Rising pop-punkers Winona Fighter do Warped Tour double duty in Orlando

“We are running off of pure love of doing what we do, and I want it to be an escape for people. I want them to have 30 minutes to an hour out of their day where they can just be a little freak and run around and punch and whatever.”

Coco Kinnon, frontwoman of rising Nashville-based pop-punk band Winona Fighter, started early in music: drumming on stage at the age of 12, playing underground shows in the New England punk scene.

Kinnon, whose father raised her on rock and grunge, always found herself drawn to punk. But after joining her first band (a punk band, of course), she started to fall in love with more than just the music, but also the punk scene.

“The music is very scary and harsh, and the mosh pits can be a little much for people,” Kinnon tells Orlando Weekly, “but it’s also a community where everyone has each other’s back and everyone’s welcome, and it’s open to all new faces and to those who are young and old.”

Years later, Kinnon met bassist and producer Austin Luther, who was into late-’90s and early-aughts alternative, and lead guitarist Dan Fuson, who loved ’80s metal. The three shared a mutual drive to play in a rock band.

“So for me, it was like that feeling of taking what I grew up in and bringing it into something new and fresh, because Nashville doesn’t really have a punk scene,” says Kinnon. “And for the boys, it was like this cool introduction to a totally new community.”

Before the release of their first EP, Father Figure, in 2022, the band was just going by Kinnon’s nickname, “Coco.” Then one night, after mulling over potential band names, Luther — a pop-culture obsessive — came up with “Winona Fighter.”

Kinnon felt the name was “the perfect balance of masculine and feminine, like pretty, but harsh.” Thus Winona Fighter was born, and they are now part of the lineup of the 2025 Vans Warped Tour on the heels of their latest album, My Apologies to the Chef.

Kinnon describes the whole thing as surreal, with the band gearing up to head to Orlando not just to play the main fest, but also Will’s Pub for an official afterparty — all on Saturday.

“I grew up going to Warped Tour, and I looked up to these bands, and I looked up to bands that were as big/little as we are. I thought they were like the shit,” says Kinnon. “It’s so funny now to be in that position of, you know, we’re still grinding so much, and we’re still doing van tours. We’re still little fish in such a big pond. But to know that we are having that weird impact on people that I had with the bands I saw at Warped Tour and Warped afterparties, it’s such a really cool, exciting thing for us.”

Luther recorded their entire album in his home studio, which also doubles as a garage. Kinnon, who helped produce the record, says the band loves to do as much as possible by themselves, staying true to their DIY roots.

As a pop-punk band, they created this new album to make punk accessible to all music lovers. Kinnon says the goal was to make a record of really catchy punk music that would appeal to people unfamiliar with the genre, even to those who weren’t into “super thrashable, yelly, loud punk music.”

The record’s lyrics center on the human experience and universal struggles of daily life, with tracks like “You Look Like a Drunk Phoebe Bridgers” and “I’m in the Market to Please No One.”

“Everyone can listen to the record and find one song where they relate to it, because it’s like we all go through these things,” says Kinnon. “Everyone feels like it’s a lonely, unique experience, but in reality, there’s always someone who can relate to what you are going through.” For Kinnon, every day with the band feels like an impactful moment.

“Every moment, even if it’s like, we show up and the green room has our little snacks that we like, or we show up and there’s even 50 people in a room, it’s so cool to us, like, ‘Oh, we are reaching people, and we are having an impact,’” says Kinnon. “Or we write a song that we think no one’s gonna understand. But then people are on Reddit and they’re just like, ‘Wow, this song hit me hard.’ Every day we have something that happens that is just very surreal for us.”

It’s that same passion for what they’re doing that helps the band whip up high energy onstage and in the crowd. Kinnon says it’s a mix between a true love of performing and a desire to give fans an outlet.

For aspiring Warpers out there, Kinnon says that chasing viral moments won’t help you grow as artists. Instead, it’s the tough shows or embarrassing moments that help artists find themselves and their community much quicker.

“Pick up a guitar, get out, play shows. Be kind, be willing to learn and it’ll come. What you’re looking for will come if you just put your head down and keep grinding, keep learning, keep being kind. That’s all you can really do. And make music you’re excited to make.”

(WINONA FIGHTER, EMO SOCIAL: 9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, Will’s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave., willspub.org, $28.43)