Among the many missed opportunities of the 1998 cult Sundance flick SLC Punk is its failure to acknowledge just how omnipresent Punk and its discontents permeate the populace of the state of Utah. Maybe back in the ‘80s, when director James Merendino was growing up in Salt Lake City during the peak Reagan years, Punk Rock still resided solely on the cultural margins; but by the turn of the 21st century, in-depth knowledge of Punk and Indie generally had become in-grained, wide-spread, and common among the Mormon kids of the Intermountain West.

Seriously: I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, just down the road from K Records and Kill Rockstars in Olympia, within an hour of Kurt Cobain’s hometown of Aberdeen, and down the I-5 from SupPop in Seattle, and attended a High School saturated with skater-punks sporting Dead Kennedys, Misfits, and Bad Religion t-shirts; yet upon first entering the mission field and rubbing shoulders extensively with Utahans for the first time in my life, I found my knowledge of Punk and Alternative to be downright elementary, even embarrassing, compared to that of the Utahans who would matter-of-factly go on to become my District and Zone Leaders, Elders Quorum and Relief Society Presidents, Home Teachers, Bishops, and Stake High Counselors. That is, it was not the anti-Mormon or “less-active” fringes of Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona where the Punk Rockers flourished, but among the rank-and-file Strength and Youth of Zion.

Nor was it gendered. Indeed, when I first attended the University of Utah for my Masters program (this would’ve been around 2008), I found any local girl I asked out could put me to shame with their deep-seated knowledge of Indie and Alternative. Some were even in bands themselves. I often had cause to reflect that this was one of the many, many paradoxes of Mormonism: that the same state that produced the Tabernacle Choir, the Osmonds, Penatonix, Michael McLean, EFY albums, David Archuletta, and a deep-seated fandom for American Idol, is likewise claimed as home by some of the most impassioned Indie and Punk aficionados anywhere west of Brooklyn. This is a phenomenon that I feel has not received near enough attention, the reasons for which I can only speculate on.

Part of it may simply be that, even ensconced safely behind the Zion Curtain, Mormon youth have had an almost intuitive grasp of their innate outsiderdom, separate from the American mainstream (despite all the Church’s century-long attempts to normalize us to the country). Punk and Indie likewise takes an almost perverse pride in its marginality, and can perhaps provide to LDS youth a model for how to thrive on the cultural margins.

Let’s take as an illustrative example the case of Fugazi, the seminal post-Punk outfit out of D.C. Full disclosure: despite all the supposedly Straight Edge poseurs at my High School sporting (surely pirated) Minor Thread shirts (much like the kids in the D.A.R.E. Tees, the Punks with giant Xs on their hands were still definitely toking), I did not become even remotely aware of Ian MacKaye’s successor-state of Fugazi till I was at the BYUs. Yet upon reflection, the surprisingly widespread affinity for Fugazi I found among the LDS kids fit like a hand in a glove. Consider: front-man and founder Ian MacKaye initially disbanded Minor Threat due to his stated guilt at the number of injuries that occurred in the mosh-pits at their shows, such that he would regularly stop Fugazi shows mid-song to demand people stop moshing (which, you know, just feels like the ideal mixture of Punkish idealism with moralistic scold, one perfectly suited for Mormon youth); then of course is their aforementioned Straight Edge ethos, eschewing all drugs and alcohol—Punk Rock for the Word of Wisdom set, in other words; if we want to get a little more doctrinal, Fugazi’s radical commitment to anti-consumerism and anti-corporatism—not only launching their own independent label, but refusing to sell it out for a reported $10 million when the Major Labels came a-knocking during the Alt-Rock boom of the early-‘90s—would seem an intuitive fit for the Church founded on the United Order and Law of Consecration, which likewise at least nominally seeks not what rust doth canker and moth doth eat, but considers instead what doth it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul. That is, Fugazi has valued their artistic freedom—that is, their free agency—above all the temptations of the wicked one.

For that matter, whatever their personal politics, Fugazi’s predilection towards launching their own label—that is, their own small business, which they relentlessly hustled via extensive touring, ultimately selling something like 5 million copies of their first 2 CDs despite zero advertising or radio-play—would perhaps almost inadvertently align themselves with the entrepreneurial spirit of Utah Libertarian political philosophy and frontiersman DIY ethic dating back to the settlement of the Great Salt Lake Basin. When laid out that way, the question might be less why have such a surprisingly high number of Mormon Youth been Fugazi fans, then why they aren’t even bigger in the intermountain west than they already are.

Similarly: much like the LDS Church, Fugazi, for all of its love and respect for its fanbase, nevertheless had a very top-down approach to their shows—typified, again, by how willing Ian MacKaye was to stop shows mid-song in order to interrupt a developing mosh-pit, even eject them and refund their money on the spot if they proved noncompliant (excommunicating them from the fellowship of the community, if you will). To be clear, his desire to preserve the physical safety of the audience was part and parcel of the band’s deeply felt love and respect for their fanbase, which extended towards recording all their shows and releasing them for free on-line (much like General Conference?), refusing to ever take advantage of them financially (all ticket prices were fixed at $5, and they’d refuse to play venues that charged more; all CDs were set $10; EPs were always bundled with LPs, and etc.). Nevertheless, though folks at shows were more than free to sing along and groove to the music—and often did—no one was ever joining them on stage to perform with them. Ian MacKaye and co-lead-singer Guy Piccoto were the only ones with microphones; the foursome were the only ones with instruments. They strove to create and maintain a deep emotional connection with their audience, but still one that was strictly on their terms only—again, quite frankly, like the LDS hierarchy.

I need to be careful here: I don’t mean any of the preceding paragraph as a critique of either the Brethren or Fugazi, honestly. 99.9% of all bands—and Churches—run their shows the exact same way, and with good reason (all things must be done in wisdom and in order, after all). Yet there are other configurations possible; I bring this up because an oft-cited sort of spiritual successor to Fugazi after their 2001 breakup is Bomb the Music Industry!, a ska-Punk music collective out of Long Island, NY, who released 7 albums entirely online between 2005-2011 (with final album Vacation, by the way, being their undisputed masterpiece, if you’re looking for a place to start with them). Theirs is a band that is difficult to discuss without also discussing their radical DIY ethos, exceeding even the ethics of MacKaye: did Fugazi start their own label and cap CD prices at $10 throughout the ‘90s? Bomb the Music Industry! gave them all away for free, intentionally, back in the mid-2000s, when such was still considered a radical idea (part of why they broke up around 2014 was simply that the music industry did in fact become bombed; what was considered a radical idea in 2005 became standard industry practice less than a decade later). Did Fugazi limit all ticket prices at $5? Bomb the Music Industry! limited them to $10 (their lone concession to inflation), and also refused to play bars, so that teenage fans could attend their shows. Did Fugazi refuse to license merchandise? Bomb the Music Industry! would just spray-paint their logo onto your t-shirt directly if you offered to buy one (hence the double-signification of “Bomb”, which is also a graffiti term for colorfully spray-painting an otherwise drab space).

Yet though frontman Jeff Rosentock has always tipped his hat to Fugazi and acknowledged their shared lineage of DIY Punk-rock roots, he has been careful in interviews to emphasize how their musical styles are vastly different (Fugazi’s self-consciously self-serious post-punk vs. BtMI’s humor-filled ska-punk), and, what was an even bigger deal to him, the participatory nature of BtMI shows. Less Than Jake was the ‘90s band he most identified with as a youth, he’s said in interviews—wherein if you brought your own trumpet or trombone to the show and memorized the parts, you could hop on stage and perform right alongside them. BtMI shows also followed a similar pattern—fans were not only allowed but encouraged to bring their instruments on stage and perform alongside them. I called them a collective earlier, cause that’s what they really were—sometimes Rosenstock would be on tour with an entire backing band, sometimes with only 1 or 2 other bandmates (which meant the audience had to participate), sometimes it was just Jeff with an iPod, an amp and a microphone. The boundaries between performer and audience were much more fluid (the veil was much thinner, we might say); the audience didn’t just sing along with the band, they were the band.

I’m left wandering, then, why Bomb the Music Industry! has never quite enjoyed the same level of notoriety among Utah Punk aficionados as, well, Fugazi. Part of it may be their much more explicit leftist politics, their prolific profanity, their open drinking songs (even when Rosenstock does sing against alcohol—see for example the rip-roarous “I Don’t Love You Anymore” off 2007’s Get Warmer—he does so not from a place of Straight Edge austerity, but simply as a recovering addict). Part of that too might just be simple regionalism: BtMI is very much a Long Island band (their second album is entitled To Leave or Die in Long Island, and it looks increasingly like Rosenstock has chosen the latter), one that is identified with the area even more so than Fugazi is with D.C. Yet they still toured nationally in their hey-day—and what’s more, that participatory nature is something that, at least theoretically, is sympathetic to the LDS model. We staff all our own ecclesiastical offices with local volunteers, after all—we have no paid clergy; our own youth serve volunteer proselytizing missions as a rite of passage; the lay membership delivers the sermons, pray the prayers, perform the sacraments, sing the hymns, minister to the ward, and at least once a month are not only allowed but encouraged to deliver spontaneous, un-prepared testimonies that are (at least ideally) prompted from within. This entire Church, at least theoretically, functions like a much more massive and better organized Bomb the Music Industry! show. Like Jeff Rosenstock, Joseph Smith, Jr. (a fellow New York-native) sought to lay the foundations of a system that would revolutionize the world.

Yet in practice, we’re not quite there yet, are we. (“The restoration is ongoing,” as Elder Uchtdorf has emphasized.) Like Fugazi, the Prophets and Apostles at General Conference also seek to establish a deep and abiding spiritual connection with the global membership—yet it remains a very top-down approach. We are invited to sing along, to “liken unto ourselves”, but we do not jump on the stage and perform alongside them.

Again, I need to emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with that model, one way or the other. It is how just about all churches and bands function, and that is wonderful and fine! Ian MacKaye (with a name like that) has obvious Irish-Catholic ancestry—an institution that also deploys a strong hierarchical structure even amidst its pastoralism (I imagine that, as Nabokov once said of James Joyce, MacKaye may have left his religion but not its categories). Yet though my observation is strictly anecdotal, I can’t help but wonder if part of the reason I’ve encountered far more Mormon Fugazi fans in the wild but nary a Bomb the Music Industry! one has been because the Millennial visions of a United Order that form the foundations of our faith are still awaiting some future fulfillment. One day we will all be parts of the same band, neither rich nor poor, bond or free, but equal partakers of “the heavenly gift” (4 Nephi 1:3). “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” Moses himself declares unto the Hebrews in Numbers 11:29 (and it is worth here noting that Jeff Rosenstock is Jewish on his mother’s side); the ultimate goal of a true prophet is to make everyone a prophet—to make us all part of the band, as it were. For that matter, one day the lion will lay down with lamb, and a little child shall lead them, but that day is not yet either. Perhaps Jeff Rosenstock is still just ahead of the curve.

For now, all we can do, all we should do, is withdraw into the wilderness—like Israel in the desert, like the Essenes at Qumran, like John the Baptist by the River Jordan, like Lehi, Nephi, Alma, Ether in the cavity of a rock, Joseph Smith on the frontiers and Brigham Young in the mountains—and launch our own label, so to speak, to live the law in its purity. Such may be the subliminal attraction of Punk and Indie among the Youth of Zion after all.