Local band Q&A: A Penny for your punk thoughts

Photos and text by Stacie Joy

From left above: 

Kevin Yankou, Steve Yankou, Liz Jones & Jordan DeVylder

It’s raining when the members of the local punk band Penny and I meet up at the Avenue C location of San Loco for a late lunch to talk about their history, bubble gum and local performance venues. 

I’m worried that we won’t be able to get our photo shoot in due to weather constraints. Still, guitarist Jordan DeVylder, drummer Steve Yankou, bassist Kevin Yankou and vocalist Liz Jones are game for rainy shenanigans. We had a great time getting soaked at Green Oasis Garden around the corner on Eighth Street before shopping for snacks at the nearby Associated supermarket.

How did the band form, and when? Where did the name come from? 

Liz: Penny started as a different band, Fleaspoon, in 2018. Back then, it was me, Jordan, and two other members, Robin Spoon and Fiona Flea. Fleaspoon slowly became Penny through some dramatic and some not-so-dramatic line-up changes. 

First, with Robin still on bass and Steve on drums, then with me on bass and doing vocals simultaneously. It took a long time to find someone new to play bass — because my bass parts can be overwhelmingly annoying to play — so I could just sing again, but it turns out Kevin was in front of our eyes the whole time! [Kevin is Steve’s brother.] 

I was sitting on the name Penny for years, but whenever I pitched it to people previously, they would say something like, “That’s my girlfriend’s dog’s name.” I am partial to band names that could just be a woman’s name that ends in the letter Y. I also like that pennies, the coin, are essentially worthless, can be lucky or unlucky depending on how they fall, and are everywhere on the ground all the time. “Take a penny, leave a penny,” etc., etc. 

Steve: Liz and Jordan asked me to play drums with them at one practice for fun. I agreed only because I missed them and find it impossible to maintain friendships with anyone I’m not in a band with. But I warned them, “I am a TERRIBLE drummer.” They said they didn’t care. Then they asked me to come again the following week. The rest is history. I’m slowly getting over my imposter syndrome. 

Kevin: The band used to practice in the basement of my old spot, so it was just a matter of going down a flight of stairs to get roped into it, and I’m glad I did because it’s been a lot of fun! 

Steve and I have been playing in our other band for 22 years, so we already had a decent shorthand when it comes to music stuff, and I was already a fan of Liz and Jordan — as musicians and people — so it was pretty easy to say “yes.” 

How do you describe your sound? 

Liz: After much internal and external debate, we have arrived at “924 Gilman comp B-side” as the definitive band descriptor. 924 Gilman is a long-running East Bay DIY space, and we definitely feel like our sound is most closely related to Bay Area ’80s and ’90s punk and the subsequent DIY punk scenes in other parts of the country that we all came up in. 

Some of our other favorite band descriptions have been: “The Muppet band if they didn’t have to play for the Muppets,” “2006-core,” and “That one song sounds like Rudimentary Peni.” Sometimes people call us a riot grrrl band, but that is just a lazy way to say we sound like angry-girl-screaming, which is not untrue.

Steve: Punk as fuck. Mostly kidding. Mostly not kidding.

Kevin: Fun/fast/noisy-punk. 

Your recent cassette tape release — The Bubblegum Tape — comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a piece of chewed gum by one of the band members. Can you speak briefly about the release and how it came into production? 

Liz: I think we started throwing around the name “The Bubblegum Tape” because we recorded a cover of a very twee Heavenly song, and I was thinking of bubblegum pop music. There is, however, nothing twee about the tape itself. We made the tape specifically for a Midwest tour we went on in August, and I corralled the band into chewing 100 pieces of gum and sticking them into each tape as part of the artwork. Some tapes are completely disgusting, and for that, I am sorry. It is also release 001 for my new label, Rizzo. 

Steve: The gum-chewing party was harder work than it sounds. 

Kevin: We learned that, apparently, I have the dampest mouth; maybe I should smoke weed. 

How long have (three-fourths of) you lived in the neighborhood? 

Jordan: Off and on since 2001, sometimes moving around the city for more affordable neighborhoods. The three of us in the neighborhood have lived here consecutively since about 2016/2017. 

Liz: I moved to the neighborhood in 2017 after living in various other parts of the city. Once I was here, I knew I was home. 

Steve: I met my life partner in January 2012 and started staying with her on East Third Street pretty much immediately. I officially moved in a few years later; I always forget exactly when. 

Kevin: I crashed with an ex-GF on 12th and A for a few months back in ’06 or ’07. Does that count?

You mentioned booking gigs in Brooklyn, and a successful mini-tour this summer in the Midwest was easier. What are your feelings about the local music scene, and do you feel supported here? 

Jordan: Booking shows is always hit or miss, whether in the LES/EV, Brooklyn, or elsewhere. We have all played around here for years in Penny and other bands, but some of our favorite spots to play are community spaces that have not been doing shows recently, like C-Squat and ABC No Rio. 

We tend to have less luck with bar shows around here and end up in Brooklyn or Ridgewood a lot because of that, although we have recently had good experiences booking at Berlin and Rockwood Music Hall.

Liz: The punk scene, more generally in NYC, can be challenging to navigate. It has changed a lot in the last few years, and there is a sense of exclusivity that I had successfully avoided in my life of playing music up until this point. 

But we feel supported and have a sense of community outside the cool-guy echo chamber. I think the whole social media/everything can be commodified era is bad for community in general, and punk is not immune to it. We all got into punk because anyone could do it, and we hold on strong to those values. 

Steve: So me and Kevin —along with many other friends and roommates — booked and ran hundreds of house shows in the Bronx (and later in Brooklyn) from 2010 until lockdown. So I’m here to ask, where are the house shows? I don’t want to have to clean up the next day. Let us play at your house! 

Kevin: What Steve said. The only people I wanna clean up after are me and my cat.

Penny plays at Rockwood Music Hall, stage 1, on Oct. 18 at 10 p.m. along with Posterboy 2000 and Pig Milk.

The band's new cassettes are available at Limited to One Record Shop on 10th Street and Academy Records on 12th Street.

You can follow Penny on Instagram here.