A Chat with Austin’s Grocery Bag About Influences, Touring, and Billy Idol
Interview and photo credit: Jennifer Greene
Grocery Bag is one of Austin’s most talked-about bands this year in my circles. The four-piece garage rock band is Bella Martinez (guitar, vocals), Logan Kerman (bass, guitar), Dillon Aitala (guitar, bass), and Jimmy Mercado (drums, guitar, vocals). Formed in 2022, the band has opened for Osees, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, and most recently Billy Idol. They have also played many SXSW showcases, Red River festivals, and Austin City Limits Festival.
It took me a while to finally see Grocery Bag—the stars were not aligned when they had shows in Austin. I planned to see them at one of the many SXSW 2026 showcases they were in, but was always across town at another event. I then planned to see them at Austin Psych Fest, but a short, intense storm wreaked havoc on the festival grounds, delayed the music for hours, and unfortunately cut their set.
I finally caught them during Hot Summer Nights at Stubb’s in a packed room of moshing Austinites; it was a perfect introduction to their live shows, seeing them with their die-hard fans. Since then, I’ve caught their set at Austin’s Levitation Festival and their opening set for the Australian psych band Pond.
I also had a chance to sit down with three members of Grocery Bag between sets at Austin’s Levitation Festival about how they met, their influences, and how they reacted to finding out they were opening for Billy Idol.
How did y'all form your band? How did y'all meet?
BELLA: I met Jimmy first. What was it? end of 2019 or 2020?
JIMMY: Right before the turn of 2020, my band Favor was playing a live stream show. Bella was taking photos of the show.
BELLA: Yeah, so I was their photographer for a bit, and we just started hanging out. And he introduced me to the rest of the guys, and they were all pretty cool. Once I found out that they could all play, I was like, “Hmm, maybe let's start a band together.” I mean, because Jimmy and I had talked about it too, doing something, but I wasn't living in Austin at the time. So once I finally moved out for college and stuff, I was like, “Oh, let's put this band together that I had for a little bit.” It didn't really do much, but now we're all together still.
JIMMY: We are conquering the world. The joke that went too far.
You are! So are you still juggling day jobs? Doing both?
BELLA: Yeah, it's a mix .A lot of like freelance work too.
LOGAN: It’s kind of hard a job when you're touring all the time.
JIMMY: Thankfully, every tour is really like pushing in the next step and making this our job.
Yes, and you have Billy Idol coming up, and that's crazy, right? I'm going to ask you about that in a minute! But first, what would you say influenced your sound? When you decided what you wanted to sound like, is it all elements of what you all listen to?
JIMMY: Yeah, there's so many elements of things that we grew up on that we listened to, and subconsciously things that we didn't realize.
BELLA: We're all into different kinds of music too, so it kind of like it's cool to have those different genres mixed together. Like there's a bunch of cooks and we're all just throwing in- like maybe this, maybe that.
So what would you say you listened to growing up? Was songs on the radio or your parent’s music?
JIMMY: I grew up with my dad showing me like Rush, The Police. Seeing Tony Hawk's Secret Skate Park Tour Number 3, like those. A lot of cool stuff like that.
LOGAN: I grew up on a lot of Crosby Stills & Nash, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen. And also like a lot of 80’s stuff. My favorite band is Tears for Fears. And The Police. That's where Jim and I locked in.
JIMMY: There’s a lot of inspo from The Police.
RØKKR: That’s great. I'm a lot older than you, but that is my generation of music.
JIMMY: Stands the test of time.
So when you all find out you are going to be touring with Billy Idol, what was your reaction?
LOGAN: We did not think it was real. We had to wait for the announcement to come out.
RØKKR: Was it like those things like I don't want to say anything until I really know or, am I dreaming?
BELLA: I was driving when I got the email saying, Hey, it's Billy Idol's manager reaching out, and literally the subject header was ‘Billy Idol's Manager’, and I was like, There's no way this is real. So I sent it to our manager, and I was like, can you look into this and double check? And then he's like, “Yeah, it's legit.” […] we were on tour at the time, and we were in Birmingham, and it was just like, “Yeah, you'll find out at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow if he posts on his actual Instagram.” It came along, the post was there, and our name was on it, and we were like, oh, okay, it's real. That confirmed it. But yeah, the whole time we were not sure that it was a real thing, and that's just been a dream of one of the artists that I would love to play with.
LOGAN: Bella and I grew up on the 80’s, Billy Idol, Steve Stevens — like that is so real.
JIMMY: So real. You never know who is watching.
So my last question is, who are you looking forward to seeing at Levitation?
BELLA: I can’t wait for Bikini Kill.
LOGAN: Our friends Die Spitz.
JIMMY: I can’t wait for The Garden.
The next Grocery Bag show will be in Austin, at the Mohawk on October 23 with Bille’s Burger Patrol, Bat Lips and Deerspine. Keep an eye on their Instagram and tour calendar for shows in other cities. In the meantime, you can check out their recent KUTX Studio 1A session and their albums.