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‘I just want people to listen’: Syzygy amps up queer punk in Bloomington

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On a cold, muddy January night, Syzygy tunes up in a basement on the southwest side of Bloomington. 

“Anyone gay?” singer Lu Harper calls out to the gathered crowd. 

A cheer erupts from the room. 

“Thank god,” says Harper. “Thank god.” 

Syzygy describes themselves as a “queer punk rock band” on its Instagram page. Consisting of singer Lu Harper, guitarist Max Senter, drummer Cory Schmitt and bassist FJ Miller, the group has been consistently playing together in Bloomington and the surrounding areas since mid-2022. 

“Punk for us just signified going from more low-key music to more amped up,” Senter said. “We're mad about things. We're angry and we have stuff that we want to talk about. We want to be loud. We just kind of have a dirtier or grimier sound, because I think that fits a lot better with our experiences and what we're trying to convey with our music.”  

The Syzygy band members align themselves with the punk and riot grrrl movements, both of which center themselves on socially conscious and, in riot grrrl’s case, feminist music. And they have plenty of material to write about. 

“We’ve written about relationship violence, sexism and misogyny in the music scene,”  Harper said. “But also homophobia and transphobia. Not just in the music scene, but everywhere. We have some songs that haven’t even been released yet that are about the most recent election. We’re angry about a lot of things. And we write about it, and we sing about it and it’s fine.” 

Harper started crafting Syzygy as soon as they got to IU their freshman year. 

“I had always wanted to be in a band, mostly because of ‘Lemonade Mouth,’” Harper said. “I watched it when I was a kid and I loved it and I’d always wanted to start a band, and I thought it would be cool if it was all queer people. So I started posting everywhere, like ‘looking for queer musicians,’ and slowly found people.” 

Through these posts, Senter, the band’s guitarist, found the band. 

“I had always wanted to be in a band,” Senter said. “I did a couple of smaller musical things in high school. But it was just something that I wanted to do in college, and I'd been thinking about it, and then I was like, well, it kind of feels like it's like an opportunity. It's meant to be there.” 

Soon, the other pieces started to fall into place. Schmitt, Syzygy’s drummer, first met the band while mixing audio in Music Industry Creatives. Despite wanting to join the band, he initially passed up the opportunity due to a lack of free time. Soon, however, a second chance came back around. 

“I got asked to play drums for them for a recording session for one of my classmates,” Schmitt said. “I did that, and I gelled with them really well. And my classmate told me I should join the band because he thought that we had played well together. So I decided to join.” 

Miller, who plays the bass, attended Signature School in Evansville, Indiana with Harper before going to IU. When the band needed a bassist, Miller was ready to join.  

“I came in, did two rehearsals, and then we played the show,” Miller said. “And after the show they were like, ‘Do you want to join the band? Like full time? Because we need a bass player.’ I was like, ‘Sure, absolutely.’” 

Miller describes himself as the “token straight white male of the group.” He hopes to uphold a safe place for the band and the audience to express themselves. 

“I'm here to make sure that all the visions that they're looking to put forth happen,” Miller said. “To make sure that we can be as straightforward and honest as we can.” 

The group has seen many shifts in the Bloomington music scene since its inception. 

“Syzygy started right after COVID, so the music scene was kind of dead,” Harper said. “Every band that was coming in around 2021 was starting over what the music scene was — because Bloomington has always had an active music scene, but it just sort of fizzled out with the pandemic. So already that was tough.” 

However, Harper and Senter noted the scene has exploded with queer-focused bands since the pandemic. 

“Now, it’s crazy. It’s like the scene has flourished,” Harper said. “You can find any sort of band. Most bands I know of have queer people in them, even if they’re not as vocal about it.”  

Now, Harper said, they no longer feel like the odd ones out in a scene that often prioritizes cisgender voices. 

“You definitely still have the OG jam band kind of stuff that is predominantly cis male musicians. But then I think you have this other DIY subsection that is either femme fronted bands or queer bands or bands that align with that or have members like that,” Senter said. “There's always room for more people, and I think it'd be cool to hear different perspectives and sounds, but I feel like it's definitely leagues ahead of where it was before.” 

As the identity of the Bloomington music scene has shifted, so has Syzygy. The band has increasingly focused on their members’ trans identities — their newest EP is titled “Trans War Criminal.” 

“I think we have shifted from having more focus on our queer identities to having more focus on our trans identities,” Senter said. “I think just through us coming into who we are a little bit more, but also with the context of political things — as in how trans people are very loudly and often demonized or made into a boogeyman or a scapegoat. So I think in times like that, it's really important to be vocal and talk about your experience as a trans person and what that means.” 

Senter started playing guitar in the band before he began hormone replacement therapy, which involves taking regular hormone treatments, including testosterone and estrogen, in order to align oneself with one’s gender identity. Senter said audience members compliment him more often and are less inclined to touch his equipment — a problem he had faced before. 

“I would be seen as a woman, and now I'm far enough along that people will perceive me as a man initially. I've actually been treated a lot differently based on when people see me as a woman musician versus a male musician,” Senter said. 

Back in that cramped Bloomington basement, Syzygy launches into its set with frenetic energy. Harper screams at the top of their lungs. Senter fiddles with his pedals as Schmitt and Miller pump out chest-shaking rhythm. Now, it’s all about the audience — who are standing up close and personal, just inches from the amplifiers.  

“I love just being able to provide spaces and experiences for people to experience music in a way that's not a 40,000 seat stadium,” Schmitt said. “It's like a really intimate experience, which is my favorite type of gig. So being able to provide that for the audience is my favorite part.”  

But the audience shouldn’t just dance along, Harper said — they should listen, too. 

“But I also want people to listen to the lyrics that we're singing and understand that there's a message there,” Harper said. “We're not just playing songs because we like to. We're playing songs because there's a meaning behind it. We have a message to share.” 

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