The raw, gritty punk rock of ROBBERY feels like it could score that iconic scene from Pulp Fiction. In fact, their sound wouldn’t be out of place blasting through countless moments in that film—a chaotic, rebellious backdrop to the tension and unfiltered emotion.
In 2021, the band’s founder found himself in an unexpected place. “I was given the VERY unexpected news that I was going to become a father,” he shares. The isolation and exhaustion of parenthood, combined with the remnants of the COVID lockdown, pushed him into a corner. Nights were spent quietly writing in the kitchen on an unplugged electric guitar while the rest of the house slept.
By 2022, drummer John Elwert reignited an old idea.
Starting a punk band.
With Jeremy Pearson joining on bass and a shared love of 90s punk, ROBBERY began taking shape. Their live shows became a release for the raw struggles they had been through, turning deeply personal experiences into high-volume catharsis.
“Our inspiration came from finally making this new connection together after years of playing in bands around each other and some great essential cover bands (Jeremy played in a Misfits tribute called GREEN HELL and John and I had years back played in a Mercyful Fate tribute called THE DEMON BELL) But this was the first time any of our punk bands were getting real attention.”
The Vermont Scene: Punk in the Wilds
Vermont may be small and rural, but its punk scene is alive and thriving. Burlington serves as the hub, with its college-town energy and late-night venues, but the band’s roots are firmly planted in the DIY ethos.
“We’re usually the most melodic or quietest band on the bill,” they admit, laughing about how their sound is still considered soft compared to the brutal hardcore dominating the scene. But they’re unapologetic, blending Epitaph-style punk with elements of thrash and classic punk covers to create something uniquely their own.
“Robbery started as me not giving a fuck and making the songs I wanted to make and not being super concerned with coming across as “too soft”. I mean, in our live set we play 90’s era Epitaph-style songs, UK-82 stuff, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains kindsa songs and even THAT gets called soft these days.”
“I love hardcore and thrash and brutal music as well as all tons of pop energy. There’s some serious hardcore music happening in Vermont right now, and 2023 and 2024 showed the absolute awesome power of this crew. ”
10 Bands from Vermont worth a check
THE PATH
Totally eccentric and real hardcore. Scene vets and just an amazing live show. Jon Contra the singer is a dad too and helped me through so much of that.
RIVER CITY REBELS
I know people always remember the second and third records as early 00’s classics and the band was great, but the EP “Pop Culture Baby” they put out in 2024 is absolutely the best thing that Bopper and the crew have ever done. Seriously everyone who likes rock n roll needs that 7″. I have two copies.
VOID BRINGER
Brutal, absolutely crushing. The 2024 full length “Rural Anti-Bastard Maple Violence” is in my top records of the year.
ROUGH FRANCIS
They are insanely kind dudes and just put this raw rock n roll into our state. Their new EP “Fall” is going to be the greatest. You can’t wait.
MODEL 97
Another EP of majesty. They’re in that Bouncing Souls/Business/Fat Wreck Chords excellence of pop-punk. They’re from NY technically but they share in our Burlington scene. “‘Til The Light Burns Out” is their 2024 EP and it was recorded like insanely good by Ryan Hayden.
BLOSSOM
Queer/Trans politcal hardcore. Fast, lotta screaming and high intensity. The first band I took my 3-year-old to see and he was in awe.
VIOLET CRIMES
The EP “Fighting Words”! Femme-fronted classic punk stuff
OUTNUMBERED
Best new Hardcore band in Vermont by a longshot. They move fast and waste no time. Take note. Their demo is out now!
BLACK AXE
Punishing crust and UK-82 style punk.
DEAD STREET DREAMERS
Okay, maybe there is an order for this one. My favorite band in Vermont. They came up a little before us and showed us all the ropes. Nick Grandchamp who is the guitarist is pretty much the entire heartbeat of Vermont Punk.
I would be in a much worse spot if it wasn’t for him, and all the Dreamers, really. I come from the street level punk stuff as a scene and they put all this love and devotion into music and songs that are just so so good. Brit Davis, the bassist, is legendary and I would say one of the biggest inspirations to me as a musician. All of them are just such a tight but raw unit.
It’s Detroit style but has this major Murder City Devils vibe which… those guys were my blueprint for years. And now, it’s Dead Street Dreamers just taking things by storm. Screaming Crow Records put out their debut album “Countdown To The Reaper”. It’s a top album of 2024.
“Endless Crisis” Track-by-Track
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Inspirations for songs came from a lot of attempts to unite people and also escape the nights of total loneliness and silence that accompany some fathers. “I would watch 90’s movies and pull lots of odd backstories.” – says Knayte Lander.
“As a band the inspirations come from the audience and the belief that even when things are so unbelievably hard, there’s a different option in the world of punk and metal.”
Here’s Lander’s fyull track by track rundown for the EP:
“Back to Basics”
“Back to Basics” is addressing the severe polarization of Americans and the erosion of simple abilities to find any common ground. In particular, the Democratic and Republican handbooks putting “Us & Them” fear tactics into literally every piece of our daily life that they could. We asked for better standards of living, they gave us ultimatums, paranoia and every kind of distraction imaginable. It’s an easy principle of power to understand. If they don’t want to lose power or stop the game, they need more people bickering and fighting each other on the street level.
They keep finding new ways to charge us for our frustrations, and some we actually have the power to escape for free.
“New Routine”
“New Routine” was a reflection on how all of a sudden I went from being a slacker punk to being a father and the harsh, literal wake-up call never got easier:
‘I used to sleep in and waste the day but now I’m up at 7:00 getting started right away’
‘Tea for ten minutes, yoga for an hour, I take a little nap and then I take a shower’ was a total joke on how some parents would talk about their “new routine” for a great lifestyle, and the whole time I was like “how the fuck can you do anything???” I was raising a kid alone sleeping 5 hours, working 19, and I’m finding out these other parents had nannies, grandparents, childcare, and above all MONEY to do whatever they wanted. It was like no big deal to them. People would always talk to me about starting their new routines as if it was this actual option. I had no choice, I hit the ground running and hit the ground falling over.
The song is then offering how people can have all kinds of negative (‘Hung from the ceiling like a chandelier, I wake up every morning and I crack two beers’) And transformative and less conventional (‘I used to be a Catholic, bound by guilt, but now? I”m on my knees in the sex room I built’) routines they enact. We can be really strange every day when we look at it from a distance or through a microscope.
“Johnny”
“Johnny” was the center piece of the EP. It’s an amalgamation of my early teen years, and my friends’ early teen years getting into punk and getting out of small town bullshit.
‘Johnny and his cousin, downstairs hangin’ out, nothing good on TV
Mom’s upstairs with a bright orange bottle, high as she could be
Cousin puts on “Machine Gun Ettiquette”, stereo’s turned up loud
Ladies & gentlemen, how do? The world sounds different now’
It was kind of that piece where you see your parents getting drunk, getting angry, getting high. You’re kind of downstairs, kind of ignored, kind of “below” but you can just as easy go upstairs and take a bottle, make a fist and punch the wall, take the same pills she’s taking. That’s all easy, that’s there. But punk rock was like a massive different option that someone brings into your life, passed down like a secret place where things don’t hurt as bad.
It wasn’t Johnny in my true life story, it was my older friends Beth Santos who gave me the first Clash album, and my friend Greg Boyd who told me not to take shit and introduced me to a band I joined when I was 16. Johnny became the relatable like, ‘everyone’ in the punk community.
“Stars That Never Shine”
“Stars That Never Shine” was my experience in a nutshell over these early years as parent. I was missing my friends who I used to see all the time, and now had to fight for even seeing them once a month. I was exhausted, giving everything I had to the house and my son, and my job. When it would come to 9:00 at night I just wanted my girlfriend to have some sense of connection with me and share in the struggle, but she was either totally asleep or had no interest in talking with me.
She changed so dramatically that it was like I was living with a stranger. I felt as if the whole earth shifted and I was totally alone with no support in my daily life or anyone to talk with. The same shift that pulls constellations out of view when the world turns in the seasons.
There’s a path back to seeing what you used to have, but it’s not fast, it’s not easy. I missed my people, missed being loved and just didn’t want to be in the dark fighting all the time over things we couldn’t change.
