Meet the Jewish Brothers Who Started an Annual Punk Rock Convention

Long before it became an annual festival, Punk Rock Bowling began as just a gathering of friends in Los Angeles’ punk music community for a bowling tournament in Santa Monica. 

Now, the Stern brothers, Mark and Shawn, are about to host their 21st iteration of Punk Rock Bowling, a punk community convention in Las Vegas.

It started with about 200 punk musicians and fans in a bowling tournament and evolved into the enormity that it is today. By 2011, the festival had migrated to downtown Las Vegas, where approximately 15,000 fans come annually from all over the world to attend.

“We had no idea that the little party we threw for all our friends back in ’99 would evolve into a full-blown festival and be what we spend most of our time on each year.”
– Shawn Stern

“We had no idea that the little party we threw for all our friends back in ’99 would evolve into a full-blown festival and be what we spend most of our time on each year,” Shawn told SLUG Magazine before the most recent festival in 2019. The 2020 festival was canceled due to the pandemic. 

The Stern brothers are never content to focus on just one thing, and they have an unfriendly relationship with the corporate business side of music.

In the early 1980s, when their band Youth Brigade started to tour nationally, it was a rough time for punk music fans; the police would often hassle fans for their outfits and style. 

Never to stand by idly as the punk scene was denigrated, Shawn and his younger brother Mark took possession of an old warehouse in the San Fernando Valley to host their own shows. They named it the Godzilla’s, and for a time, it was the epicenter of the Valley’s punk community. The LA Times called it “the perfect punk playground.” Fittingly enough, the warehouse had also been a former bowling alley. 

Around the same time, in 1982, they started their own record label called BYO Records (an acronym for Better Youth Organization) with the intent of changing how the punk scene was viewed and to help their fellow punk bands make a living in music. 

In 2015, BYO Records pulled their entire catalogue from Spotify because of unfair royalty distribution. Their music has since returned but Shawn and Mark still remain averse to working with major labels. Though it certainly costs them a degree of exposure, the Stern brothers remain firm that it brings an authenticity to the music.

“There was a huge dilemma between Shawn and Mark constantly about whether or not they were musicians or businessmen, whether they were label owners or a band,” their brother Jamie said in the 2009 documentary “Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records.” But with Punk Rock Bowling, the Stern brothers’ do-it-yourself approach to life is the perfect solution to their struggle to straddle the line between being businessmen and musicians.

Part of the allure of Punk Rock Bowling is that it’s much smaller than other prominent music festivals, and that is by design. 

“As a musician, I’d like to play in front of people who actually give a [expletive],” Shawn said in the documentary.

Although there are strict COVID vaccination and testing policies in place for all attendees this year, there will still be one of Punk Rock Bowling’s signature features since moving to Las Vegas: their “infamous” pool party concerts that allow festival goers to sing, dance and headbang from the water at the Downtown Grand Hotel. 

While there is certainly a competition for tickets to Punk Rock Bowling and the after parties, there is hardly any competition amongst the bands that Shawn and Mark book to headline the festival.

“I don’t feel like we’re in competition,” Shawn said. “I think bands can help each other out, just out of respect for the fact that we’ve all been doing this for a long time and we’re all lucky enough to be able to play music and be able to make a living.