Pinkshift isn’t afraid of a little confrontation.

Ashrita Kumar, the Baltimore band’s fearless singer, stared out into the Inner Harbor Amphitheater crowd last fall, with a question in mind. No — a challenge.

“Yo Baltimore! If you’ve got two feet, why don’t you stand for something?” the 5-foot tall Kumar shouted, adding an expletive for good measure, before the band erupted into “Burn the Witch.”

Pinkshift offers a winning balm with a hard alt-rock edge for music fans in need of an antidote for chaotic times, or at least an earnest, genre-defying soundtrack filled with rallying cries for humanity. Now, as Turnstile’s worldwide success shines a spotlight on Baltimore, Kumar, guitarist/bassist Paul Vallejo and drummer Myron Houngbedji feel like the next band from Charm City poised for bigger stages and potential stardom.

“They’re scrappy. They’re energetic. Watching them is almost like a catharsis,” said Tecla Tesnau, owner of the Ottobar, the Remington venue where Pinkshift will headline shows on Friday and Saturday. “We’re seeing, more and more, the nation paying attention to the Baltimore music scene. Pinkshift is one to watch.”

The trio’s rise is steadily accelerating, as they tour the world in support of a dynamic second album — not bad for a group that began as strangers at Johns Hopkins University.

‘Nobody wanted to rock’

“Earthkeeper,” the group’s sophomore album released in August, is a sonic tour de force across a dozen tracks — from pummeling metalcore to seamless nods to grunge, emo and pop-rock balladry.

For a band with such a tight and developed sound, Pinkshift’s beginnings were a lot more haphazard.

When Vallejo, who grew up as a Green Day-obsessed kid, arrived at Johns Hopkins from Long Island, the chemical engineering major eagerly wanted to form a band — with few takers.

“Nobody wanted to rock,” he said.

After Vallejo saw Kumar, who grew up in rural Michigan, sing at an on-campus event, jam sessions and self-produced recordings followed. They met Houngbedji, a ukulelist who picked up drums in college, in a Hopkins practice space, where the Montgomery County native was covering My Chemical Romance’s “Helena.”

Learning drums “brought me joy when I was really stressed in college,” Houngbedji, 27, said. “It was like a little escape.”

Convincing their skeptical parents took more work: The band made a PowerPoint presentation on why they had to pursue music.

Spend a few hours with the group today and their closeness feels effortless.

Each member listens intently to the other. No one interrupts. They crack each other up. In Little Italy, they ordered the same lunch — meatball subs from Ovenbird Bakery. They’ve learned, over time, when to give each other space while on the road.

“It’s like being married. I like to joke because we have an LLC now, so we all have to actually be responsible to each other,” Kumar, 28, said with a laugh.

They graduated in 2020 during the pandemic — around the same time the band’s aptly timed pop-punk bop “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you” caught fire online.

Pinkshift’s fast ascent in rock circles continued with their 2022 debut LP, “Love Me Forever.” The album, produced by Will Yip (Turnstile, Title Fight), earned spots on annual best albums lists in magazines like Kerrang! and Alternative Press. The former declared them “the future of the scene.”

Pinkshift, it turned out, had much more to say.

‘I need to be here’

On album opener “Love It Here,” Kumar sets the urgent, often explosive tone of “Earthkeeper”: “F—k your guns and f—k your violence! While we all bleed and you stay silent!”

Kumar, who uses they/them pronouns, lacked a “sense of peace” in recent years. They lost loved ones, developed asthma and were perpetually alarmed by “witnessing genocide in Gaza over social media.”

Surrounded by “this dread and anger and frustration,” Kumar turned to their most reliable lifelines: making music and spirituality.

Despite moments of pain and confrontation, “Earthkeeper” is an open-hearted effort to reconnect to nature in order to heal, said Kumar, Pinkshift’s lyricist. The elemental theme was partly inspired by life on the road. The band began to prioritize “nature stops,” like a visit to Redwood National Park, to clear their heads and, literally, touch grass.

”I’ll learn to feel the Earth around me as she breathes,” Kumar sings on highlight “Spiritkeeper.”

The album, they said, is about “connection to both the world around you — as in the people, like if you live in the city — but also with nature. And how, as living beings, we are all interconnected in this very profound way.”

The realization that, in a divisive world, “we really have more in common than we could ever imagine” remains profound for Kumar — an appreciation for collectivity that courses through the album.

“I’ve struggled my whole life with figuring out why I’m here and why I should stay here. And I feel like ‘Earthkeeper’ was a real anchor — like in the core of the Earth. Like, I need to be here. It makes me feel emotional,” they said, tearing up.

This direct frankness extends beyond the lyrics. While recording at New Jersey’s Barber Shop Studios, the band felt free to experiment more than ever, drawing inspiration from heavy bands they loved growing up like Avenged Sevenfold and Soundgarden, said “Earthkeeper” producer Brett Romnes.

Nothing, in terms of Pinkshift’s potential, would surprise Romnes.

“They could do whatever they want. They could go on and play stadiums for all I know,” said the New York-based musician and producer.

‘A really incredible, rare opportunity’

Pinkshift wants to win over more fans in 2026 with their infectious live show.

After this weekend’s Baltimore performances and a stop at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on Jan. 23, the group will head overseas for its longest European run yet, opening for alt-rock singer-songwriter Grandson through early March with stops in Munich, Budapest, Milan, Paris, London and other major cities.

While their fan base is passionate and sizable — with more than 220,000 monthly listeners on Spotify — there is room to grow.

Pinkshift approaches touring like a sponge, soaking up as much as they can from more experienced acts like the Gaslight Anthem. While touring with the Russian protest performance art group Pussy Riot in 2023, Kumar learned “genre doesn’t matter.”

“It’s just about getting the message out,” they said. “It really informed the way that I do performance and what’s important to me when I’m on stage.”

The trio are well aware of the music industry’s many uncertainties. While they’ve watched friends land stable 9-to-5 careers, the Hopkins grads work flexible retail and food service jobs so they can tour.

They’re not complaining. Pursuing a creative passion is a privilege, the members say — one they refuse to waste.

“From the get-go, we took it seriously,” Vallejo said. “It was like, ‘Here’s a really incredible, rare opportunity that we have because of the work that we put in — and we want to just really enjoy it and make the most out of it.’”