Growing up just as glam gave way to punk in the 1970s, brothers Steven and Jeff McDonald were playing gigs with their newly formed band Redd Kross only one year after walking into their first punk rock show.
From idolizing rock heroes like Jimmy Page and the Beatles, Steven McDonald — who was 11 at the time — tells Orlando Weekly that it was the experience of entering the late ’70s Los Angeles punk scene that empowered the duo to begin expressing themselves in a musical manner. More specifically, McDonald says that interacting with the OG punkers instilled the attitude that if he and Jeff had something to say, there would be people who were interested in hearing it.
“We were very afraid to go to punk rock shows at the very beginning, because there was so much being said in the press about how violent it was and how uninclusive it was,” he says. “I actually thought that if I went to a punk rock show, the punk rockers, the true, authentic punk rockers, were going to smell that I was just a weekend dabbler, and they were going to hold me down on the ground and shave my head.”
After trepidatiously attending their first show, the brothers found themselves chatting up what McDonald refers to as “leftover weirdos from the original glitter-rock scene of the ’70s” by the end of the night. And express themselves they did, coming up with glam-punk anthems like “I Hate My School,” “Annette’s Got the Hits” and “Stay Away From Downtown,” while performing in bell-bottom jeans and flaunting their luxuriously long hair.
The band’s sound notably came from the McDonald brothers’ inability to mimic the music of inspirations the Ramones and the Runaways, forcing them to create their own. And it was the brothers’ assimilation of the various musical scenes of the late ’70s and early ’80s in their music that attracted similarly displaced misfits to the sound of Redd Kross during the pre-Internet age.
“Back then, you almost needed carrier pigeons to find others like you. It was very meaningful, if you felt like an outsider, to find other people like you,” he says. “And that’s always meaningful, human connection is so important, but it was even harder then, I feel. And so to hear that people might feel like we were some sort of touchstone for communities is moving.”
McDonald attributes much of his involvement in Redd Kross to his brother, who, in addition to dragging him to punk shows, would often bring home “bizarre” records by underground American artists. “I blame him for this mess that I’m in on a bad day, and then on a good day, I am very grateful. I’m always grateful. But he was a unique kid, and we grew up in a kind of working-class, very small house,” McDonald says. “We shared a bedroom, and we shared a record collection, and I just was always submerged in this bath of music culture that he basically curated early on. He was bringing home weirdo records when I was like 7, like David Bowie records.”
Forty-six years later, the McDonald brothers and Redd Kross are still serving up glam-punk records, heading to Orlando this week on their latest tour. What keeps the band kicking, McDonald says, is the rewarding feeling of connecting with people, the idea of becoming a source of joy for others. He points to Redd Kross’ latest self-titled album, which includes a song (titled by Jeff) called “Good Times Propaganda Band.”
“It’s a double-edged sword, because it’s painful to care so much, and then it’s also great to care, because you could be really jaded in the world, and things could have no meaning, and that’s not the case with us,” he says. “So I guess that leads me to continue to want to try to keep doing it and see how many new people we can infect with our point of view.”
As he’s gotten older, McDonald says the most difficult part about writing lyrics for Redd Kross is overthinking the deeper meaning of songs and attempting to not take himself too seriously. Referencing the second song on the new album, “Main Attraction,” McDonald says he’s come to realize that writing about honest, simple, universal truths resonates with others.
“When you come from a punk rock background, earnestness — I think that’s the word — can be one of the most embarrassingly corny things on earth,” says McDonald. “So it’s very hard to say something sentimental and feel like you’re not going to regret it, you know, like, ‘Oh man, it’s a Hallmark card.’ Or, you know, ‘All my punk roots are just cashed in now.’”
Being a musician then versus now is undoubtedly different, from online music streaming services to cheaper guitars. And while it might be easier to make connections with others because of the Internet and bypass the gatekeepers of the scene, McDonald says it’s considerably harder for young people as they search to figure out their niche.
Overall, McDonald says his biggest lessons so far have revolved around cooperation and collaboration with others, which he calls a unique skill of the human species.
“It’s weird when you feel passionate about something, but then you realize someone else feels passionate about it, and it might be contradicting to what you’re feeling and how you’re going to deal with that,” he says. “And then at the same time, there’s always this struggle between, you know, the artistic merit of the lone voice versus the collective.” That’s your cue to get passionate at the pop show with Redd Kross.
Redd Kross, 7 p.m. Thursday, April 9, Will’s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave., willspub.org, $25.
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This article appears in April 8-14, 2026.
