Q&A: The Wonder Years Make Triumphant Return to Riot Fest
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photo Credit: Alina Pawl-Castanon
RIOT FEST WASN’T THE ONLY THING MARKING ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR — so was The Wonder Years. The beloved pop-punk band made their triumphant return to the Riot Fest stages on Sunday, September 21, their first time gracing the festival since 2022. The performance was a full-circle celebration, uniting the band’s milestone with that of the Chicago festival that has long been a home for punk, emo and alternative communities.
For The Wonder Years, the moment was a reflection of their two-decade journey that has carried them from basement shows to international acclaim. Their Riot Fest setlist honored that evolution, going through their iconic discography while also showcasing reimagined classics.
Celebrating 20 years in tandem with Riot Fest felt fitting. The crowd, buzzing with energy, matched the intensity of the band’s performance. From early-career staples that had longtime fans screaming every word, to reworked versions of songs that demonstrated their maturity as musicians, The Wonder Years balanced sentimentality with reinvention.
Revisiting and reworking older songs has also become an important part of The Wonder Years’ longevity. For Campbell, reimagining the classics isn’t about rewriting history, but about rediscovering it. “We take our old songs and break them down. We like to imagine them in a softer light…We bring in a string section for it and it's full reimaginings of the songs. We try to turn them on their head and find interesting new angles to look at them from.”
Luna Collective had the chance to sit down for an exclusive backstage interview with vocalist Dan Campbell just moments before The Wonder Years stormed the Riot Fest big stage. Calm and collected in the moments leading up to the set, Campbell opened up about the band’s rituals before big performances, their approach to reimagining older songs, and what continues to fuel his fire after twenty years fronting the band.
Photo Credit: Alina Pawl-Castanon
LUNA: Thank you for sitting down and talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. Your latest release Burst and Decay (Volume III) has been out for almost five months now — what has the response or growth been like for you personally and professionally?
DAN: Hey Luna Collective. It's not a new album by any means, it's one in a series of EPs where we take our old songs and break them down. We like to imagine them in a softer light. A reductive way to say that would be that we make them acoustic, but that's not what we do really. We bring in a string section for it and it's full reimaginings of the songs. We try to turn them on their head and find interesting new angles to look at them from. I don't expect to make new fans doing that. I think it's to show our fans different sides of songs they already love. We just did a tour on it. I think almost every show of it was sold out. We did it with the string section, so we have a cool living room set and it was really wonderful. Instead of jumping around a stage, I was seated, wearing a suit, and we had all these lamps and couches and tables and just this very cool loungy set up.
Our friend Kristine Kruta runs a string ensemble called Little Kruta that is an all female string orchestra that is super modular. It can be three of them. It can be 30 of them. Kristine goes and sources the players and does the composition and the arrangements. And they're absolute murderers, just like stone cold fucking killers, some of the best musicians I've ever played with. It’s been a really wonderful run of shows. The response from fans has been heartwarming and have been affirming saying that this has been the most special set we’ve done. There’s one guy named Jeff, his next show will be his 200th show. We have a bunch of fans who have been to over 100 shows. We try to get them cakes when we know in advance that it's going to be their 100th show. A lot of the response has been that this might be the most unique and the most special one of your shows I've ever been to, and so to be able to do that deep into a career and show a different side of our artistry was very fun.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the album — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of where The Wonder Years are right now?
DAN: One obvious answer is a song called “Junebug,” which is the only time we've ever written a new song for this series, and it's a song about my three very soon to be four year old Jack, who I call Junebug. It's always a nice and sweet feeling to write songs for and about your children. That's his song, and so he listens to it as often as he can. It's very, very sweet.
LUNA: Do your kids listen to a lot of your music?
DAN: Almost exclusively. They listen to my music and they listen to wrestling intro songs. And there's a fun crossover, because we just wrote a wrestling intro song for Becky Lynch and it was cool because we debuted it at MetLife Stadium for SummerSlam, and they got to be there and hear dad's voice come over the PA and bring out one of their favorite wrestlers, which is cool. The other answer is one of my favorite The Wonder Years songs of all time is “The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me,” and remaking that in this way was really fun.
LUNA: You’ve built a solid reputation for your live shows. How do you keep your performances fresh and engaging for both longtime fans and new listeners seeing you for the first time?
DAN: I think doing the preparatory work when we're about to go on like a longer tour, where I know stamina is going to be a thing. I will lead up to that tour by riding a stationary bike and doing the set at the same time, so I'm trying to keep a 20 mile an hour pace while maintaining the breath control set. It's always disappointing to me as a fan, when I go see a band, it's been a band for a long time, and I'm like you did not relearn these songs. We want to be sharp. That's a part of our goal is we want to be sharp.
LUNA: Is there a particular song from Burst and Decay that you’ve especially loved performing live and seeing fans react to?
DAN: Recently, there's been a song called “GODDAMNITALL,” so we just have a moment where we get the whole crowd to scream that lyric and it's become a fun thing to see when it gets to be its loudest.
LUNA: What goes on backstage for you to ensure you play your best set? Any pre-show or post-show rituals or regimens that you do that helps get you in the right headspace?
DAN: If I'm going to be honest with you, like directly, pre or post-show, nothing. I flip a switch. It's a different me.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now — musically or personally — that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
DAN: I have never been a guy that runs. I always want to be a guy that runs, and I'm really pigeon-toed, and I get a lot of pain from it. I'm trying to push through and run a 5k before I turn 40. That's been my goal, and I work towards it a couple times a week and I'm trying.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Luna?
DAN: I'm feeling good. The rest of the year, we're doing an arena run with A Day to Remember and Yellowcard.
Photo Credit: Alina Pawl-Castanon
