Pezz dispenses punk, social awareness
Memphis punk mainstays Pezz have been quietly making a lot of noise for almost two decades.
Though they have never had as big a local following as some bands, the quartet is revered in local DIY and hardcore circles. So much so that even after taking a five-year hiatus in the early part of this decade, they were able to count on the support of one of the city’s most promising and popular bands, the much younger While I Breathe, I Hope, who considered themselves fans.
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“Our first couple of shows back as an active band in the fall of 2006 were opening for While I Breath, I Hope,” recalls Pezz frontman Marvin Stockwell. “They did the really awesome thing to really give us a leg up getting back on the scene.”
The mutual admiration from those shows has come to full bloom with the release of a new split LP showcasing the two bands. The vinyl record features WIBIH’s five-song collection Failures on one side and on the other Pezz’s When Giants Walked The Earth, their first batch of new recordings since 2001’s With Everything We’ve Got. Local label Makeshift Music is releasing the record.
Friday night Pezz and WIBIH will mark the release of the collaboration with a show at the Hi-Tone. A limited edition version of the LP pressed on splattered vinyl will be available there with proceeds from their sale going to the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, a Memphis-based grassroots group whose disparate causes include the anti-war movement, election reform, poverty, and prison privatization.
“We are hoping to raise very necessary funds for the Peace & Justice Center,” says Stockwell, “but it’s as much about awareness raising.”
The advocacy on behalf of an organization devoted to social justice is an expected touch for the members of Pezz, who all remain devoted to causes outside of the band. Stockwell, a former journalist, is public relations manager for the nonprofit Church Health Center.
And at age 16, guitarist Anthony Siracusa, now a student at Rhodes College, founded the Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop, which recycles used bikes. (Siracusa, who also writes a biking column for The Commercial Appeal, will miss tonight’s gig having injured his hand in a riding incident.)
But Stockwell most of all credits drummer Ceylon Mooney, with whom he founded the group in 1989, with being the spark for the band’s social consciousness.
“Our lyrics were always about stuff that was important to us,” says Stockwell. “But Ceylon is the one who really started connecting the punk rock ethos to actual things we could do.”
Mooney, a graduate of Memphis University School and Christian Brothers University, has a long history of involvement in progressive causes. In the days following 9-11 he joined a peace delegation for a fact-finding tour to Iraq. And this winter he intends to make another in a series of trips to Palestine to do volunteer work there. He has also been active in groups such as the Humanitarian Action Collective, Voices in the Wilderness, and the Wheels of Justice Tour.
“The kind of music I grew up listening to was protest music,” says Mooney of his activist background. “From my viewpoint it was protest music for skaters. Either you blow it off or you outgrow or you start to take seriously some of ideas you’re being presented with.
Mooney’s activism is the driving force behind the creation of Giants. A concept he has been batting around years, the record is a call to arms to young people to become more socially active. The album’s cover art and title track further make the point by comparing and contrasting legends of social change like Martin Luther King and Mahatmas Gandhi with contemporary figures such as Franciscan priest Jerry Zawada and Palestinian nonviolent resistance advocate Mubarak Awad.
“Mixed in with these very famous prophets are ordinary human beings who are doing the same kind of work, and I don’t think there is a difference,” Mooney says. “The idea is When Giants Walked the Earth. Well, giants still walk the earth because the only difference between us and those people is the decisions we make.”
Despite the high-minded idealism, Stockwell and Mooney say the energy and passion of the music is still there from the band’s earliest days.
“It’s big, melodic punk rock,” says Stockwell, “It is essentially the creative output of a band founded on friendship.”
Adds Mooney: “It’s funny, most bands start getting older and they get slower, and we’ve actually started putting in faster songs.”
Pezz/While I Breathe, I Hope split LP Release
With special guests Antique Curtains and Streetside Symphony. Friday at the Hi-Tone; doors open at 9 p.m.
Admission: $5. For more information, visit hitonememphis.com or call 901-278-8663.
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