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 »