on drums— has returned to that same basement for its latest round of writing. A new EP has already been written and recorded there. There is no announced release date and, for once, no urgency to manufacture one. Escuela Grind is considering what comes next: another label, another independent release, another evolution. And Pittsfield— the place Economou once worked so hard to escape— has become useful precisely because it is not New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or another music-industry capital. The band can leave, tour the world, and then disappear back into Western Massachusetts to build the next thing.
“ Now I’ m a champion of Pittsfield,” she says.“ I love Pittsfield.” The Berkshire kid who searched the early internet for music sufficiently extreme to make her feel connected to somewhere else now fronts a band capable of bringing that music almost anywhere. The young artist who entered Cornell without knowing the technical language her classmates already spoke became a licensed architect. The musician who began screaming a word during rehearsal almost as a joke gave a band its name.
Back in that dimly lit Pittsfield basement, however, those different trajectories collapse into something considerably more immediate. Economou returns to the microphone; Fuentes and Morash lock into their guitars;
Members of Escuela Grind enjoy some fresh air before rehearsing.
Altamirano anchors the low end; and Sanders sends another barrage through the drums. The room that once hosted DIY shows has become both a launching point and a place of return; a basement in the Berkshires from which Escuela Grind can disappear onto stages around the world and, eventually, come home. n
1PM SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4 NORTH ADAMS
36 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Fall 2026