The San Diego Brewers Guild’s flagship beer festival is returning to downtown’s Broadway Pier, where it was last held in 2017.
Now known as the Capital of Craft Beer Festival, Saturday’s event will feature unlimited sampling of more than 65 local craft beers, food vendors, an arts and crafts marketplace and live music from Poway punkers Agent 51 and 80s Resurrection, a new wave cover band presented by Dead Man’s Party.
Participating breweries include local favorites Pizza Port, Belching Beaver and Coronado Brewing Co., as well as lesser-known labels like Burgeon, Kilowatt and Hopnonymous Brewing Co. Festival-goers can vote for their favorite beer, with the winner receiving the People’s Choice Hoppy Beer Award.
The Capital of Craft VIP session opens at noon, followed by the general session from 1 to 4 p.m. Tickets are available online (use promo code sdbeer for $5 off).
Ahead of Agent 51’s performance, Times of San Diego spoke with lead vocalist/guitarist Chris Armes, who opened up about the band’s alien origin story, 18-year hiatus, recently released Beastie Boys cover and their newest creation: “Red Alert” IPA, named after Agent 51’s 1997 song, which 3 Punk Ales will serve at the festival.
Q: Poway has spawned several great punk bands — blink-182, Unwritten Law, Agent 51. What do you think has contributed to that distinction, and how did you get started?
A: Back in the ’90s, the pre-internet era, if you didn’t live by the coast, there really wasn’t much to do. And if you didn’t have a car, your best bet was to pick up a guitar or a skateboard. I remember being in high school and seeing Unwritten Law play a keg party. I’m like, ‘Man, I really want to do this.’ Alternative music was really big, but I couldn’t play a C chord, I could just play bar chords. Punk rock is the doorway to entry; it’s very simple and very immediate. All you need to have is teen angst and know three chords, and you’re in. I had plenty of [teen angst] at 17, so I just started there in 1993. I was washing dishes at Hamburger Factory for $4.25 an hour and got invited to sing in this band called Openfast.
Q: Agent 51 formed in 1995, originally as Area 51. What inspired you to adopt the persona of rogue secret agents with insider knowledge of extraterrestrial life?
A: I was into the alien thing since I can remember. I found an old preschool photo of me at like four years old and I have the “Mork & Mindy” Shazbot Nanu Nanu shirt on. I’ve always been really intrigued by these lights in the sky. I wanted to incorporate that into our music because I hadn’t really seen any other band do that. And Area 51 at that time wasn’t really part of the cultural landscape, so I just went for it. The idea for the suits was brought in by our bass player, Greg Schneider. He said, ‘Why don’t we incorporate some visual stuff into this?’ I thought that was a great idea. That way, when people come see us, they’re not only getting the music, but they’re getting this visual aspect as well.
How did Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong come to sign you to his Adeline label and re-release your sophomore album, “Just Keep Runnin‘”?
We incorporated a comic book storyline in our second album about all our characters. If you buy the CD, it’s got a six-panel layout of each character in the band, what their superpowers are and how we all escaped this government entity called The Syndicate. It really helped our CD stand out because it brought this visual, comic-book element. So, when a record label receives it, they’re like, ‘Oh, wow, these guys are doing something really different.’
I got an email from some guy at Atlantic Records who said, ‘We liked your record. Give us a call.’ I called the number and it was some sweatshop in LA. It turned out it was my friend pranking me. Then, a week later, I got a message on my machine: ‘Hey Chris, this is Billie Joe from Adeline Records,’ and I’m thinking this guy is pranking me again. So, I called back and, sure enough, it’s Billie Joe. He put out our record with two new songs, and it really gave us a boost. We were able to tour, and people knew who we were.
On Aug. 20, Agent 51 released a cover of the Beastie Boys B-side “Mullet Head.” What prompted you to put your spin on the song, and how did that come about?
We did an Indiegogo, like a GoFundMe, for our last record. If you were a backer and pledged a couple hundred bucks, we would cover any song you wanted, and one of the backers chose ‘Mullet Head.’ We love the Beastie Boys anyway, and we covered ‘Fight for Your Right to Party’ back in the ’90s, so we covered ‘Mullet Head’ and just injected our brand of old man punk angst into it. But we wanted to go dirty instead of making it sound polished. We wanted to go as nasty and raw as possible.
Tell me more about the creation of last year’s “Age of Validation” and what you had to do to get the album out.
It started with the idea of doing a reunion show, and I thought why don’t we just write one new song, so we have something to promote this reunion show? One song turned into two, two turned into three, three turned into an EP and then it turned into an album. I hopped on this wave, and I just couldn’t stop writing.
But we didn’t have the money to record it, and that’s where the crowdfunding thing came in. Greg and I got together, and we’re like, ‘How can we make this a visual thing and create a video where Tom Cruise is narrating and talking about Agent 51?’ Thankfully, there was still enough interest there for us to fund a 15-song record. I’m just blown away that we’re still able to do this at our age.
Agent 51 took a hiatus from 2005 to 2023, apart from some one-off reunion shows. What led to such a lengthy break?
When you’re starting out and it’s just a few guys in a garage and it’s fun, you’re like, this is the best ever. Then, by the time you manifest the record deal, it’s now business. I didn’t understand the business side. So, we’d get off a three-month tour, and I’d have $300 in my pocket because the RV broke down. I was 20 years old, and I’m like, it’s probably time for me to at least get a job so I can fund this hobby.
So, we stopped touring. I put all my focus on myself instead of the band. I just decided it was time to do something else. I didn’t really like who I was becoming because I was so focused on the outcome of success rather than just focusing on the creativity and writing the best songs I could.
What can fans look forward to at Capital of Craft, and what’s ahead for Agent 51?
We’ve got a new beer out called Red Alert from 3 Punk Ales. It’s kind of like a red IPA that they’ll be serving at Beer Fest. We’re releasing a re-recorded version of ‘Red Alert’ in September, mostly for the beer. And on Oct. 3, we’re gonna play the Hop Stop in Poway. Our beer will be on tap there and at 3 Punk Ales in Chula Vista and Little Italy.
We have a string of singles coming out, too. I think we’re gonna go in a direction where it’s really garage-y sounding, moving away from the polished sound and more like we just hung a mic in a room, like early Misfits stuff. We’re also working with the San Diego Gulls right now to come up with either a theme song or something that’s gonna play every time they score a goal. I’m crossing my fingers that we actually get to do this.
Donovan Roche is a longtime music writer and regular contributor to Times of San Diego.