‘This is such a weird time to be doing press in the first place,” Kat Moss says through the Zoom screen. “But it is a really beautiful opportunity to share.”
People around the globe may know Moss as the lead singer for Santa Cruz hardcore act Scowl, which blew up from a local band into an international act beginning in 2021. In the last five years, she’s toured with Limp Bizkit, opened for Blink-182, played Madison Square Garden, rocked Coachella, Sick New World and other festival stages across the United States and throughout Europe and Australia. Yet many don’t know the person off-stage when the lights go out, the doors are closed and the comfy clothes come on.
However, on Friday, May 1st, she’ll be doing an exclusive, one-night event that will be all her in her brightly hair-dyed glory. Presented by Event Santa Cruz, “A Night With Kat Moss” features a Q&A with Moss followed by a special live show with her and local rock band, Not Yet Old Dog (NYOD), doing a handful of cover songs from some of rock, punk and new wave’s biggest names. There may even be a special guest band or two to keep the hardcore vibes flowing.
“Seeing bands like Scowl and Drain receive this far-beyond Santa Cruz notoriety has been really cool and inspiring,” says NYOD drummer Jordan Taylor.
“It was a new thing for all of us and we were all very nervous,” says NYOD guitarist Melody Caudill of their first practice with Moss. “Kat and I were talking about how we were freaking out all day before the practice. But it ended up being great and the vibe was natural.”
Yet, Moss’ time with Scowl hasn’t been the rose colored rise people may think The quick shot to stardom came at the cost of the familiar trappings of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle combined with physical and emotional fatigue. When a close friend unexpectedly passed away in 2025, it pushed Moss to numb herself to the world.
“I really wasn’t really in my body or present, in fact I think I had a lot of resentment at the time,” she says. “I was so fucking overwhelmed I just wanted to tuck my tail and run away from everything.”
So how did Moss go from being a shy introvert to one of the most recognizable faces in the hardcore scene? And what does her solo show mean for her future and Scowl’s?
“I’m really excited to unravel who my artistic self is,” she says. “Scowl turned into a machine. It’s really fucking cool and crazy but it’s also nice to breathe a little, too.”
HOW FLOWERS GROW
Moss was born to a working class family in Roseville, California –next to Sacramento–in 1997. She shared a bedroom with her older sister for most of her childhood growing up in Rocklin.
“We lived in the same house the entirety of my childhood,” she says. “My parents still live there, in our little three bedroom.”
Her father is a California native who worked for the City of Sacramento, and her mother is a German immigrant who worked for the City of Roseville. Seeing the cultural differences first hand had a major impact on Moss growing up.
“Having my only extended family in Germany and spending time there influenced me,” she states. “Feeling like I was observing the culture around me more than I was participating in it. Even now I feel like it affects the way I talk to people.”
Her home wasn’t a musical one in the sense that nobody played any instruments. However, she was always encouraged to express herself as creatively as she wanted. Her grandfather–or as she affectionately calls him, her Opa–was an artist and Moss fell in love with visual art at an early age. It’s easy to see that influence today when she’s on stage screaming with brightly colored hair, detailed makeup and punk rock outfits.
Still, music was still a big part of her family. She remembers her mother always playing records and Moss fell in love with one band that is often associated with many people’s first musical awakening: The Beatles.
Like any budding fans, Moss and her sister became obsessed and their parents encouraged it. For Friday night movies they’d rent Help!, Hard Day’s Night, documentaries and more. Family trips to the library would bring home books about the Fab Four they’d pour over.
“My favorite Beatle is Ringo, by the way,” Moss smiles. “I love Sgt. Pepper’s and the “acid Beatles” when they started getting weird and wacky but also serious.”
She says it was around the age of 10 that she first discovered YouTube and the entire musical universe opened up at her fingertips. It was the mid to late Aughts and emo and pop punk acts like Paramore, AFI, My Chemical Romance, and Green Day were having their spot in the cultural limelight.
“It all kind of hit me and I was obsessed with My Chemical Romance,” says Moss. “Like, favorite band of all time. I watched the Life in the Murder Scene documentary and I wanted to live that life.”
However, she didn’t feel she could express that to friends or family and often felt private about the things she liked.
“I didn’t know other people who liked the weird stuff I liked,” recalls Moss. “And I also rode horses so I had a bit of a dorky, outsider vibe. Now as an adult I can really wave that flag, but as a kid it’s really alienating and it’s really hard.”
Yes, Kat Moss was a horse girl.
Despite her working-class background–her mom would tell her and her sister that their college fund went to horse riding–Moss could be found at the barn after school every day, often until nighttime. Her work at the barn also supplemented the expensive hobby’s cost.
“I was working very hard, cleaning stalls, and always helping out,” she says. “I would spend all weekend there. I did not do slumber parties, that wasn’t my vibe. It was physical labor and working for my lessons.”
She credits those years in the barn to her work ethic, doing something that she loved no matter what. Horses were her “entire life” until the age of 19 when she realized she didn’t fit in with that lifestyle anymore. She wanted something else, but was unsure of exactly what it was, so she quit horseback riding “got a real job” and dove head-first into attending every live music show she could.
“Live music was my personality,” she laughs.
Enter Santa Cruz.
Chosen Family
Moss moved here when she was 20 years old and immediately became involved in the Bay Area hardcore scene, going to every show she could.
“Looking back at my earlier 20s and teens,” she says. “I was just as confused and unknown and a stranger to myself then as I am now. I’m still learning so much and it’s this ever humbling, ever transforming experience.”
She began booking local shows at SubRosa Cafe with her then boyfriend, Malachai Greene, ex-guitar player and founder of Scowl. She knew she wanted to be a part of the scene and figured this was the best way to do it. Between 2018-2019 Moss was at almost any hardcore show she could attend. She remembers this as one of the times she cherishes the most because it was then–through the DIY scene–she realized that musicians aren’t untouchable heroes, but regular people and even friends.
“What I didn’t realize at that time is that I had a power with words and poetry,” she says. “I could talk about this thing I believed in so much [the punk scene] and it felt magical. People around me who knew me and were familiar with me would say,’It sounds like you’re talking about God.’ Because it was God to me and I think that’s a shared experience for most young punks.”
This was also when Scowl formed.
The band started in March of 2019 after Moss told Greene she wanted to be in a band. As chance would have it, Greene had just quit playing in another local hardcore band, Jawstruck with drummer Cole Gilbert. They quickly recorded a five song demo with Charles Toshio at Panda Studios and it was online by May. That summer bassist Bailey Lupo joined the trio and by November Scowl released their second EP, Reality after Reality.
Moss remembers those times as visceral and when she started believing “this is real” and was excited to be a part of something larger than herself.
In early 2020 they went on their longest tour, a West Coast and Canada run with friends, Punitive Damage. It was on that tour that Moss not only admits she “felt accepted for the first time” but it was also when the band really gained confidence.
“We made $1200 or $1300 on merch and that was the most we had ever made,” she remembers. “And Malachi said, ‘I think we could record a record with that money.’”
That money would turn into the band’s first full-length, How Flowers Grow. Clocking in at 10 songs covering only 15 minutes and 34 seconds, it’s a blistering hit to the face of sound. It was recorded during the Covid lockdowns which actually gave the band time to flush out and distill the tracks to perfection.
On June 9th 2021, Scowl made national news when they participated in the first RBS (Real Bay Shit) fest. It was the first real Bay Area show since the lockdown and featured four Bay Area hardcore acts–representing what is known as the 40831–along with Xibalba from Los Angeles. It followed two Los Angeles renegade shows–one which shut down the Interstate 5 Freeway with over 3,000 bored, angry fans.
RBS was promoted online weeks prior but the location was announced online two hours before it started However, that didn’t detour over 2,500 people from showing up to a nondescript parking lot in San Jose, some flying from as far as Florida.
“I thought maybe there’d be 300, maybe 700 people max, ” says Lupo. “I’m still meeting people at shows, especially younger people, that tell me that was the first show they ever went to.”
How Flowers Grow dropped in November of that year on FlatSpot Records and within six months they were on tour opening up for Limp Bizkit at Madison Square Garden.
The next couple of years was non-stop touring with recording in-between. In April 2023 Scowl’s next EP, Psychic Dance Routine, dropped and featured a different side of the band. This time Moss sang with clean vocals on the title track and “Opening Night,” which sounded reminiscent of 90s alt rock. That same month the band made their debut appearance at the infamous Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California.
However, the rise to the top always comes with a few haters.
NOT HELL, NOT HEAVEN
On August 5, 2023 a Taco Bell ad featuring Scowl was released during the halftime of the Women’s World Cup as part of the company’s Feed The Beat series. Despite hardcore superstars, Turnstile, appearing in the series in 2015, online rumors of Scowl–and Moss in particular–began swirling of them being “industry plants.” Three days later Moss released a response on X (ne: Twitter) in which she shut down the naysayers and called out the scene’s systemic misogyny.
“Is it so hard to believe that a woman-led band can be a hardworking and organic success?” she tweeted. “Is it so challenging to grasp a woman’s success that you have to create a fantasy that the music industry had a hand in it?”
Lupo says Moss always handled the misogyny “like a star.”
“She rolled with the punches and was incredibly vocal whether it was online or on the mic at shows,” he says. “She would say, ‘This is a safe space and a community. Don’t even come if you’re a bigot, sexist or racist.’ She would talk about these heavy things on where our society is at right now.”
One possible reason for the online hate is Moss’ look. Instead of looking “tough” or trying to fit in by looking like one of the guys, she stayed true to herself and went a more feminine route. At any given show she could be seen with brightly colored hair, loud makeup, skirts, dresses, go-go boots and whatever else she felt like that day.
“I wanted to lean into aesthetics that weren’t frequently used in hardcore because that actually represented me,” she says. After all, women throughout punk history did it before her yet it never translated into the hardcore scene.
“I took that risk, went for it, and it took a life of its own,” Moss continues. “I didn’t realize that it would be such a signifier.”
During this time Scowl toured relentlessly playing across the United States along with England, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, France and more. While the band kept rocketing to bigger spotlights, it took a toll on the bands’ physical and mental health.
“I had so many people around me telling me ‘Take this all in. Be as present as you can because this is rare. You never know if you’ll ever get this again,’” she remembers. “I heard it and I knew it, but I could not be present. There was no fucking way.”
To survive it all, she had to “turn some stuff off” emotionally because touring didn’t allow her to process things like grief or trauma in a normal way. It’s one of many reasons why so many touring musicians turn to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism.
“It left me really, really emotionally immature for a while,” Moss admits. “It’s something I think touring musicians, artists and bands don’t talk about much. Touring heavily for a long time–at least in your 20s and formative years–will suspend your adolescence and very much so.”
For their next record, Scowl wanted to push the boundaries of what was expected and explore new sounds with their own twist on pop and alternative rock. The result was their 2025 full-length, Are We All Angels. It perfectly blends hardcore with riot grrrl, emo, and 90s radio rock for a sound that reflects the band members’ broad tastes in music.
“Scowl never changed things to make a buck,” Lupo says. “My record collection goes from Charles Mingus to Morbid Angel. I love music. Why limit yourself?”
It was released on the indie label Dead Oceans which represents artists like Japanese Breakfast, Phoebe Bridgers and Duran Jones. Initially, the label wasn’t pursuing the band as hard as others, but their reserve is one of the things that intrigued Moss.
“It’s a lot like dating,” she laughs. “We convinced each other and it was really beautiful and exciting. The band wanted to be represented in the transition of what we were becoming. I love bands that have an ever-changing identity and I wanted that.”
The album came out in April of 2025 and quickly gained critical acclaim from publications like NPR, New Noise Magazine and Kerrang! which named it one of its Best Albums of the Year. Five days after its release Scowl hit their national television debut on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
However, what should’ve been one of the best moments for Moss was mixed with feelings of guilt and remorse. A month before her close friend Bridget Smith–who choreographed Scowl’s “Psychic Dance Routine” video and was a huge supporter of Moss and Scowl forging their own path–unexpectedly lost her battle to ovarian cancer. Upon finding out, Moss said she “immediately resented touring,” because it took her away from spending time with the people she loved, her community and those who helped make her dream a reality.
“I was so fucking mad,” she says. “I was putting out a record, doing press every day and waking up early every morning in different hotels and I hated it.” `
For Moss, 2025 was–in her words–”emotionally crippling” despite the band’s rising success.
“We’d be walking around somewhere in Spain, in a beautiful city with the sun shining down on my shoulders, looking at this beautiful architecture, and I’m just sobbing,” she recalls. “Everyone would ask ‘Are you ok?’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m ok. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.’”
The constant touring and media cycle also took its toll on the band. In October 2025, Green announced he was leaving Scowl to focus on other endeavors while the others carried on.
Which brings us to this Friday’s show. To answer the big question: no, Scowl is not breaking up. They still have shows booked, but will be pulling back from the extensive, continuous touring schedule they’ve followed for so many years. While it’s bittersweet for fans, it allows Moss to expand beyond the band and unravel who she is as an artist outside of the focus of Scowl, for now.
So what’s next for her? She says her guess is as good as ours. For now, she’s taking time to meditate, going for walks in the redwoods and putting her feet in the dirt.
“I needed some freedom to breathe,” she says. “And to process not just the loss but the treasure of it–how bizarre it all was and is. That’s kind of where I’ve been, but now I’m in the position to try new musical avenues. I feel like a big 28-year-old toddler.”
But tickets for An Evening With Kat Moss at EventSantaCruz.com
