One hasn't fully experienced the breadth of the Spokane music scene until you've been sardined inside a certain Nevada Heights garage with dozens of sweaty slam-dancing teens ready to go ape shit for some hardcore music.
The venue in question is the delightfully DIY space known as Whipstaff Manor.
And it's where Room 13 calls home.
In short order, Room 13 has become a mainstay of Spokane's thriving hardcore scene. The band plays an unrelenting, but not unwelcoming, brand of metallic hardcore music, built around big, heavy, chunky guitar riffs and the shredding screams of singer Steven Erminpour. Since starting up in 2021, the group has put out three EPs, including 2024's Up to No Good, each more refined than the last without abandoning a bit of the necessary edge to get kids flocking to the pit.
And between tearing it up at shows there or using it as a practice space, Whipstaff has become a second home to Room 13... because it's actually Erminpour's first home. When one of Eminpour's friend's band from Portland couldn't find a place to play a show, he and his wife Casper (who now runs the venue) opened up their garage, and hence Whipstaff was born.
Before all this, Erminpour had to get to Spokane in the first place. After spending years in Southern California's Los Angeles/Anaheim area, he was in desperate need of a change of scenery.
"Living in California sucks," Eminpour says. "It's too hot, crowded and expensive. I used to tour playing bass with a band in California, and I was kind of scoping out places to live because I didn't want to stay there. And Spokane was always one of our favorite places to play. I made a bunch of friends here and loved the scene and I felt like we could come into the scene and do some shit and help out more than in LA where it was so oversaturated."
When Erminpour finally did move to the Lilac City in 2020, he soon linked up with guitarist Dallas Ramos. Both guys really wanted to start a hardcore band, and after their first group (Black Lodge) fell through, they decided to stick together. Thus Room 13 was born. The group played its first show at the Big Dipper in September 2021 and after "a f–kton of lineup changes" — the current roster also includes guitarist Tyson Jarvey, Kace Larson on bass, and Aaron Hollingsworth manning the drums — the band eventually found its groove.
Part of Room 13's appeal lies in the band's multifaceted nature. Sure, they're going to create a wall of vicious noise, but there's also a certain mirth to the band. Take "MTV2" where Erminpour screams about hollow nostalgia for blissful ignorance, which eventually leads to him bellowing "I want my... I want my MTV!" If you can't have a bit of a laugh at lyrical touches like that, then maybe Room 13 isn't for you.
"To me lyrically, it's kind of important to have fun. Because hardcore, stereotypically, is like tough-guy hood shit," Erminpour says. "And all that shit's really cool, but I feel like us guys in the band are kind of the epitome of this shirt Twitching Tongues put out that says, 'SOFT AS F— STILL HARDER THAN YOU.' It's tongue-in-cheek — hard and tough, but still kind of self-aware and not trying to be something we're not. We're working-class dudes that write hard riffs and try to be clever about it. [Laughs]"
For now Room 13 is content just having a blast playing live, working on refining home-recording techniques at Whipstaff, saving up to hopefully buy a van that could facilitate touring more in the summer of 2025, and helping the hardcore scene thrive.
As anyone who has popped into shows at the Dipper or Whipstaff can attest, the local hardcore scene might be the healthiest music community in town. And as someone who's toured around, Erminpour has a theory as to why the city is ideal for a band like Room 13.
"I think it's a little bit of a combination of like how stereotypically grungy the Northwest is, but then we're kind of removed on the east side of the state, so things here are a little bit more down-to-earth and blue-collar-type shit, which appeals to a lot of hardcore kids," he says. "Because we're a mid-sized city, we have a f–-kton of kids that are into hardcore, but not as many shows that come through for the demand. So most of the time if there is like a really sick straight up hardcore band coming up, basically everyone the hardcore scene that can make it that night is there."
