Volcanic Theatre Pub, Bend’s busiest music venue, turns 5 this week, and is in the midst of celebrating with — what else? — a full week of poetry readings, a film festival and of course, live music. Some of the biggest shows are still coming up, including rockers The Blasters with Ha Ha Tonka on Thursday; one-man band Zach Deputy on Friday; and the return of the Hunting Film Tour on Saturday.

GO! Magazine sat down with venue owner Derek Sitter for a long discussion (anyone who knows Sitter knows we’re not kidding) about the venue’s past and future. What follows are some highlights, edited for length and clarity.

Q: How did you decide what events to include in Volcanic Theatre Pub’s five-year-anniversary week?

A: One of the reasons I opened up Volcanic is to be able to reach a wide demographic of people in Central Oregon and beyond, and I think we did that. We’re gonna reach a huge demographic that week — different people from different ages, from different tastes — because we are not a niche theater; we try to keep it as diverse as possible. … It was important to offer something like Zach Deputy — watching one man just rip the s— out of it. And then The Blasters. I mean, when’s the last time somebody actually saw The Blasters live? It’s a big deal and I’m really looking forward to it.

Q: Volcanic has become Bend’s busiest music venue, but your original focus was more theater and film. What happened in the last five years to change that?

A: Because of the experience I came from, from L.A. as an actor, director and writer, I wanted to do a lot of theater, and I started off doing a lot of theater, and I also started doing a lot of film. … We designed the theater for the acoustics of live theater. … And what happened is, we had gear and equipment and stuff for live music, but what happened is, that translated really, really well for a great room for music. So what happened is, we got on the map pretty quickly. One of my first shows was Black Flag and all of a sudden, we became this venue for music. … What happened in the process is I got so busy booking and promoting with the music that was coming through — and very diverse music — that doing great theater, which has always been my goal and has been since I left graduate school, and it’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things in the world to do well and to do great, and that is my standard; it’s the standard I live by. … The time just went away because the music became not only such high demand, but it just kind of overtook the venue. And I didn’t have a problem with it necessarily until over I’d say this last year, which is our biggest year to date. I’ve found myself — wow, I don’t have time. The last play I think I did aside from “Santaland” was “American Buffalo” (in 2016), which was probably the most difficult play I’ve done at Volcanic.

Q: That said, are you hoping to add more theater to the mix this year?

A: I did a lot of cultivating of genres and bands that nobody had heard of, that definitely deserve the attention to be seen live. I’m slowing down on that a bit to where we’ll have more quality acts that we know will bring high-standard music to the venue, and then it will allow me, myself, my own personal time, which is important, and then will allow me to look at more plays and read more plays that I find that are relevant and timely and be able to execute them, particularly over the summer when music slows down a bit because of the festivals and outdoor shows — the outdoors in general.

Q: You’re talking about these plans, and yet the venue is still listed for sale. Where are you in that process?

A: It is listed. … Volcanic works because of exactly, precisely what it is. If you go messing with it a little bit — now there’s some things you can fudge here and there. Maybe do some more films and maybe do some more theater; maybe you do more comedy, maybe you do more whatever. But there is a way that it’s been ran and operated — whether it’s synonymous with me or not — that people have come to expect. So we are looking at, OK, we’re just gonna reword this and kind of re-think how it’s marketed. If the right person will understand what they’re getting into, because it is an artistic venue ran by an artist, and you’re gonna have to understand that a great deal of what happens inside Volcanic comes from vision, not from numbers. Numbers are a by-product. That’s tricky to people.

— Brian McElhiney, The Bulletin