A Denver Punk Festival’s Organizer Donated to Trump. When Bands Found Out, the Backlash Began

Denver band Destiny Bond had been touring in Europe and recording a new album when a petition to stop Punk in the Park, a festival in the group’s hometown, circulated online a few months ago. The band then learned that the festival’s promoter, Cameron Collins of 15-year-old Brew Ha Ha Productions in California and Texas, had made donations totaling $978.39 to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign as well as Republican fundraising groups. 

Upon arriving home and recovering from jet lag, vocalist Cloe Madonna and guitarist Amos Helvey suggested the band consider the implications more thoroughly. After coming together to discuss, the band decided that playing the festival was “completely avoidable,” says drummer Adam Croft. “That’s when we made the decision to drop.”

Destiny Bond and Time X Heist, a Denver hardcore band, were the two acts that suddenly pulled out of the lineup just as the three-day festival began Friday (July 18). (Mark Frandsen, vocalist for Time X Heist, says in an email: “We dropped off in solidarity with Destiny Bond.”) Their departures drew press coverage and social-media attention — and, Croft says, “weird Instagram comments, a couple weird emails” — and prompted a reply from Collins, Brew Ha Ha’s founder and president. In a statement to reporters, he said the company’s events are “not about politics — they’re about music, connection and good times.”

At Brew Ha Ha’s festivals over the years, including California’s Punk In Drublic and Arizona’s Desert Roots, Collins adds. “I’ve proudly provided a platform for artists to reach hundreds of thousands of fans. We’ve paid millions of dollars in artist guarantees, and not once have I ever censored or restricted a band’s message or voice. Our track record speaks for itself.”

Some of the Punk In the Park headliners, which included Bad Religion, Pennywise and Descendents, chose to express their dissatisfaction with the Trump Administration onstage. “If you’re coming under the punk-rock banner and you voted for that f–king guy, and you support that f–king s–t that they’re doing, you’ve twisted your mind into knots,” Ken Casey of Dropkick Murphys, a prolific Trump critic, told the festival crowd Sunday night. “The far right ain’t the new punk — you heard it here first.” (Two days after its set, the band declared on Instagram: “Upon finding out that Brew Ha Ha promotions donated to the Trump campaign we will not be playing any more Punk in the Park shows. We kept our commitment to the Denver show because we didn’t want to leave our supporters who bought tickets holding the bag.”)

Artists over the years have enraged politicians for expressing their views from the stage, from the Dixie Chicks criticizing President George W. Bush and the Iraq War in 2003 — essentially getting themselves banned from country radio — to Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder impaling a Bush mask with a microphone that same year, prompting boos, walkouts and extensive media coverage. In May, Bruce Springsteen ripped Trump during a concert in Manchester, England, inspiring the president to declare the rock hero “highly overrated,” “dumb as a rock” and so on.

Other festival acts have faced backlash for pointed comments about the Israel-Gaza Conflict. At Coachella in April, Irish rappers Kneecap projected messages accusing Israel of genocide and demanding, “Free Palestine,” leading Sharon Osbourne and others to demand that their visas be revoked. Earlier this month, punk-rap duo Bob Vylan harshly criticized Israel and its military at Glastonbury in the U.K., calling for “death to the IDF” — and a U.S. official revoked their visas.

Fat Mike, frontman for NOFX and co-founder of indie label Fat Wreck Chords, recently told Billboard that punk bands, never known for their reluctance to speak out about politics, have been fearful to do so since Trump won the 2024 presidential election. “How politics are right now, it’s not good for punk rock,” he said. “A lot of bands are scared because of Trump and his followers. They love to hate and take revenge.”

Croft, Destiny Bond’s drummer, acknowledges the band has played shows by top promoters Live Nation and AEG, both of which have executives and board members who’ve donated to and supported Republicans over the years. Phil Anschutz, owner of AEG, is a conservative billionaire who has donated $247,100 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2025 as well as other GOP campaigns. “Those monopolies — Live Nation, AEG — they’re inevitable,” Croft says. “But Brew Ha Ha Productions is not inevitable. We don’t have to work with this guy [Collins] specifically, and if we can avoid it, we should.

“At the end of the day, this Trump supporter — this guy who gave money to Donald Trump — is making money off of all of us coming together and saying, ‘F–k ICE,’ ‘Protect trans kids,’ giving each other a pat on the back, feeling like we did something,” Croft adds, “In reality, all we did was give him our ticket money and our performance. At the end of the day, only one guy won if this festival did well – and that guy wanted Donald Trump to be our president.”