Local Cowpunkers Jackrat Explore Greener (Indie Rock) Pastures

Folks who attended last year’s HomeGrown will remember then-nascent cowpunk band Jackrat. The local trio, who trade in bluegrass-heavy indie rock landscapes, had just released its self-titled debut EP. The crowd was sparse — but enthusiastic.

“Trent from Palo Sopraño came up. He was stoked,” says drummer Eric Niziol.

In the time since, Niziol, Kevin Scoggins (bassist/vocals) and Reid Bower (guitarist/vocals) gigged around town, drumming up recognition for their blend of cowpunk, a subgenre that mixes bluegrass with thrash metal. It’s a motley coupling that got its start in the ’70s. Iconic and diverse bands such as X, The Cramps and The Gun Club are cited as pioneering cowpunk outfits — depending on who you ask.

In time for this year’s HomeGrown Fest, the guys in Jackrat will perform some of the 17 new tracks they’ve been ironing out for their first full-length album, which they hope to release in May or June.

Scoggins sums up the band’s evolving vibe as a departure from their cowpunk roots. Niziol agrees.

“I like the idea of having a category [like cowpunk], but I don’t like the idea of being constricted to a particular sound,” says Niziol, who also plays with Billy and the Box Kid. “I like the freedom of being able to create whatever the fuck we want to.”

Jackrat describes the new sound as “high desert emo” — think bluegrass infused with emotional hardcore, a subgenre that flourished in the late ’90s and early aughts with bands like Taking Back Sunday and A Day to Remember.

“Kevin came up with ‘high desert emo,’ which I really like,” Niziol says.

In more tactile terms, Jackrat is keeping its ruminative lyricism while overlaying it across increasingly mathy indie rock sensibilities that hard-pivot between time signatures. As far as the upcoming LP’s title, the crew is toying with “Whatever it is You’re Running From,” but that might just serve as an artistic guidepost, they say.

“Or maybe that should just be a song title?” Bower wonders aloud.

While Jackrat set its debut EP to wax at The Firing Room Studio in Sunriver, the group’s present digs are more threadbare — and hay-strewn. In fact, it’s a literal barn, somewhere between Bend and Redmond, that the trio has reappropriated as both a practice space and self-recording studio.

“We rent out the old dusty office, where we come here to make noise and be loud,” Niziol says.

Jackrat hopes to release the full-length album this summer, playing shows in Portland, Seattle and maybe California. So far, audiences, even traditional bluegrassy ones, have dug the new sound.

“We’ll get booked with folk acts and then we come out and do our thing, which can get pretty weird,” Bower says. “People like the direction we’re going in and we like the direction we’re going in. We’re excited.”

Catch Jackrat on the Humm Stage at Silver Moon on Saturday, April 19 from 6 to 7pm

This article appears in Source Weekly April 10, 2025.