

Joshua Ploeg 

Oh, yeah. Still people startin’ cassette labels to this day. 

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Kelsey Smith 

Mac Dawg, or Justin [McKaughan]- a good example- talked about how K Records and Kill Rock Stars would just give him tapes, and he would tape over them and make new tapes. So yeah, what else? Do you want to talk a little bit more about your food? 

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Joshua Ploeg

It's what I do now. I started doing buffets at shows, and trying to get people to pay for my secret cafe. But that's a different thing, and really I started in earnest as I was leaving the Northwest to go live in the boondocks of Eastern Oregon and California- not the boondocks of California, but that's where I went after Oregon. But yeah, it's what I do now, I guess that's what I'd say about it. And it's influenced by the Olympia aesthetic. Just using my old tour contacts to tour, making my first cookbook like it was a zine, and trying to peddle it at my dinner parties, and trying to get booked on shows in between bands to do a cooking demonstration, and how funny that was- using contacts I'd made that had come touring Olympia, and I'd be like, hey, I'm coming down, and they'd be like, “This is a Tuesday, is your band loud?” And I'm like, “It's not a band, it's a dinner party.” And they'd just be like, “What?” So that all came out of Olympia. It really did. And, a lot of the contacts I had were from booking shows in Olympia, and touring with the bands from there. So, yeah- right out of the gate, the punk rock stuff with the food.

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Kelsey Smith 

And you always have cooked vegan food, correct? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I stick with it. I'm opening a place here at the end of the month. That's with partners, so they'll be doing some non vegan stuff, but I'll be holding down the fort with mine. And then also my bakery business will operate out of there also, which is another one that's all vegan.

So, one and a half vegan businesses, better than zero.

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Kelsey Smith 

Wanna pitch your new business, where it is and what it's called? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Earthbound Cafe in Billings, Montana. 207 North Broadway inside the Valley building in the atrium, lower level. Come see us. We'll be open six to three on weekdays and for special events. So it's a daytime place. It's a morning place.  

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Kelsey Smith 

But you're going to be doing catering still. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah. We'll have catering out of there and some special events and stuff. 

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Kelsey Smith 

Are you going to continue to sell at the farmer's market? 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yes, I will continue the farmer's market.  In the summertime I do Red Lodge, Livingston, Downtown Billings, and Billings South Park.

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Kelsey Smith You got a good situation going there. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Yeah, I'm making my little nest. I'm on the board for- well I was on the board at two of the markets, now I'm letting, somewhat, other people have a chance for the South Park market. But I'm on the board of directors for the downtown one. It’s sort of a political position, in a way.

We'll see, maybe I'll be governor the next time people hear from me. [Laughing]

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Kelsey Smith 

If I lived there, I'd vote for you. 

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Joshua Ploeg 

Thanks. 

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Kelsey Smith 

The first time I ever met you was at a dinner party in Seattle at my friend Shannon's house. 

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Joshua Ploeg
Oh yeah, right, that was a good one. 

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Kelsey Smith 

It was. So yeah, anything else you'd like to talk about?

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Joshua Ploeg 

No, I think I'm good on it. That was pretty thorough, I think. 

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Kelsey Smith 

It was very thorough. We'll probably have lots of follow up questions. 

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Joshua Ploeg

Yeah send any to me that you have.

Kelsey Smith 

Thank you so much, Joshua. 

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