A vintage, neon bowling pin sign marks the doorway to Mahall’s, a local bowling alley and concert club in Lakewood. Late Saturday evening The Grievance Club played a show in Mahall’s dimly-lit side room, uniquely decorated with random chandeliers, disco balls and a small wooden stage with large amounts of streamers.

The Grievance Club, based in Kent, is self-described as a post-hardcore punk band with melodic undertones. They got their start in 2013 and are influenced by bands like Such Gold, Thrice and The Early November.

Right now the band is made up of Harrison Mills, guitarist and vocalist; Kevin Cappy, bassist and vocalist; Steve Perrino, guitarist; and Dan Roberts, drummer.

“They all knew each other and were high school friends before becoming a band except for me,” Cappy said. “I met them through mutual friends and by going to shows and eventually we started the Grievance Club.”

That night, The Grievance Club was performing with the bands If Only and Pianos Become the Teeth.

“We were really excited about the lineup we’re playing with tonight,” Mills said. “We’ve known the guys in If Only for a while now and they’re so talented, and Pianos Become Teeth are one of our collective favorite bands.”

Mills and Cappy both had their favorite shows but said collectively a big highlight show for the band was when they opened for Knuckle Puck just over a year ago in Cleveland at the Agora.

“I just remember it being one of the biggest shows we’ve ever played and it being very overwhelming,” Cappy said.

“It was extremely packed and it finally felt like the start of something really meaningful to us. It was also the first show we played where we really felt the biggest presence out of the crowd and it was something really special for me.”

The Grievance Club’s performance Saturday night seemed to mimic that same feeling. The high energy of the band was infectious; it spread to the crowd who was moved by the impact of the sound and seemed to reflect the band’s energy right back at them.

There wasn’t a moment during their set that the entire front row standing next to the stage wasn’t jumping around and shouting lyrics right back at the band.

The band was recently featured in Alternative Press Magazine, most likely because of their strong dedication to music.

“Getting featured was pretty exciting for us,” Mills said. “Obviously we’re not the only ones in the feature, but we grew up reading AP and they were one of the primary means for all of us for finding out news within the scene we felt connected to.”

After the release of their most recent seven song EP “Being of Sound Body & Unsound Mind” in late 2016, the band is now focusing on writing new music and getting touring plans set up.

“We’ve already started to write new material but right now our number 1 priority is to begin touring plans in the next few months and getting a van,” Mills said.

Although future music release plans aren’t well developed right now, the band said they plan on releasing a new full length in the near future.

“We’ve kind of made an unwritten law that we should never stop writing,” Cappy said. “When your writing process is stagnated, your whole band is stagnated.”

The Grievance Club will have its next show on Feb. 17 at Now That’s Class in Lakewood and will be performing with Dead Fall, Like Tyrants, Colorblind and Nervous Laughter.

Jenna Kuczkowski is the general assigning editor, contact her at [email protected].