DS Interview – Chicago’s ICE OUT! Benefit Show with Deanna Belos, Josh Caterer, and Kaustubh Pandav

Photos by Meredith Goldberg

Last Saturday, Chicago’s Bottom Lounge came alive with ICE OUT: a powerful showcase of Chicago’s vibrant music scene united in solidarity with Minnesota after the murder of Renée Good, a Minneapolis resident brutally murdered by an ICE agent in January 2026. The lineup featured local punk & rock legends, including Deanna Belos of Sincere Engineer, Josh Caterer of the Smoking Popes, Scott Lucas of Local H and Stubhy Pandav / Pat Gilroy of Lucky Boys Confusion & OneLife.

I sat down with Deanna, Josh, and Stubhy to talk ICE before the benefit show, where we grew to share our thoughts about Chicago, rock music, and how the recent events in Minneapolis are a testament to how we must all come together in trying times.

When asked what the opportunity to play this show meant to them, Josh Caterer explained that standing in solidarity with Minneapolis felt like extending an arm to a Midwest neighbor. Something so horrible happening so nearby felt so personal, and this show was the amalgamation of all of those feelings.

During Trump’s first term, when “the wall” between the United States and Mexico became a huge part of his campaign, Caterer explained that it felt like our fights could only take place over the internet. Having events like these transpire in our Midwestern backyard felt so close, and they needed to do something about it. That’s why when the chance to play Bottom Lounge’s ICE OUT benefit show arose, Caterer immediately opted in.

Kaustubh “Stubhy” Pandav was alive with passion when speaking about his personal experiences with immigration in his family. He spoke about union, food, and the privilege of growing up in a community with such a vivacious cultural background to share with friends from outside cultures. But from those joys came triumph and hardship, dating back to his own father’s journey to America.

“My father was invited over after the Civil Rights Act passed in the 60s,” Pandav recounted. “What [the government] did was they cherry-picked people from China, India, and the Philippines, and those were the first people to come over. And my father was a part of that. So growing up in the 80s in all of this, it was real tough.” We spoke more. Pandav went on to say, “Back then, I remember there being a lot of ‘go back to your own country,’ and I remember thinking… ‘you fucking invited us’.”

I wondered if there was any hesitation or anxiety in accepting this opportunity, like the idea that social media comments might turn into real-life hate at this show, to which Belos said, “Honestly, saying yes was a no-brainer. I’m happy to do my part – our part – in something that feels more than just yelling online.”

I asked about the context of Belos, Caterer, and Pandav’s music in reference to the present, or ultimately, whether or not performing these songs that were written in the past became a different experience in the context of the current political and social climate. To which Caterer replied, in perhaps breaking news to the fans of the Smoking Popes (or at least to the room I was in), revealing that “Simmer Down” off of the 2016 EP Simmer Down (and their subsequent 2018 full-length Into The Agony) was written about the excitement surrounding Bernie Sanders’ campaign. 

He went on to explain that he had never written a political song until that song was released, noting that the results of the 2016 election certainly played a part in his motivation. We spoke about how the 2016 presidential election changed the political climate entirely, eventually just snowballing into the calamity that ensues daily in the United States, including but not limited to the death of Renee Good. 

“I never realized how much I love America, and how patriotic I felt until this guy came along and started trying to dismantle democracy.” Continuing, Caterer remarked, “We need to protect these precious freedoms. These are freedoms that have been fought for, and now we’ve handed the keys to a guy that’s going to try to burn them all down.” We all highlighted how liberating it was to see Chicago host so many protests about ICE, to which Belos, Caterer, and Pandav all spoke on how beautiful it is for people to come together and to share their voice nonviolently. These protests singlehandedly prove that change can be made peacefully but still loudly and prominently – an act that is attempting to be recreated at a show like ICE OUT.

Pandav expressed, “We’ve seen this shift to extreme madness; some people are always going to be extreme, but there are a lot of people here that we can convince with things like this.” Passionately said, Pandav stated, “Hopefully, people like us can inspire other people to change.”

A sound like Sincere Engineer’s allows fans to release their energy through the vessel of music, so I decided to ask Belos whether or not she feels like she channels that when performing songs like “Fireplace” or even “Overbite.” Belos explained, she loves to make something that’s an escape for people. She aims to create something that’s “life-affirming and communal”.

Caterer went on to add that he believes that one of the functions of their art is to give people a collective voice, something that is released once but is enjoyed millions of times over, giving a demographic of people a feeling. The amount of money raised from the ICE OUT show would be donated to help people in Minneapolis through these trying times, in an attempt to “encourage participation in a movement that is resistant to what we are seeing in the world right now,” in Caterer’s own words.

“This won’t be the last benefit show that we do for something. I hope that it’s the beginning of many efforts to do that.”

Written by Waverly Cayo, @scenesicknessradio for Dying Scene. Photos by Meredith Goldberg