Guitar shredder Ben Katzman, now a 'Survivor' reality TV star, returns to St. Pete on Friday

He's back at The Bends for the dive's 12th anniversary.

click to enlarge Ben Katzman, who plays The Bends in St. Petersburg, Florida on Aug. 30, 2024. - Photo by CJ Harvey
Photo by CJ Harvey
Ben Katzman, who plays The Bends in St. Petersburg, Florida on Aug. 30, 2024.
For almost a decade now, Ben Katzman’s been coming to The Bends to throw down his untamable brand of shreddy rock-and-roll. The Miami music teacher arrives at the swanky dive’s 12th anniversary with extra notoriety this year, thanks to his status as a finalist on season 46 of “Survivor.”

The 32-year-old has a new album, too, which features cameos from fellow Survivors like season 45 winner Dee Valladares, plus artists like Colleen Green (who played The Bends with Katzaman in 2016), Mannequin Pussy, Illuminati Hotties (stylized in all-lowercase), and Guerilla Toss.

“On camera, he was the vulnerable, sensitive, kind soul — the kid who got bullied in high school. That darker side, the rage, never came out, but it’s all there in his new music, the heaviest stuff he’s ever created,” Rolling Stone wrote about Tears on the Beach, released last Friday.

Katzman’s DeGreaser is joined by a heavyweight lineup on this no-cover show, thanks to sleazy indie-rock band Sure Thing, punk outfit Spoiled Rat, and the We’re Sweet Girls party syndicate.

There's no cover to see Ben Katzman's Degreaser play The Bends in St. Petersburg on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024.
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Ray Roa

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief in August 2019. Past work can be seen at Suburban Apologist, Tampa Bay Times, Consequence of Sound and The...
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