EPISODES
Long-form conversations with the artists behind the music.
Every Riot + Reverie episode goes beyond the headlines, exploring the records, creative process, and stories that shape punk, indie, alternative, and underground music. Watch the conversations. Hear the music. Meet the people behind it.
Dan Schafer of Sludgeworth: Chicago Punk, Starting Over & Why he came back.
From Screeching Weasel to Sludgeworth’s Unexpected
Second Act.
Before we get to Sludgeworth, Chicago punk, and more than three decades of history, there’s some important business to settle: where to get a proper cheesesteak in Philly. Priorities.
Dan Schafer of Sludgeworth joins Riot + Reverie to talk about the band’s roots in the Chicago punk scene, his time in Screeching Weasel, and what brought Sludgeworth back after decades apart. Formed in 1989 by Schafer and drummer Brian Vermin, Sludgeworth became a cult favorite before calling it quits in the early ’90s. Now they’re back with Second Time Around, their first full-length album in 35 years.
Second Time Around arrived June 19 via Red Scare Industries, marking Sludgeworth’s first full-length album in 35 years. The 12-track record grew out of a reunion that wasn’t originally supposed to lead to new music at all. After reconnecting for shows and spending time together in a Chicago practice space, the band started writing again, eventually making what drummer Brian McQuaid has described as the follow-up they never got to make in 1992.
