Zoli Teglas circa 1998, Tramps NYC

When word dropped a few months back that Ignite front man Zoli Teglas would be picking the vocal reigns for Pennywise I got a excited. I was weened on both Pennywise and Ignite during my formative years (1994-98) and to call them two of my favorite bands is a bit of an understatement. While it is sad to see Jim Lindberg leave Pennywise, Zoli is hands down the best real singer in punk rock today. I don’t think anyone can match his pipes–he’s like the Bruce Dickinson of hardcore.

I got the chance to chat with Zoli while he was in the studio with Pennywise finishing up demo vocals for a new record. The first thing I did was mark out because I thought I’d have to pry hard to find out any news of a new record. Instead he was very forthright and excited to talk about his new day job fronting one of the biggest punk bands in the world.

So what does it feel like to be the singer of Pennywise? I assume you were a fan of theirs too back in the day.
It’s kinda surreal. I was at my house in Budapest, Hungary and I was trying to call a friend of mine in Australia, and I accidentally called Fletcher. So I talked to him and he told me that they were having some problems and Jim was quitting the band. He told me that they were going to be looking for singers and I should come back to America. A couple months later I’m on stage with them.

It just seems like it fits. It’s not like one of those things where you jump for joy, but it seems like it was meant to be. We have the same background musically. The only difference is that my voice is a lot higher and I write in a different style. The cool thing is that the new songs we’re writing are a mix of my voice and the Pennywise style of songwriting. Read the rest of this entry »

Punk rock fans should be really stoked about their guitar options right now. When I was a kid, the only signature model guitars I could get were by cock rockers like Joe Satriani (and they cost a small fortune). Today, kids can pick up guitars by the dudes from Blink 182, Joe Strummer, Billie Joe Armstrong, and now even Tim Armstrong.

Truth be told, it’s hard to justify a signature guitar for a frontman that hardly strums more than four chords while bouncing around stage, but the actual axe is stunning. It’s a G5191 by Gretsch—pretty much the gold standard of hollowbody guitars. These guys (now owned by Fender) have been producing quality pieces for decades and gorgeous signature models for Brian Setzer and Rev Horton Heat. The downside? Price. This bad boy is retailing for $1,150—a steal for Gretsch fans, but not so nice for poor punks. Read the rest of this entry »

You know, I’ve been receiving advanced CDs from record labels for close to 15 years and I’ve never even considered putting them on the Web for others to steal. While I have no problem “sampling” existing catalog CDs from the Web and checking out albums from bands I don’t know, I really think it takes the wrong kind of balls for someone to upload a record that hasn’t seen the light of day yet and kill a chunk of a band’s income before they even have a chance to make a dime off of it.

I’m sure I sound like a hypocrite—I’ve stolen my fair share of CDs from the Web, but I always make an effort to support a band I like, be it by purchasing their merch, seeing them live, or buying their records.

This evening, I got an e-mail from my buddy Austin at Epitaph Records fuming that the Alkaline Trio’s new record had been leaked well over a month before it was set to come out. I immediately noted that this wouldn’t be an issue (or as big of one) if labels only sent out vinyl records for review.

He laughed (virtually).
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