Pegboy only ever came to the UK once before, back in 1992, to play a short tour following the release of their classic debut album, ‘Strong Reaction’. I was lucky enough to travel with them as some sort of temporary merch-guy, also helping to load-in / load-out, so I saw all of the five dates they played. Every gig had a very enthusiastic response and there was a real buzz about the band. Everybody seemed to think that, when they came back, a lot more people were going to want to see them. But despite the release of further great records over the next few years, they never came back and no-one seemed to know why…
The band had formed after guitarist John Haggerty had left the legendary Chicago punk band, Naked Raygun. He quickly put a new band together featuring his brother Joe (ex-Effigies) on drums, plus Larry Damore (vocals) and Steve Saylors (bass) who had both been members of the Bhopal Stiffs, a band who only released one single and an EP, but left a well-deserved reputation across North America and Europe. Pegboy released the ‘Three Chord Monte’ EP in 1990 and promptly showed that they were carving out their own style of powerful yet melodic punk rock tunes. A single, ’Field of Darkness’/’Walk On By’ emerged in 1991, quickly followed by the album ‘Strong Reaction’, which proved beyond doubt that this was a truly great new band. However, after their first European tour in early 1992, Steve Saylors left the band and the task of finding an appropriate replacement derailed their momentum. Their next EP, ‘Fore’, was released in 1993, with their friend and ally Steve Albini standing-in on bass duties. By 1994, Naked Raygun had split-up so they were able to tempt John’s former bandmate Pierre Kezdy into the fold, which led to the recording of their second album, ‘Earwig’. It was another hit with the fans but it wouldn’t be until 1997 that their third album, ‘Cha Cha Damore’ was released, delivering another set of great songs that continued to live-up to expectations. However, despite continuing to play live on an occasional basis, there have been no further records to date. Pierre eventually left to join the Naked Raygun reunion and another bassist, Mike Thompson, joined the band, remaining up until 2022 when he was replaced by the newest member, Herb Rosen. (Sadly, Pierre Kezdy passed away in 2020 after a battle with cancer.)
By this point, I doubt if anyone actually expected them to appear in the UK again, but to everyone’s surprise earlier this year, it was announced they would be playing at Rebellion festival, as well as a handful of dates around the country. Not being a fan of festivals, I eagerly awaited their gig at New Cross Inn but, a few days earlier, had the lucky surprise of bumping into Larry and new boy Herb at a Murphy’s Law gig. They’d just arrived in London and had made the trek down to the venue as Jimmy G was an old friend. It was so great to see Larry again and meet Herb for the first time, so we all made use of the venues’ late license to drink some beers and catch up. I even remembered to make some plans for an interview before their upcoming gig…
The band had formed after guitarist John Haggerty had left the legendary Chicago punk band, Naked Raygun. He quickly put a new band together featuring his brother Joe (ex-Effigies) on drums, plus Larry Damore (vocals) and Steve Saylors (bass) who had both been members of the Bhopal Stiffs, a band who only released one single and an EP, but left a well-deserved reputation across North America and Europe. Pegboy released the ‘Three Chord Monte’ EP in 1990 and promptly showed that they were carving out their own style of powerful yet melodic punk rock tunes. A single, ’Field of Darkness’/’Walk On By’ emerged in 1991, quickly followed by the album ‘Strong Reaction’, which proved beyond doubt that this was a truly great new band. However, after their first European tour in early 1992, Steve Saylors left the band and the task of finding an appropriate replacement derailed their momentum. Their next EP, ‘Fore’, was released in 1993, with their friend and ally Steve Albini standing-in on bass duties. By 1994, Naked Raygun had split-up so they were able to tempt John’s former bandmate Pierre Kezdy into the fold, which led to the recording of their second album, ‘Earwig’. It was another hit with the fans but it wouldn’t be until 1997 that their third album, ‘Cha Cha Damore’ was released, delivering another set of great songs that continued to live-up to expectations. However, despite continuing to play live on an occasional basis, there have been no further records to date. Pierre eventually left to join the Naked Raygun reunion and another bassist, Mike Thompson, joined the band, remaining up until 2022 when he was replaced by the newest member, Herb Rosen. (Sadly, Pierre Kezdy passed away in 2020 after a battle with cancer.)
By this point, I doubt if anyone actually expected them to appear in the UK again, but to everyone’s surprise earlier this year, it was announced they would be playing at Rebellion festival, as well as a handful of dates around the country. Not being a fan of festivals, I eagerly awaited their gig at New Cross Inn but, a few days earlier, had the lucky surprise of bumping into Larry and new boy Herb at a Murphy’s Law gig. They’d just arrived in London and had made the trek down to the venue as Jimmy G was an old friend. It was so great to see Larry again and meet Herb for the first time, so we all made use of the venues’ late license to drink some beers and catch up. I even remembered to make some plans for an interview before their upcoming gig…
So, the following Tuesday, I arrived early while Pegboy were sound-checking. It was great to see John and Joe again, catching up like it had been just a year or two and not the thirty-plus it actually was. After they finish-up, we wander down to their dressing room, have a relaxing beer and eventually begin the interview.
So, obvious place to start… where have you been since 1992? Everyone expected you to return after those tour dates and John had even said that one of the reasons he left Naked Raygun was because he wanted to tour more often…
John; Yeah, well… that worked out, hahaha! Actually, we did tour quite a bit, it’s just that we never came back over here. We just played over here the once and it wasn’t planned that way, but we were never really in a big hurry to come back. After that first time in Europe, none of us had liked it too much, so we never made it a priority to come back. I don’t know what it was, maybe it was the food or the climate…
What did you think of the reaction you got at the shows on that tour?
John; Oh, that was good, I think we were all happy with them.
Larry; I don’t think there was any particular reason why we didn’t come back…
John: Although I always thought it was something to do with you, hahaha!
Larry; Ahh, he got me! It all just wore me down! But, seriously, that first tour went pretty well. We didn’t get huge crowds or anything but we were still a pretty new band at that point, so some shows were really good while others weren’t so good. But I really don’t know why we didn’t make more of an effort to come back and, looking at it now, I think we should have.
Your original bass player, Steve Saylors, was already planning to leave the band at the end of the tour and it seemed to take you a while a get a permanent replacement. Could that have been another factor?
Larry; Well, yeah. In fact, when we got back after that tour, we had an offer to go out with Social Distortion for a month and a half. The place where Steve worked were being awkward with him and said, well, you can go on tour again but if you do, you won’t have a job when you get back. So we had to get a stand-in to play bass on that tour and, luckily, J Robbins from Jawbox agreed to do it. He flew out to Chicago, we had a bunch of practices and then went straight out on that tour. It was a bunch of fun, but after that we were probably on hiatus for a year or more, until we could find a new, permanent bass player. Luckily for us, Pierre eventually became available.
John; I think J Robbins did a great job, he sounded really good. Every so often I’ll come across a recording from that tour on youtube or whatever, and we always sounded great with him.
Larry; I’m sure it would have been great had we ever managed to get in a studio with him. But instead, we went from being this great, prolific band to being the laziest band on the label!
So, obvious place to start… where have you been since 1992? Everyone expected you to return after those tour dates and John had even said that one of the reasons he left Naked Raygun was because he wanted to tour more often…
John; Yeah, well… that worked out, hahaha! Actually, we did tour quite a bit, it’s just that we never came back over here. We just played over here the once and it wasn’t planned that way, but we were never really in a big hurry to come back. After that first time in Europe, none of us had liked it too much, so we never made it a priority to come back. I don’t know what it was, maybe it was the food or the climate…
What did you think of the reaction you got at the shows on that tour?
John; Oh, that was good, I think we were all happy with them.
Larry; I don’t think there was any particular reason why we didn’t come back…
John: Although I always thought it was something to do with you, hahaha!
Larry; Ahh, he got me! It all just wore me down! But, seriously, that first tour went pretty well. We didn’t get huge crowds or anything but we were still a pretty new band at that point, so some shows were really good while others weren’t so good. But I really don’t know why we didn’t make more of an effort to come back and, looking at it now, I think we should have.
Your original bass player, Steve Saylors, was already planning to leave the band at the end of the tour and it seemed to take you a while a get a permanent replacement. Could that have been another factor?
Larry; Well, yeah. In fact, when we got back after that tour, we had an offer to go out with Social Distortion for a month and a half. The place where Steve worked were being awkward with him and said, well, you can go on tour again but if you do, you won’t have a job when you get back. So we had to get a stand-in to play bass on that tour and, luckily, J Robbins from Jawbox agreed to do it. He flew out to Chicago, we had a bunch of practices and then went straight out on that tour. It was a bunch of fun, but after that we were probably on hiatus for a year or more, until we could find a new, permanent bass player. Luckily for us, Pierre eventually became available.
John; I think J Robbins did a great job, he sounded really good. Every so often I’ll come across a recording from that tour on youtube or whatever, and we always sounded great with him.
Larry; I’m sure it would have been great had we ever managed to get in a studio with him. But instead, we went from being this great, prolific band to being the laziest band on the label!
There was quite a long gap before your next record, the ‘Fore’ EP, was released, this time with Steve Albini standing-in on bass duties…
Larry; That was just another situation where we still hadn’t got a permanent, new bass player so, as Steve was going to engineer the record, we just assumed that he could play on it as well! He’s a friend of ours, so he was happy to do it, but it was just a one-off thing.
The final track on that EP was a cover from the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, which seemed to confuse a lot of people…
Larry; I’d heard that song as a kid and didn’t really know that it was from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, but I’d always liked that riff. We’d already been fooling around with it so when we went to record that EP, we just threw it in there. There was really no other thought that went in to it than that. I suppose it was a little bit of a parody, to a degree, but really, we were just taking that riff!
The second album, ‘Earwig’, was released in 1994, by which time Pierre Kezdy (ex-Naked Raygun) had joined the band. How did that come about?
John: He was always the best man I could think of for the job…
Larry; Naked Raygun had pretty-much broken-up by that point. They were defunct, so he became available. We had always been friends with him and I think it’s better to be in a band with friends. I mean, you can sometimes hire someone just because they play well and perhaps it’ll work out, but when you’re going to be sitting in a van with somebody for a month at a time, you’ve really got to be friends with them. So that’s how it all came together.
Did he contribute to the song-writing on ‘Earwig’?
Larry; He fitted-in straight away… We had always tended to write everything as a band and he was able to become a part of that whole function from day one.
John; Songs like, ‘In the Pantry of the Mountain King’ (from ‘Cha Cha Damore’)… That was pretty-much all Pierre’s work. It was typical Pierre…
Larry; As were the stupid song-names! He came up with a lot of those. The thing is, the names that he gave them hardly ever have anything to do with the actual songs, so to this day, I still don’t know which names go with which songs!
Larry; That was just another situation where we still hadn’t got a permanent, new bass player so, as Steve was going to engineer the record, we just assumed that he could play on it as well! He’s a friend of ours, so he was happy to do it, but it was just a one-off thing.
The final track on that EP was a cover from the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, which seemed to confuse a lot of people…
Larry; I’d heard that song as a kid and didn’t really know that it was from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, but I’d always liked that riff. We’d already been fooling around with it so when we went to record that EP, we just threw it in there. There was really no other thought that went in to it than that. I suppose it was a little bit of a parody, to a degree, but really, we were just taking that riff!
The second album, ‘Earwig’, was released in 1994, by which time Pierre Kezdy (ex-Naked Raygun) had joined the band. How did that come about?
John: He was always the best man I could think of for the job…
Larry; Naked Raygun had pretty-much broken-up by that point. They were defunct, so he became available. We had always been friends with him and I think it’s better to be in a band with friends. I mean, you can sometimes hire someone just because they play well and perhaps it’ll work out, but when you’re going to be sitting in a van with somebody for a month at a time, you’ve really got to be friends with them. So that’s how it all came together.
Did he contribute to the song-writing on ‘Earwig’?
Larry; He fitted-in straight away… We had always tended to write everything as a band and he was able to become a part of that whole function from day one.
John; Songs like, ‘In the Pantry of the Mountain King’ (from ‘Cha Cha Damore’)… That was pretty-much all Pierre’s work. It was typical Pierre…
Larry; As were the stupid song-names! He came up with a lot of those. The thing is, the names that he gave them hardly ever have anything to do with the actual songs, so to this day, I still don’t know which names go with which songs!
I remember seeing a promo-cassette for the ‘Fore’ EP which had completely different names for each of the songs, but that would have been before Pierre was involved. One of the songs was renamed ‘DC Pattern Balding’…
Larry; Hahaha! Oh, that must have been Albini. That sounds like something he would have come-up with!
John; Yeah, I remember him saying that everybody from DC seemed to have that same horse-shoe shaped hair!
You recorded ‘Earwig’ with Iain Burgess (renowned producer who had worked with Chicago bands such as Naked Raygun, Big Black and The Effigies) who by that point had moved to France and was running his own studio. What was it like to be working with him over there?
John; That was nice, it was really cool. The countryside in that area was very pretty and the studio was really good. He’d bought this old, converted farm-house and built the studio in one of the barns…
Larry; The only problem was, as we were all friends, we were partying more than we were recording! That happened quite a few times... by 8.00 or 9.00 in the evening, we were done!
John; But it was a great place, there was a nice little town nearby and a nice pub. We became their favourites down there, because we kept them open. I think we must’ve paid the whole month’s rent for them!
Since you were coming over to Europe to record that album, were you not tempted to play a few gigs at the same time?
Larry; No, we didn’t play at all. Iain was so excited that we were coming over there, because it was pretty soon after it had opened and he was anxious to have us there to check it out, so we were concentrating on that.
You included a cover of ‘That’s When I Reach For My Revolver’ on that album… are you particular fans of Mission of Burma?
Larry; I like them, although I’m not a huge fan. But I’ve always loved that song. It’s helped me to get through some depressing times, so I always wanted to cover it. While we were preparing to record ‘Earwig’, I pitched it to these guys and they were down for it. We played it with a heavier guitar sound, but at the same time it was slower, so I was really happy with the way it came out.
For some reason, the song ‘Mr Pink’ is included on the lyric sheet, but seem to be written in Russian…
Larry; That’s probably another song that Pierre named, so I’m not really sure which one it is…
John: Actually, I think I wrote the music for that one, but I didn’t write the lyrics…
Larry; …and now, we don’t have any other copy of the lyrics, so we don’t know what they were! I actually had some kid write to me, asking for the lyrics in English and I couldn’t remember them. So I guess you’ll just have to make up your own lyrics for it!
That’s quite appropriate, in a way, because you tend to leave your lyrics open to interpretation rather than just turning-out obvious slogans…
Larry; Yeah and I’ve always thought that’s the best way to do it, because each song can mean something different to whoever else listens to it.
John; There’s no particular ‘message’ that we want people to hear.
Larry; Exactly… the thing that I actually wrote the song about may not be the same as the way you interpret it, but that’s okay.
After ‘Earwig’, there was a three year gap before the next album, ‘Cha Cha Damore’. Just to get the obvious question out of the way, I believe ‘Cha Cha Damore’ was actually Larry’s father?
Larry; Yes, it was my Dad, but I had nothing to do with calling the album that. He had these old pictures of himself when he was singing with these old playboys and they were so loungey-looking that we just had to use them! But I’m pretty sure naming the album ‘Cha Cha Damore’ was another Pierre-idea. He’d certainly started calling me ‘Cha Cha’ for a while, way before we came up with the concept for the album cover. So it is what it is... and my Dad’s still proud of it!
You worked with Steve Albini again on that album and a lot of people have said that it had the best production of all your records. Would you agree with that?
John; Maybe… I’ve never really thought about it.
Larry; Yeah, I’d really have to go and put an ear on it again to consider that. But I tend to think of certain songs from certain albums rather than whole albums at the same time. I couldn’t really put one album in one group and another in another place. But here’s the funny thing about that… while we were in the studio, we’d just finished a song and went into the control room to hear it, but Steve was freaking out and apologising, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’ He was upset because he thought he’d fucked-up our record, the whole mix, and he had to remix the whole thing before we could put it down.
Joe; I remember that, he messed-up the track after we’d finally got a perfect recording. We’d spent about an hour getting it right…
Larry; He thought that he’d screwed-up the entire mix, so it’s interesting that people think that production is the best one.
There were three songs with similar titles on the album, ‘Dangerwood’, ‘Dangermare’ and ‘Dangerace’. Was that deliberate?
Larry; It was Pierre again! He was being a goofball and throwing those names out before we had a chance to think of something else. He’d throw these stupid names out and we’d get used to them while we were learning the songs, so we’d end up keeping them.
Larry; Yes, it was my Dad, but I had nothing to do with calling the album that. He had these old pictures of himself when he was singing with these old playboys and they were so loungey-looking that we just had to use them! But I’m pretty sure naming the album ‘Cha Cha Damore’ was another Pierre-idea. He’d certainly started calling me ‘Cha Cha’ for a while, way before we came up with the concept for the album cover. So it is what it is... and my Dad’s still proud of it!
You worked with Steve Albini again on that album and a lot of people have said that it had the best production of all your records. Would you agree with that?
John; Maybe… I’ve never really thought about it.
Larry; Yeah, I’d really have to go and put an ear on it again to consider that. But I tend to think of certain songs from certain albums rather than whole albums at the same time. I couldn’t really put one album in one group and another in another place. But here’s the funny thing about that… while we were in the studio, we’d just finished a song and went into the control room to hear it, but Steve was freaking out and apologising, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’ He was upset because he thought he’d fucked-up our record, the whole mix, and he had to remix the whole thing before we could put it down.
Joe; I remember that, he messed-up the track after we’d finally got a perfect recording. We’d spent about an hour getting it right…
Larry; He thought that he’d screwed-up the entire mix, so it’s interesting that people think that production is the best one.
There were three songs with similar titles on the album, ‘Dangerwood’, ‘Dangermare’ and ‘Dangerace’. Was that deliberate?
Larry; It was Pierre again! He was being a goofball and throwing those names out before we had a chance to think of something else. He’d throw these stupid names out and we’d get used to them while we were learning the songs, so we’d end up keeping them.
There’s another song on the album I was going to ask about, but I get the feeling I know who’s going to responsible for it… What exactly is a ‘Liberace Hat Trick’?
Joe; I actually know what that is! Pierre used to play electronic hockey, sometimes for hours, because it was a great way to waste time. Anyway, with this particular game you could name your players, so Pierre, just to piss everyone off, named one of his players ‘Liberace’… Obviously, a hat trick is when you score three goals, so in one game Liberace scored a hat-trick! I think using that as a song-title was just another way to piss-off the rest of us…
You recorded a cover of the Cheap Trick song, ‘Surrender’, for this album…
Larry; Yeah, but I wasn’t so happy with how that came out. Cheap Trick are a hard act to follow and that song is one of the ultimate teen anthems ever written. We took a shot at it, but it didn’t come out as well as we hoped it would. It’s okay, but not great.
Do you have a particular fondness for cover versions? Apart from the couple we’ve mentioned on the albums, you also covered several songs on that first UK tour…
Larry; Well, the only cover we ever do on a regular basis these days is ‘Revolver’. We’ve covered a couple of Naked Raygun songs over the years and we covered the Government Issue song, ‘Caring Line’, early on because we didn’t have enough of our songs for a full set. But I don’t think we’ve done a ton of them…
Well, I can remember you covering ‘Blockbuster’ by the Jesus Lizard on that first tour, as well as the Elvis song ‘Burning Love’ and a version of the Bhopal Stiffs song, ‘Bottle It Up’…
Larry; Oh yeah, we did those, didn’t we! Wow, I’d forgotten we used to play them, but again, it was really because we didn’t have a ton of our own songs at that point.
John; We were all really impressed with Jesus Lizard around that time so we wanted to do something by them but that was the only song we could play and get it to sound half-way okay!
Joe; I actually know what that is! Pierre used to play electronic hockey, sometimes for hours, because it was a great way to waste time. Anyway, with this particular game you could name your players, so Pierre, just to piss everyone off, named one of his players ‘Liberace’… Obviously, a hat trick is when you score three goals, so in one game Liberace scored a hat-trick! I think using that as a song-title was just another way to piss-off the rest of us…
You recorded a cover of the Cheap Trick song, ‘Surrender’, for this album…
Larry; Yeah, but I wasn’t so happy with how that came out. Cheap Trick are a hard act to follow and that song is one of the ultimate teen anthems ever written. We took a shot at it, but it didn’t come out as well as we hoped it would. It’s okay, but not great.
Do you have a particular fondness for cover versions? Apart from the couple we’ve mentioned on the albums, you also covered several songs on that first UK tour…
Larry; Well, the only cover we ever do on a regular basis these days is ‘Revolver’. We’ve covered a couple of Naked Raygun songs over the years and we covered the Government Issue song, ‘Caring Line’, early on because we didn’t have enough of our songs for a full set. But I don’t think we’ve done a ton of them…
Well, I can remember you covering ‘Blockbuster’ by the Jesus Lizard on that first tour, as well as the Elvis song ‘Burning Love’ and a version of the Bhopal Stiffs song, ‘Bottle It Up’…
Larry; Oh yeah, we did those, didn’t we! Wow, I’d forgotten we used to play them, but again, it was really because we didn’t have a ton of our own songs at that point.
John; We were all really impressed with Jesus Lizard around that time so we wanted to do something by them but that was the only song we could play and get it to sound half-way okay!
I don’t know whether it was just a rumour or if there was any truth behind it, but the story went around that Pegboy were going to play a ‘farewell show’ on New Years Eve at the end of 1999…
Larry; I think that was something that just sort of took shape on its’ own. I don’t think that we ever announced that it was going to be our last show or anything, it was a rumour that took-on its’ own persona. I don’t think we ever said that… in fact, I deny that we ever said it! We may have been thinking about calling it quits, so perhaps someone had told a friend that we weren’t sure if we were going to carry on, but there was never any big announcement or anything.
John; If we did decide to quit altogether, we wouldn’t do it that way. We would have just faded away and not said anything. That’s how we would have done it, we wouldn’t have told everyone, ‘Okay, we’re breaking up!’ We would just let it go if we were ever going to do that.’
Although you’ve continued to play live, albeit on a less-frequent basis, it’s been a long time since you last recorded or released anything new. Have there ever been any talks of you returning to the studio?
John; Not really…
Larry; We need something to give us that initial spark, because we haven’t really been motivated to do anything new. But we’ll see… who knows?
John; We’ve all got lives of our own away from the band, now, and it wasn’t as if the last album was breaking sales-records or anything. If we ever feel like doing it again, we’ll do it, but if we don’t, I think that’s okay.
Larry; Another thing is, how do you even sell records these days? It’s really hard and a lot tougher for smaller bands. Music in general is in a weird place right now and even more so for rock music. There are so many different things happening now and it’s not easy for bands.
Going back to your previous band, Bhopal Stiffs, I read that a compilation CD was released some time ago, but I’ve never actually seen a copy or found anyone who has it. Was it even released in the end?
Larry; It did come out, on a label called Harmless, but I don’t know how many were printed and we’ve never seen a royalty cheque or anything like that. I don’t know how well it was distributed, but I do know that it exists because I’ve got a copy.
And while I’m asking about previous bands, I wanted to ask John why he wasn’t featured in the Naked Raygun documentary, ‘What Poor Gods We Do Make’. If anything, you were particularly notable by your absence…
John; Well, they funded and produced the whole thing by themselves, so it wasn’t as if anyone asked them, ‘Can we do a documentary about you?’ They decided to do a documentary about themselves, which is probably the lamest thing I ever heard, hahaha!
Larry; Were you ever asked to be involved with it?
John; No, not really. I think the whole thing was more like making a music video which they decided to extend in to a documentary about themselves...
Larry; But how can you make a documentary about Naked Raygun and not have John involved? That’s the really laughable thing about it…
Larry; I think that was something that just sort of took shape on its’ own. I don’t think that we ever announced that it was going to be our last show or anything, it was a rumour that took-on its’ own persona. I don’t think we ever said that… in fact, I deny that we ever said it! We may have been thinking about calling it quits, so perhaps someone had told a friend that we weren’t sure if we were going to carry on, but there was never any big announcement or anything.
John; If we did decide to quit altogether, we wouldn’t do it that way. We would have just faded away and not said anything. That’s how we would have done it, we wouldn’t have told everyone, ‘Okay, we’re breaking up!’ We would just let it go if we were ever going to do that.’
Although you’ve continued to play live, albeit on a less-frequent basis, it’s been a long time since you last recorded or released anything new. Have there ever been any talks of you returning to the studio?
John; Not really…
Larry; We need something to give us that initial spark, because we haven’t really been motivated to do anything new. But we’ll see… who knows?
John; We’ve all got lives of our own away from the band, now, and it wasn’t as if the last album was breaking sales-records or anything. If we ever feel like doing it again, we’ll do it, but if we don’t, I think that’s okay.
Larry; Another thing is, how do you even sell records these days? It’s really hard and a lot tougher for smaller bands. Music in general is in a weird place right now and even more so for rock music. There are so many different things happening now and it’s not easy for bands.
Going back to your previous band, Bhopal Stiffs, I read that a compilation CD was released some time ago, but I’ve never actually seen a copy or found anyone who has it. Was it even released in the end?
Larry; It did come out, on a label called Harmless, but I don’t know how many were printed and we’ve never seen a royalty cheque or anything like that. I don’t know how well it was distributed, but I do know that it exists because I’ve got a copy.
And while I’m asking about previous bands, I wanted to ask John why he wasn’t featured in the Naked Raygun documentary, ‘What Poor Gods We Do Make’. If anything, you were particularly notable by your absence…
John; Well, they funded and produced the whole thing by themselves, so it wasn’t as if anyone asked them, ‘Can we do a documentary about you?’ They decided to do a documentary about themselves, which is probably the lamest thing I ever heard, hahaha!
Larry; Were you ever asked to be involved with it?
John; No, not really. I think the whole thing was more like making a music video which they decided to extend in to a documentary about themselves...
Larry; But how can you make a documentary about Naked Raygun and not have John involved? That’s the really laughable thing about it…
Your current bass player, Herb Rosen, has only been with the band for a relatively short time…
Larry; Yeah, about two months! This will be his sixth show and they’ve all happened in the last two weeks! Pierre had to leave when Naked Raygun reformed, so we had another guy, Mike Thompson, who I think was with us for about nine years, but he has health issues now so we were forced to move on again.
To what extent was Chicago affected by the recent Covid pandemic and the lockdowns? I get the impression that different cities and areas in the USA were affected in different ways?
Larry; The lockdowns were pretty strict. I was lucky enough that I was able to work through the whole time, so I’d be driving to work on these highways that would normally be jam-packed with traffic and there was hardly anyone else on the road.
John; The cool thing was that, even in that short time, the air started to clear-up and wild-life started to creep back in to the parks and other places, so it was interesting to see what would happen.
Larry; But on the other hand, I think it really screwed-up a lot of people. Apparently, alcoholism in the States just sky-rocketed, the suicide numbers went up and there were lots of other casualties.
John; I think quite a few people really need to be social. They need to be out and about and talking to other people. I mean, I had no problems like that, but I felt really sorry for those people who need that contact. It was perfect for me and a lot of others, I’m sure, but that’s just the way that I’m messed up!
So, to finish this in the usual way, I have to ask if you have any particular plans for the band in the near future?
Larry, Well, hopefully, we’ll be able to leave town a little bit more, rather than just playing locally. Although we’ll carry on doing that as well. I mean, we’re not going to quit our day jobs, but as long as we can keep on doing it, going here and going there, we will. We get offers to play at some of the festivals , which we like doing, so we’ll keep at it.
John; We get invited to play in places that we would never have expected before now, like Brazil… We were invited to play down there, so we did that, which was cool. Although we never got asked back… I don’t know why…
Larry; But that’s the cool thing about the computer age, because our records were never distributed in Brazil when they originally came out, so I guess no-one over there would’ve even heard us back then. But the kids over there now can get to hear them really easily. Once your music is on the web, it can reach every corner of the world, so who knows, perhaps in the next few years we’ll be getting offers to go and play in lots of different places!
Larry; Yeah, about two months! This will be his sixth show and they’ve all happened in the last two weeks! Pierre had to leave when Naked Raygun reformed, so we had another guy, Mike Thompson, who I think was with us for about nine years, but he has health issues now so we were forced to move on again.
To what extent was Chicago affected by the recent Covid pandemic and the lockdowns? I get the impression that different cities and areas in the USA were affected in different ways?
Larry; The lockdowns were pretty strict. I was lucky enough that I was able to work through the whole time, so I’d be driving to work on these highways that would normally be jam-packed with traffic and there was hardly anyone else on the road.
John; The cool thing was that, even in that short time, the air started to clear-up and wild-life started to creep back in to the parks and other places, so it was interesting to see what would happen.
Larry; But on the other hand, I think it really screwed-up a lot of people. Apparently, alcoholism in the States just sky-rocketed, the suicide numbers went up and there were lots of other casualties.
John; I think quite a few people really need to be social. They need to be out and about and talking to other people. I mean, I had no problems like that, but I felt really sorry for those people who need that contact. It was perfect for me and a lot of others, I’m sure, but that’s just the way that I’m messed up!
So, to finish this in the usual way, I have to ask if you have any particular plans for the band in the near future?
Larry, Well, hopefully, we’ll be able to leave town a little bit more, rather than just playing locally. Although we’ll carry on doing that as well. I mean, we’re not going to quit our day jobs, but as long as we can keep on doing it, going here and going there, we will. We get offers to play at some of the festivals , which we like doing, so we’ll keep at it.
John; We get invited to play in places that we would never have expected before now, like Brazil… We were invited to play down there, so we did that, which was cool. Although we never got asked back… I don’t know why…
Larry; But that’s the cool thing about the computer age, because our records were never distributed in Brazil when they originally came out, so I guess no-one over there would’ve even heard us back then. But the kids over there now can get to hear them really easily. Once your music is on the web, it can reach every corner of the world, so who knows, perhaps in the next few years we’ll be getting offers to go and play in lots of different places!
The first band, Human Error, are just about to start their set, so we end the interview here before it gets too noisy. I go back into the venue to catch-up with various friends and see what the support bands are like. Human Error are a pretty young band from the Midlands and I think this was their first gig in London, but they deliver a pretty good set that mixed various punk styles (from ’77 era through to UK82 and pop-punk.) The set was mostly made-up of their own songs, although they did include a few covers, most notably the Buzzcocks classic, ‘Fast Cars’. They seemed pretty confident with what they’re doing and I think they’ve got plenty of potential, so keep an eye (and ear) open for them. Main support comes from Goober Patrol, a band that I saw many times during the Nineties as they always seemed to be supporting other bands that I went to see. They did build an enthusiastic following and even released several albums on Fat Wreck Chords, but I have to say that I was never too impressed with them. It just wasn’t something I liked. Hearing them live again after a couple of decades, well, I’m still not bowled-over but I watch their set and they do seem a lot more entertaining now. Most importantly, they go down well with the audience, so they must be doing something right.
The venue hasn’t sold-out but there’s a pretty large crowd, maybe 80% full, and considering this is a Tuesday evening straight after Rebellion festival, with many potential punters still recovering from the weekend, it’s a very respectable turn-out. The atmosphere is really buzzing with anticipation and when Pegboy arrive onstage, they’re greeted with enthusiastic cheers. Larry makes a brief introduction before the band launch into their first song, ‘Not What I Want’. They sound superb, with Joe and Herb providing a tight rhythm section over which John’s guitar sounds as immense as ever. Larry is soon barging his way into the audience, never dropping a word, let alone a line, of the lyrics. It may be over thirty years since they were last in London, but it seems that they haven’t lost any of their musical energy. Next three songs, ‘Field of Darkness’, ‘Walk On By’ and ‘Through My Fingers’ blast through the speakers and they’ve totally won over the crowd, if anyone ever doubted how good they would be. The set continues with great tracks like ‘Superstar’ and ‘Dangermare’, before they play their one cover of the evening,, a superb version of ‘That’s When I Reach For My Revolver’, which has almost everyone in the audience singing along. When they get to the end of the set, instead of leaving the stage they decide to go straight into the encore songs (‘My Youth’ and Hardlight’) which leads to some confusion amongst the fans, who carry on yelling for more until the lights come up. Most of us would’ve loved to hear a few more songs, but we’d still seen a great set that had lived up to expectations. Now, we’ve just got to hope that they don’t keep us waiting so long for their next visit to the UK... Start petitions now! This is a band that everyone needs to see and hear and if you’ve never heard them before, you’ll really wonder how you’ve managed to miss-out for so long. To put it simply, if you don’t like Pegboy, you don’t like Punk Rock!
The venue hasn’t sold-out but there’s a pretty large crowd, maybe 80% full, and considering this is a Tuesday evening straight after Rebellion festival, with many potential punters still recovering from the weekend, it’s a very respectable turn-out. The atmosphere is really buzzing with anticipation and when Pegboy arrive onstage, they’re greeted with enthusiastic cheers. Larry makes a brief introduction before the band launch into their first song, ‘Not What I Want’. They sound superb, with Joe and Herb providing a tight rhythm section over which John’s guitar sounds as immense as ever. Larry is soon barging his way into the audience, never dropping a word, let alone a line, of the lyrics. It may be over thirty years since they were last in London, but it seems that they haven’t lost any of their musical energy. Next three songs, ‘Field of Darkness’, ‘Walk On By’ and ‘Through My Fingers’ blast through the speakers and they’ve totally won over the crowd, if anyone ever doubted how good they would be. The set continues with great tracks like ‘Superstar’ and ‘Dangermare’, before they play their one cover of the evening,, a superb version of ‘That’s When I Reach For My Revolver’, which has almost everyone in the audience singing along. When they get to the end of the set, instead of leaving the stage they decide to go straight into the encore songs (‘My Youth’ and Hardlight’) which leads to some confusion amongst the fans, who carry on yelling for more until the lights come up. Most of us would’ve loved to hear a few more songs, but we’d still seen a great set that had lived up to expectations. Now, we’ve just got to hope that they don’t keep us waiting so long for their next visit to the UK... Start petitions now! This is a band that everyone needs to see and hear and if you’ve never heard them before, you’ll really wonder how you’ve managed to miss-out for so long. To put it simply, if you don’t like Pegboy, you don’t like Punk Rock!
For more information, try this link –
While putting this interview together, I discovered that a Benefit Album called ‘Godspeed’ has recently been released, featuring bands such as Pegboy, Hot Water Music, Swingin’ Utters and J.Robbins performing exclusive covers of Naked Raygun songs. It’s available digitally and on vinyl, with all profits going to Pierre Kezdy’s family. The quality of the music is exceptional and it’s a fine tribute to a truly unique character. Great music and a great cause… you can hear tracks and download the album here -
and purchase the vinyl here -
bigminnowrecords.bigcartel.com/product/godspeed-a-tribute-to-pierre-kezdy-vinyl-records
bigminnowrecords.bigcartel.com/product/godspeed-a-tribute-to-pierre-kezdy-vinyl-records
