Bethlehem Steel (band)

Becca Ryskalczyk, Jon Gernhart, and Zephyr Prusinski were part of a closely knit music community while students at SUNY Fredonia,[4] and SUNY Purchase (Zephyr Prusinski). They had played in separate bands, but knew each other well just from spending time in similar circles. Through performances at house shows and the bar and club scene of Buffalo, there were enough places for developing musicians to flourish in Western New York.[1]

Gernhart and Ryskalczyk established a friendship that lead them to Brooklyn upon graduation of their Fredonia music community, they were the only two from their group of friends who ended up relocating southern to Brooklyn: where they continued to become close-knit while working on their musical ambitions. Gernhart ended up working in sound engineering, while Buffalo native Ryskalczyk took her time finding her place in the city she was a nanny before fully immersing herself in the Brooklyn DIY music scene.

The original trio decided to call themselves Bethlehem Steel. In explaining why, Ryskalczyk stated "It's a good way to stay connected to the industrial cities from which they all hail originally." Additionally, paying tribute to her hometown prevented Ryskalczyk from feeling as though she was abandoning her past.[1]

Ryskalczyk added Ronayne on Bass in 2016 after a friendship formed at Brooklyns now defunct DIY venue Shea Stadium, where both worked. After releasing their album Party Naked Forever, Bethlehem Steel added a second guitarist, Christina Puerto, to the band.[5]

After seeing them at SXSW, Robin Hilton of NPR's All Songs Considered described their sound as "gloriously loud fuzzy rock." All Songs Considered featured the band's song “Yeah, I’m Okay With My Shit Life.”[6] Hilton went on saying that there's been lot of comparisons between Generation X and the Millennials over the years, they're exactly the same, nothing's changed. He expanded, "The complaint about Gen Xer's were they’re lazy and don’t care. They’re the whatever generation. And I felt like when I was watching a lot of the younger bands at South by this year I really felt like that vibe is coming back. The whatever rock, and I loved it." Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton coined the genre name of 'Whatever Rock'/Shrug Rock, naming Bethlehem Steel as their source.[6]

In 2016, Bethlehem Steel was also named by USA Today's FTW!Culture writer Nate Scott as one of 14 bands that impressed at SXSW. Scott labeled their sound as moody and ethereal.[2]Stereogum writers awarded the band with the yearbook style superlative of "Most Likely to Tell it How it Is."[7] The Village Voice wrote: "Even though Bethlehem Steel's music retains some lo-fi elements and a punk ethos, the foundation built for a bigger, more accessible sound is a sturdy one."[1]

Nick Sessanna of Buffalo-based music source, Buffablog, explained Bethlehem Steel: "Try to imagine Waxahatchee fronting Pinkerton-era Weezer for a second… If that’s too obscure, other comparisons could be drawn to buzzing indie queens Courtney Barnett, Colleen Green, or even Rochester’s Pleistocene."[8]

With the release of their first studio album, BrooklynVegan's Andrew Sacher describes the record's sound as "It’s kinda got a Waxahatchee vibe in the way it combines singer/songwriter type stuff with loud, crunchy indie rock, and singer Rebecca Ryskalczyk’s truly soaring voice makes Bethlehem Steel really stand out."[9]

Timeline

• Exploding In Sound Records