music scene
by Frankie Hatton
Gibraltar’s Zombies I’ve liked the music of Adrian Pisarello for some time, so I felt fortunate to be able to catch up with him recently on my radio show and talk music, particularly his new project as The Return of the Punk Zombies. It has been a long old wait for his and the band’s latest offering, but the first album was released on 31st March 2010. The members of the band — Adrian Pisarello (lead vocals & electric guitar), Charlie Moore (drums & sound engineer for recording), Guy Palmer (bass guitar) and Nick Richardson (lead guitar) — have all experienced various roles in groups such as Area 52 and Melon Diesel and, of course, there’s been Adrian’s own career as both a solo artist, songwriter and member of the EC Band. I asked Adrian what he’d been up to over the past few years and the reason behind the band? “The Return of the Punk Zombies was a recording project that I and Charlie Moore decided to put together on 24th December 2004. In the middle of extreme partying and carol singing we managed to agree on putting our heads together to produce a Punk, Heavy, Dirty Rock & Roll album to satisfy our own musical cravings. Surprisingly enough all of this was remembered the next day and the project went ahead,” he explains. “Having said that, both Charlie and I have other groups, projects and work so things did not actually materialised until much later. We won the Rock on the Rock’s Battle of the Bands on 9th September 2008 and since then we have been rehearsing and recruiting musicians for the band. “Although a relatively new band, many different musicians have played for the Zombies. We can now say we have finally found the right musicians for the band. It has been with this line up that we have played a number of exciting gigs locally and a brilliant gig on 30th January 2010 at the Scala Club, London, supporting Breed 77 and Ted Maul.” What about the album, I asked, can you tell me about it and the influences on it? “Most of the song writing (music and lyrics) has been done by myself except for a couple of songs where Charlie wrote the music and I the lyrics. We started to write the album in 2004/05 and you can find influences of such bands as the Clash, Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Pogues, AC/DC, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Sublime, The Dead Kennedys, Sham 69, SLF, Iggy Pop, Nirvana and a few more. “This is our first album under the banner
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • APRIL 2010
of The Return of the Punk Zombies though if you compare it to previous work done by the members of the band it’s quite different. Charlie has recorded practically every style there is but nothing like this. My last work was a sort of Flamenco/Latin Rock fusion. Guy having played with Area 52 and Melon Diesel brought that influence to the band and as if there wasn’t enough in the mix Nick used to play in Mystic Mountain, a local Reggae band. So it’s very different to anything we’ve done before.”
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In the middle of extreme partying and carol singing we managed to agree on putting our heads together to produce a Punk, Heavy, Dirty Rock & Roll album
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You have been off the scene for a while, so what plans do you have now the album is out? “It’s been about four years since Charlie and I released anything. Guy did one with Area 52 last year. At the moment we have no distribution deal or dealings with any record label, everything is being done by ourselves. We will sell the album locally and just take it from there. We gigged at Rock on the Rock on 31st March to mark the launch of our album which is entitled The Ultimate Love Collection (the title has nothing to do with the music found on the album). As for the future we plan to gig in Spain and UK when we can get it organised. “We are not trying to make it big in the business but we do want to express ourselves as musicians which you can only really do live on stage. We certainly hope people enjoy the album and if you want to buy it or talk to us about it feel free to contact us.” So keep an eye out for the Return of the Punk Zombies around Gibraltar this spring. n
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