Slovenly Recordings’ Pete Menchetti Shares Why The Upcoming Debauch-A-Reno Festival Is ‘A Big Deal’ (Exclusive)
Coinciding with some important anniversaries and a lineup that can’t be beat, Slovenly Recordings’s owner shares why Debach-a-ReNo is a can’t-miss.
Nevada is quickly becoming the capital of the world, thanks in no small part to the upcoming collaboration between Slovenly Records and WE’RE LOUD FEST: DEBAUCH-a-ReNo. While When We Were Young and the recent Sick New World celebrated emo/pop-punk and nu-metal/rock, respectively, DEBAUCH-A-ReNo spotlighted the underground scene that kept rock alive when those other genres fell out of fashion. “We’ve been producing DEBAUCH-a-ReNo since 2008, mainly every five years,” Pete Menchetti (aka Pete Slovengly), owner of Slovenly Recordings, tells HollywoodLife, “and have had bands like The Spits, Subsonics, The Sonics, The Dickies, The Gories, The Oblivians, The Chats, and much more play over the years,”
The 2023 event (taking place June 16-18 at Wingfield Park in Reno, Nevada) might blow all previous iterations out of the water (see for yourself with the above playlist that Pete provided to HL). This year’s festival features garage rock legends The Mummies, underground punk stalwarts The Kids, voodobilly rockers Dead Bolt, as well as punk rock dynamos The Troublemakers, The Okmoniks, Eddie and the Subtitles, lo-lite, Puppy, Spitting Image, Saturday Knights, Just Head, Clarko, Tube Alloys, The Juvinals, and Pussy Velour. One of the headliners is The Zeros, an American punk band that formed in the mid-1970s.
“This year bringing in The Zeros is a big deal; I recently learned they were the first ever out-of-town punk band to play in Reno when they played here in 1980 with a very young 7 Seconds opening and playing their second show ever,” says Pete. “The Mummies are always amazing, and we’re excited to have them back. The Kids are a band we’ve worked with many times – we brought them to Greece, Turkey, Italy, Mexico, and now back to the United States for the first time since 2016. There are many people excited to see Deadbolt play, too; I’ve been a fan for a long time but haven’t seen them in forever; great to know they never stopped playing, and many people are excited to see them as well.”
“Finally, a big deal you should know is that The Troublemakers are celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band,” he adds. “That’ll be cool. The guitar player Rodney has been in sixties garage bands since the ’60s! and he’s still at it.”
The Troublemakers aren’t the only ones celebrating an anniversary at Debauch-ReNo. Slovenly Recordings is turning 20, while The Original Sticker Guy – “the internet’s first online sticker printing service” and a friend to independent bands decorating venue’s bathrooms and random streetlights – is turning 30.
“All the changes the city’s gone through over the years have led to Reno developing a solid rock n’ roll scene,” adds Pete, “and some great local bands are now making records. That’s another thing I’m really stoked about with this year’s DEBAUCH-a-ReNO, we’re showing a lot of these bands, and I think people will be really surprised by how good these bands are.”
Tickets are on sale now for those who want to enjoy a weekend in Reno that’s worth talking about afterward. As for the future, Pete says that Slovenly Recordings is prepping the next WE’RE LOUD, an international showcase of rock that has taken place in Puerto Rico, Turkey, Vietnam, Mexico, and Greece. This year marks the first time WE’RE LOUD repeated locations, as it’ll return to Italy later this year.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of the article mistook the American Zeros for the Swedish glam-punk band of the same name.