AFTER 8 YEARS TOGETHER, COUNTLESS NATIONAL TOURS AND SACRIFICES THEY NEVER EXPECTED TO MAKE, SYDNEY'S PREMIER PUNK QUARTET UNPAID DEBT ARE CALLING IT A DAY. MATTHEW CHEETHAM HAD A CHAT TO FRONT MAN JOEY CATANZARO AND DRUMMER DAMIEN ELLIOT ABOUT WHY THEY FEEL THE TIME IS RIGHT.
THE DEBT IS PAID
“Someone had knocked over a microphone stand and I tripped over it and heard my ankle snap and make a sound that I knew it shouldn’t make. So at the end of the song I pulled up my jeans and sure enough it was bruised black and could barely support my weight. We finished the set and I collapsed at the end of the last song. I ended up catching the plane home the next day in a wheelchair.”
Whether physical, emotional or financial, these words from singer Joey Catanzaro show he is no stranger to making sacrifices for the sake of his band. Forming in 2000, Unpaid Debt have played “in every nook and cranny and every fucking seedy bar in the country” and supported the likes of NOFX, Lagwagon and their heroes The Bouncing Souls. So why stop there? “We looked at everything we’ve done and there’s a lot that we’re proud of as a band,” says drummer Damien Elliot. “There was a sense that we achieved enough and that if we kept it going, it might go stale.” After crawling out from the bottom of the circle pit to become one of Australia’s most respected punk bands, they wouldn’t have finished it off any other way. “I just think that, especially with punk bands, they seem to have a tendency to end badly. Either someone dies, or they lose their credibility and change their style, or they fade away. I definitely didn’t want to fade away,” adds a confident Catanzaro, who has clearly put an immense amount of consideration into this decision.
Saying goodbye in the form of a show at Sydney’s reputable Annandale Hotel, it’s to not only bid farewell but celebrate all the good things that have happened to them. Many of these include the myriad of times the band has toured the country, whether with a band like Mad Caddies or Lagwagon, or on their own, and Unpaid Debt has racked up more mileage than your average punk band, most of which will be highlighted on a DVD documentary the band are releasing later in the year. This kind of commitment has also seen them gain fans and, more importantly, friends in places they would have never imagined. “We’ve got people flying from Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland for the last show,” says Catanzaro, before taking a deep breath and proudly stating, “We’ve done so many amazing things, but the fact that we have affected all of these people all over the country to that extent is the biggest thing I could ever hope to achieve.”
The word ‘achieve’ is used by both men more often than you would expect for a band who has only released two EP’s and one album nationally, but to Unpaid Debt, record sales and chart positions have never been a part of their motivation. “I still marvel at the fact that we got on the radio,” says Catanzaro. “We’re not a commercial pop band and we never have been and we never would have been. We were always a punk band who played the music we wanted to play and the music we wanted to listen to.” Luckily, they weren’t the only ones who wanted to listen to it, as the band took out first place in the illustrious triple j Unearthed competition in 2004 with their track Verity and followed it up with a national tour.
There’s a moment during this interview when I see the last thing I expected to see in the eyes of the tattooed, bearded front man of a punk rock band. As Catanzaro explains what he’ll miss most about being that front man, his eyes begin to water, not to an easily noticeable degree, but enough that for a brief moment, it becomes a reality how much being in this band means to him. “I guess for me, this band mattered to the people that mattered to me. Not being a band that chased commercial success as such, it was enough for me to be able to have the respect of people who I respected.”
Finishing things off with modest words, Catanzaro has this to say of the three young men he has shared the better part of the last 8 years with. “The other guys in my band are really, really talented, but I’m not. When we started I couldn’t sing but I knew that I wanted to, and what we have achieved as a band just shows that eventually if you stick with it, you’re the last person standing.” Even if it’s on a broken ankle.
cheers!
