MKNZ Ilirska Bistrica, nedelja, 27.10.2002 at 22h:

The Pietasters (USA)

Circa fall 1990 - long ago in a town far far away, a bunch of punk, mod skinhead types had been sent to the mountains to do some learning. Chris Watt and myself were living in a house and shared the same love for punk, ska, soul, reggae, rockabilly, garage... basically they loved music, and beer, and women. A succession of bad cover bands followed. We enlisted Ben Gauslin to rock the drums and Tom Goodin was playing guitar. We sucked.

About that time, Tal Bayer moved back to town. He was very much into ska and reggae and suggested we play some of the catchy songs that we loved to drink to. It proved an easy style to cover and our friends loved to sit outside skipping classes while we worked for hours to learn Madness, Specials, Bad Manners, Bosstones, Skatalites, Business, and 4 Skins covers. Pretty soon we were playing parties all over town and realized we could get free beer for playing. Then we were invited to play the clubs in town. Our shows became drunken riots. People got caught up in the beer fueled adolescence and started to speak in tongues.
About the same time, our friends in The Skunks asked us to play a local ska night at Hennesseys Bar in Georgetown. We still sucked, but people kept asking us to play shows. We were 18-21 and loved getting free beer and hanging with all the punks and skins in DC. We played at almost every shitty bar in town, twice. And we were glad to be playing. A strange manager of a bar befriended us and helped us record our first record, it's self titled, but everyone calls it "Piestomp".

The summer of 1993 saw us heading west in a school bus we bought at an auction for $900. The routing of the tour was ridiculous, but we'd seen the movie "Another State of Mind" too many times and decided that we could do it. We left Fairfax, VA headed for Cincinatti, Sudsey Malones. Our next show after that was in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Then Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Vancouver, Portland, OR, Salt Lake City (with Scofflaws, Dancehallcrashers, and King Apparatus), Lawrence, KS, somewhere in WV then home. At the end of that trip our horn players and keyboard player thought we were insane and said we could find replacements for them. Carlos still plays with us live sometimes, and Caroline recorded on "Willis".

We maintained, auditioned many players and decided on Jeremy, Toby and Alan as our horn players and Rob Steward/Covington on drums. Paul Ackerman would play keys for the next few years. We continued to tour summers and play every possible free day. One day Bucket from The Toasters called and asked us to do Skavoovie 94. We accepted on the spot. The tour would be Toasters, Scofflaws and us. We were thrilled. The tour was wonderful, insane and very educational. By the end of the tour we were scheduled to record "Oolooloo" with Vic Rice producing.

"Oolooloo" was finished and we were out the door. Travelling across country in an old Brooklyn city bus we travelled back and forth across this great land of ours. We made great friends with lots of diesel mechanics and even better friends with all the skins and punks that let us park our bus in their driveway and drink their beer. "Oolooloo" came out in the summer of 95. We continued to drive around the counrty. we recorded "Strapped Live" one night at Captured Live in Raleigh, NC and one night at the Blackcat club in Washington, DC. Against the advice of a label that will go unnamed we released "Strapped" in 96. It quickly became the closest thing to a live Pie show and also served to villify us to anyone without a sense of humor. Chris left the band about this time and Todd switched to bass.

Throughout this period we had been recording new songs, re-recording older ones, recording stupid covers. Having fun. This ended up as "Comply", and it foreshadowed the next release. That almost didn't happen. Club babyhead in Providence, RI was almost as dirty as we were. One evening we were rocking out there when who should be in attendance but Dicky from the Bosstones. He bought us a pitcher of gin and tonics, and asked if we'd like to support the bosstones on their upcoming tour. We accepted on the spot. Paul left the band soon after.

While touring with one of the best live bands ever we stopped through LA. Backstage at the show, Tim from rancid approached us and asked if we'd like to be a part of a new label he was putting together. The Slackers, Hepcat and Dropkick Murphys were already committed and he really wanted us to be aboard. We accepted after calling moon and getting their blessing. Brett Gurewitz met us the next time through LA and said he'd love to produce our next record. We accepted on the spot! "Willis" was recorded and released late in 97, followed by more circling of the US, and then europe for our first time. Time flys when your touring we were lucky enough to be on the Warped Tour, support Rev. Horton Heat, Cherry Poppin Daddies with Ozomatli, and generally hang out with very cool people in cool and not so cool places.

By 99 we were in the studio again with Mr. Brett. We finished up and hit the road again. Europe with the Warped Tour, the US again with the Pilfers and Spring Heeled Jack, then one of the best support tours ever, for Joe Strummer. Through 2000 we were in Europe, and all over the US. Todd was replaced by jorge pezzimenti on bass. Erick Morgan (of Skunks fame) was tickling the ivories by then. 2001 has seen more of the same touring wise, and Toby has switched to guitar, replacing Tom. We're recording now, we have dates booked and we'll be touring Europe in November and December. Hopefully we'll have an EP available by late Cctober. We have a track on "Give Em The Boot Three" coming out in Sept. We're working on an EP and a 12" maxi single to be released on Fueled By Raman. Hopefully this'll be out before we head to Europe in November.

The details may be a bit fuzzy, but i did my best to lay down the particulars without tainting them too much with my personal opinions. I'll save the rest for the book.

Stephen Jackson, vocals