Twenty-five years ago, Milwaukee musician Jessi Knop was ready to rock.
“Since I was like 16 I wanted to be in a rock band. I loved Hole, all the ’90s grunge stuff, punk rock. Joan Jett was an inspiration to me,” Knop says. In 2000, she formed Wrecker, playing guitar and vocals, with Carolina Pfister on bass and vocals and Christian Houtman (of The Mistreaters) on drums. Jenny Kilkenny later replaced Houtman on drums, and Jenny Puls (Kill-A-Watts) was added as a second guitarist. Knop thinks their first gig was a basement show on Pierce Street.
At that time, Knop notes, “there were definitely women in bands, but a lot of them weren’t heavy rock bands.” She says they had a good reception in Milwaukee but ended up playing shows “with a lot of boys in hardcore bands or any band that had a girl in it even if they were nothing like us.”
Photo: Tara Bogart
Wrecker had a good four-year run. They released a 7″ record, a full-length CD, and a split CD with an all-woman Brazilian hardcore band called Infect. They opened for bands like Pelican, Mastodon (“in Nashville at a tiny pizza place called Guido’s Pizza”) and Melt Banana (“at Cactus Club”). In 2004, the band drifted apart.
“Everyone was going separate ways,” Knop says. “Carolina was moving. I was super bummed, bummed that it broke up and I left Milwaukee at that point and moved to San Francisco.” Knop started a new band, Tarrakian. She ended up bouncing around, moving to Chicago, then back to Milwaukee, back to San Francisco, and eventually moved to Durham, North Carolina in 2020. A friend got her a job working at a music venue there and she began to make connections to the local scene.
Photo: Yann Kerevel
Her new band, Treasure Pains, was formed in 2023, playing their first show in early 2024 and later that year released an EP titled Charming. A future bandmate told Knop, “I want to do something like Hot Snakes, something along those lines—fast, energetic punk stuff, so that was our starting point,” Knop says. “It just really cliqued, I don’t know that I’ve ever been this compatible with musicians before.”
Photo: Mark Schueler
Knop provides guitar and vocals and is joined by Zach Large on guitar, Kellette Wade on bass, and Kyle Cox on drums. After playing steady shows in Durham, they’re releasing a split 12″ record with Portland band Spares on September 26; a music video for their first single “Left To Give” just dropped. They are also embarking on their first tour that will take them to Nashville; St. Louis; and Highland, Indiana, before playing a time slot at Bay View Bash on September 20 (Rushmor Stage, 12:30 p.m.), then Chicago before returning home.
“I’m excited to return with something that feels very much my own,” Knop says.
Although she’ll be back for a short time, she hopes she might be able to hit a Milwaukee bucket list.
“I’m excited to take my bandmates to the Wiggle Room ’cause I think they’re going to like that place a lot,” Knop says. “Cactus Club, I love. I do love the biscuits and gravy at Honeypie, which is ironic since I live in the South, but I like Honeypie’s better. I miss the (Milwaukee) Bloody Marys. I can’t find a good one here to save my life.”
As for the future of Treasure Pains, Knop says the band will play The Fest, a long running punk festival in Gainesville, Florida in October. And beyond that, “I’d like to take it as far as I can. I’m not getting any younger, so I kinda feel this is my last shot.”
Knop laughs and gives a shrug. “I love doing it anyway.”
Photo: Ben Brown
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