AN INTERVIEW WITH ORANGE COUNTY YOUTH CREW- SMACK
Interview by Kabeer Kansara
Published: October 5, 2025
Left to Right: Echo Ellis, Ian Pase, Lee Vair, Annie Gelfer, Robert Balloue
Photo: Sophia Fascenelli
FULLERTON, CA – Following their first show as a band at Programme Skate and Sound on July 25th, Orange County hardcore group SMACK made time for an interview with Juicebox Mag. The five piece band is comprised of lead vocalist Echo Ellis, drummer Robert Balloue, bassist Lee Vair and guitarists Ian Pase and Annie Gelfer. Speaking on their origins and inspirations, here’s what the group had to say:
WHO IS SMACK?
IAN: Man, can I take this one? We all kind of came up through the punk scene. Hardcore, punk, all that shit. Backyard shows, the good stuff. Pop punk when we were kids, I'm sure for everybody.
ECHO: Classic rock.
IAN: Classic rock. And then got more into backyard and DIY shows from living in Orange County and being around for the scene here. And we love it, we love all of our people in the punk scene. But I think we all kind of felt a draw for something a little bit better. In the punk scene, there's a lot of substance abuse and just kind of general fucked up bullshit. And the hardcore scene has really given us a space where there's a lot more positivity, a lot more just kind of grounded people. A lot more sobriety. Echo and I are both straight edge.
JUICEBOX: Congrats to y'all.
IAN & ECHO: Thank you.
IAN: We found a home here, and Smack is really just about us wanting to express how much we love this place and wanting to further this scene.
SMACK! Photo: Sophia Fascenelli
HOW DID YOU GUYS COME TOGETHER?
ECHO: I can take this one. So, I’ve lowkey been wanting to start a band for years. I've known Lee the longest out of people in the band, and he knows I've been trying to start a band since I met him and even before that. I moved to Southern California five years ago, ever since then. Never really worked out – again, love the punk scene; It can be kind of disorganized. And so I met all of these people through different avenues, going through shows, that's kind of how we met, through different ways. Just over the years, we kind of found each other and joined into this larger friend group. And then I started talking to Ian about wanting to start a band, wanting it to be straight edge and youth crew like Youth of Today, and stuff like that. And then Lee, I had been talking to him about it for years, talking his ear off about it. And we just kind of assembled people. We found Annie through the radio show that Ian does with her. And then Robert was in a band, a former band with Ian, and then on to bigger and better things, a.k.a. us. And he's awesome. He's like lowkey the heart of this band. We would not be here without him.
ROBERT: Thank you.
ANNIE: We were all friends before we were bandmates. So it's been a good thing for keeping us together and sane, I guess.
ALL: Yeah.
WHERE DID THE NAME SMACK COME FROM?
LEE: So from what I remember, and Echo, correct me if I'm wrong, we were out at a show one night. Our friend Bruno from Spunk joined us. And Echo asked what brand of boots he was wearing. And the name just happened to be Smack USA. And I think like at that moment, we were like, that'd be a really good name. And that was like at least like a year, like a good year or so before anything was like solid. It was just kind of like sort of an idea. Not even like ‘that should be our band name.’ Just a band name.
ANNIE: But it's also ironic because like we're a straight edge band and smack is like heroin. So it's funny.
LEE: I like leaning into that. I like leaning into the irony. I think it's funny.
SMACK! Photo: Sophia Fascenelli
WHAT INSPIRATIONS DID YOU HAVE MAKING YOUR TRANSITION FROM PUNK TO A MORE HARDCORE SOUND?
ECHO: Do we all want to do a couple bands for this one?
IAN: I have like two main categories that I want to touch on. One, I want to just mention like the music that inspires us. All of like the old school bands, all of the more tough hardcore bands. Fucking like Uniform Choice is a big one, Youth of Today. And then like Minority Unit, the more tough guy shit, all the Boston hardcore. All those bands are amazing, but more importantly, I think all of our friends that we've made through the scene have been like the biggest motivation to do what we do. Special shout out to Tony and Kiana from Seudo Youth. Those people have been fucking like genuinely doing so much for us and pushing us to be just the best that we can, and we'd love the hell out of them for it. Other people, About Face. Anything that Koopman is in, man, that guy has been on our back. Kenny, who works here at Programme. The Midwest bands, fucking Full Stride, What Counts. Velocity, all that shit. Any of Chase's bands. Everybody that's been our friends and like they've really like pushed us to be where we are now.
ECHO: I'm a practicing Soto Zen Buddhist. And I've always wanted to make, incorporate that into my lyricism and into the music. And luckily these people were all cool enough to be down with that. And they, I guess, agreed with the messages is enough. But for me, in terms of inspiration, kind of Youth of Today, Shelter, are really cool inspiration. Ray Cappo, he became a Hare Krishna, which is a form of Hinduism, and Krishnacore and his stuff is really inspirational to me. In addition to one of the people I want to shout out is Invocation, I believe [from] San Francisco. Hare Krishna, straight edge. They're awesome.
IAN: Shoutout Invocation.
ECHO: Shout out, dude. They inspire me so much every day. And shout out Scotty, bassist. He is such an inspiration to me in sobriety, and in music. And then I agree with Ian, just everybody who has been our friend, everybody who has been encouraging us, who has believed in us, it means more than I could ever say.
ROBERT: I just got a few bands. Honestly, I don't really listen to too much of this type of music. But Pissmixer, huge.
IAN: Shout out.
ROBERT: Shout out, Pissmixer. I really hope they come over here. I'm dying to see them, but they're drumming, I fucking love it. I play it all the time. And then Sniper Culture, another great one. And then, honestly, randomly, The Garden. Shout out.
IAN: Shout out the Shears twins.
LEE: I've been in this scene for a while, but the hardcore scene I'm still pretty new to. I'd say definitely Seudo Youth has got me into it a lot, mainly because they're the only ones that I've gotten to know besides just their music. So that's really inspirational to keep us going. We don't just see each other as bands, as people outside of the music and stuff.
ANNIE: It's like just what everybody else said. Shout out, Seudo youth, Velocity, Full Stride.
IAN: Start Today.
ALL: Start Today.
IAN: The homies for real.
WHAT IMPACT ARE YOU LOOKING TO BUILD GOING FORWARD?
IAN: I’ve had this mindset for a long time that I don't really care where any band that I've ever been in goes. I don't care if it's the biggest stadium in the world or just shows right here at Programme for my entire life. All I want to do with the impact I want to have is just to inspire someone else to continue to do what this scene does and to just continue doing what we do. Because hardcore punk DIY music has done a fucking lot for me and a lot for my life. So if I can inspire someone to get into it and hopefully it can do a lot for them too, then that's more than enough for me.
ECHO: Can I add something to that?
IAN: Of course.
ECHO: I want to say personally like as a sober person, as a straight edge person – I'm going to sound literally like I'm copying word for word these old bands, Uniform Choice, Youth of Today, because it's so true. But all I want to do is show people the option and show people that using and substance abuse, and self-abuse aren't the only ways to cope, aren't the only ways to live.
And if somebody's feeling trapped or if they found the scene looking for community and they found more things dragging them down, I want to live as an example that there can be another way. And for me personally, I loved going to punk shows, but it's been so nice to find a more straight edge scene. I remember the first time I went to a program show, I saw so many Xs on people's hands and it was the first show I didn't have to choke on smoke outside in between every set. And everybody I was talking to; not that there was anything wrong with drinking or smoking or anything, but it was just cool to talk to people that were only there for the music. So I want to foster that culture more.
To keep up with SMACK, you can find them on Instagram here!