Mar 28, 2019 5 min read

Mon Valley Push isn’t your grandparents’ polka band – even though “Beer Barrel Polka” is among their repertoire.

To appeal to a younger audience, the wickedly talented seven-member band has added guitars, trumpet, and, at times, cowbells, to the traditional accordion and drums.

The band’s playlist includes a generous helping of contemporary music, and MVP is just as likely to play the polka version of a Maroon 5 or Meghan Trainor song as it is to perform traditional polkas.

Band member Nate Wright describes Mon Valley Push’s musical style as the “evolution of polka.”

Barry Niccolai, one of MVP’s original band members, agrees. “There’s a big tug-of-war going on in polka,” Niccolai says. “There are people who say it’s dying off, that nobody likes polkas anymore. The older folks, the traditionalists, want to preserve the traditional polkas, rather than evolve. So, do you want a band like us that will attract younger people to polkas? For strict traditionalists, a lot of them don’t see what we do as beneficial.”

MVP, led by Dr. Frank Stetar, a music professor at California University, plays at 20 and 30 events a year, including Dyngus Day in Buffalo, N.Y., Oktoberfest festivals, weddings and summer concert series. In 2016, MVP performed with the Washington Symphony Orchestra, a career highlight for the band members.

The group, Stetar says, has made an effort to broaden the reach of a music niche that has struggled to attract young audiences.

“While we play a lot of the old stuff, we’ve modernized it, or we take mainstream music and play it as polkas,” says Stetar, noting the most requested songs are MVP’s clever adaptation of Johnny Cash hits, including “Ring of Fire.”

Here’s something else that stands out about MVP: the band’s musicians range in age from 14 to 59, and their chemistry, onstage and off, is endearing.

Drummer Stasio “Stush” Stetar, MVP’s youngest member at 14, is Stetar’s son. Accordion player Randy Koslosky – a member of the International Polka Association Hall of Fame – is 56, and Niccolai, one of the band’s original members, 59, is the oldest. Stetar is 43. Rounding out MVP are three 20-somethings – Wright and Steve Venura, both 29, and Paul Sheppick, 26. The age difference, the band members insist, makes the band better.

“(The younger members) certainly bring a different energy. That’s how we’re able to do this. Their knowledge of current music and things like that, I think that adds another dimension,” Niccolai says.

Stetar, who formed MVP 15 years ago, grew up listening to polka tunes on the radio and at dances. He decided to start the band after having a conversation with Niccolai, longtime associate vice president of student affairs and a dean at California University.

“I told him two of my dreams were to sing in front of a big band and to play in a polka band,” recalls Niccolai, who started playing the accordion at the age of 8. “He said, ‘Let’s start a polka band,’ and so we did.”

Wright, Ventura and Sheppick were all Stetar’s students when he taught music in the California Area School District, and Wright and Ventura both graduated from Cal U.

Mon Valley Push – named after a medium-speed style of polka music that originated in the Midwest – has an ever-growing fan base.

Among its most loyal is lifelong polka enthusiast Kathy Konek, 64, of California.

“I call them the best band ever. They are so much fun, the way they take hit songs and put them to a polka beat,” Konek says. “They have a unique style all their own, and it’s so much fun to watch them interact with each other and how they get the crowd involved. They put on a show for everybody. You can’t keep me away. I wish they played every day.”

The band members consider Stetar – who handles scheduling, organizes weekly practices and writes the band’s inventive arrangements – the “heart and soul” of the band, a leader who is invested both financially and emotionally.

Example: Stetar and his father, Terry, spent about a decade converting a Coach bus into a touring bus for the band’s trips. It replaced a 1980s motorbus.

Most of the band members have been surrounded by polka music since childhood – it’s the only music Stush Stetar likes to listen to – but Wright wasn’t familiar with the genre, beyond its oom-pah oom-pah beat, until he joined the band.

“I was relatively new to polka when I joined. It’s just fun. I hadn’t really considered playing in a polka band, but being in a good polka band is so much more fun that being in a terrible cover band, and I’ve been in a couple of those,” says Wright, laughing.

And, says Stetar, polka music is challenging and complicated to play compared to other music genres, including country and rock, which are based on three basic chords.

Says Wright, “Frank has invested in making us all better musicians. The music, and Frank’s arrangements, are challenging. It pushes you. You better show up to practice ready to play it. This band wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for Frank.”

The band’s 2019 season is in full swing, and MVP, dubbed “Pittsburgh’s Premiere Party Band,” feels a rush every time the band gets to showcase its brand of polka music.

“This is still an ethnic region. I think it’s important for us to pass on polka music to younger generations,” says Niccolai. “The more we can expose younger people to it, it increases the chances of us keeping polka alive. If we do it in a different way, with modern music, where young people can say, ‘Hey, I know that song,’ rather than maybe singing in Polish where they can’t understand a word, then we’ve moved polka forward. That’s what we want.”