Kirby Fisher pounds the living shit out of the drums and Jon Redditt slashes at his guitar and sings for War Baby, whose Coma Kid brand of grunge-inflected punk (or is it punk-inflected grunge?) is potent enough for Lollapalooza-generation ’90s nostalgists and the teenage kids who stole their old “Flower-sniffin’, kitty-pettin’, baby-kissin’ corporate rock whores” Nirvana T-shirts.

Favourite party memory (Fisher): “I’m in Chiang Mai, Thailand, it’s about 9 p.m. at night and I’m at this crusty bar down some poorly lit alleyway. I’m losing all my money to some 65-year-old local Thai fisherman, and as I go to the bar to get another lukewarm beer this kid stops me and points to my T-shirt: ‘Black Sabbath… Very good,’ and two firm thumbs up and a big Thai smile. ‘Yeah, man, the best.’ We talk for a minute and he says ‘Come with me.’ Nervously I walk out of the bar, away from the local pool shark–fisherman guy and away from further debt and out into the street. I walk for a couple of minutes. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask. ‘I show you soon… You will like.’ We walk around a corner to an old postal worker’s motorbike, and he throws me the helmet. ‘Get on.’ ‘Uhhhhh…’ And with some hesitation I get on. He fires her up and we are off, ducking and weaving through cars, tuk-tuks, buses, and fat drunken British tourists, and as we ride and ride I start to ask ‘Hey man, like… What are we doing?’ ‘Ha ha;’ he just laughs at me. ‘Don’t stress, man.’ Now I’m starting to get nervous. I have been on the back of this kid’s bike for so long that the inside of my legs are chafing against the pleather edge of the old post bike’s seat, and just as I’m about to say ‘Fuck this, take me back,’ we pull down this thin road—and I start to see young kids everywhere, all of them wearing black. ‘Dude, what’s going on?’ He stops the bike and says ‘Fucking party, man!’ with a big Thai smile and then we walk into to this cement-factory building and I’m surrounded by Thai kids going fucking crazy to some local Thai hardcore band. It was the most amazing thing ever, dudes coming up to me with snake wine. ‘Black Sabbath!’ they screamed as they ran towards the pit. I moshed my ass off as the only dumb white tourist in the house and they fucking loved me and I loved them. We partied till the sun came up and then back on the back of Thai Smile’s postie bike and back to the city I went. Hands down one of the coolest, most random experiences I have ever had.”

Seminal local influence (Redditt): “Easy. The first punk-rock show I ever went to see was SNFU at Mac Hall in Calgary 1993 or ’94. It was a double headliner with Seaweed. If there was a single moment that impacted me enough to go in that direction and play loud music that has to be it. A year or two ago we got to open for SNFU and it was a bit surreal for me, definitely summoned up some teen-angst feelings. (I know that SNFU is Vancouver via Edmonton but whatever, shut up you old crusty Gen X-er.)”

War Baby plays the Coast Capital Savings Stage at Vine Street at 7 p.m. on Saturday (July 8) at the West 4th Avenue Khatsahlano Street Party.