Aug. 27--Dave Grohl's decades-long appreciation of Naked Raygun will be on full display Saturday at Wrigley Field. The Chicago quintet, hand-picked by Grohl to open the Foo Fighters stadium concert along with local heroes Cheap Trick and Urge Overkill, inspired young Dave to dive into punk rock.
In a 1995 interview with the Tribune, Grohl described how he received his punk baptism while visiting a cousin in north suburban Evanston as a pre-teen in the early '80s.
"Before that I'd been in neighborhood bands (while growing up in Virginia) playing Who, Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and Beatles songs," he said. His cousin introduced him to a style of music that anyone with a little ambition and desire could learn to play, and took him to his first punk rock show: Naked Raygun with Rights of the Accused at the Cubby Bear, across the street from Wrigley Field. "I had my first Killing Joke T-shirt, smoked my first joint, saw my first punk rock show," Grohl said. "It was a great week. From then on, I was a changed man."
Naked Raygun singer Jeff Pezzati, reached at his home in Amboy, Ill., says he remembers the show primarily because of guitarist Santiago Durango's "blue Grover boots and beret."
"His guitar sounded like a submarine you're listening to from above the surface of the water -- it was just 'gaaaaah' the whole night," Pezzati says. "Like a swarm of B-52-sized bees."
Grohl spotlighted Chicago and Naked Raygun in the HBO series "Sonic Highways" that he oversaw last year, and then invited Pezzati to join him onstage at a show at the Cubby Bear to play Raygun's "Surf Combat."
"We did all one minute and 10 seconds of it," Pezzati recalls. "They had (Cheap Trick's) Rick Nielsen up there, too. It was well received. After we played, they asked us about Wrigley Field."
The singer, the band's sole constant over three decades, is low-key about the recent string of events that have celebrated Raygun's legacy, including an acclaimed performance at Riot Fest in Humboldt Park last year. "It all seemed to fall in line for us -- the Riot Fest show couldn't have gone better, and we'd heard rumors about Dave Grohl contacting us. He'd been giving us shoutouts from the stage for years, which was very nice of him."
The recognition comes at a time when Pezzati and bassist Pierre Kezdy have both been coping with health issues. Pezzati says his Parkinson's disease is under better control, and he has learned how to manage his medication so that he'll be in good shape to play shows. Kezdy suffered a stroke a few years ago, and is playing part-time with the band; at Wrigley, Pezzati says, Kezdy will play baritone guitar while Fritz Doreza plays bass. The band also includes longtime drummer Eric Spicer and guitarist Bill Stephens, who replaced John Haggerty in the early '90s.
Pezzati grew up in west suburban Naperville and while a teenager was in a series of straight-laced rock bands when "music hit me like a ton of bricks one day, just slammed into me," he says. His older brother Marko had been bringing home punk records, but none really clicked until the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer."
"I thought, this is it, this makes me want to tear down the walls in my room," he says. Durango, who had started playing with Marko in the city, called and said, "You should cut your hair and sing for us," Pezzati says. "I went from a structured suburban band in a basement with structured practices into this free-for-all-style, in a band where everyone sucked at their instruments. The suburban bands had perfect sound, perfect strings, but these guys were just beating on their instruments. I thought they suck so bad, they just might be really good."
Naked Raygun expanded from those chaotic beginnings to carve out a huge legacy on the Chicago scene alongside likeminded bands Effigies, Articles of Faith and Big Black. They built a nationwide following on the back of classic albums ("Throb Throb," "All Rise," "Jettison") and melodic buzz-saw anthems ("Home of the Brave," "I Don't Know," "Rat Patrol," "Soldier's Requiem"). It came with little commercial reward, but Naked Raygun has continued to play sporadic shows and is finishing a new studio album, which they hope to release in early 2016. In many ways, bands such as Raygun paved the way for the alternative-rock breakthrough of the early '90s, including Nirvana, for whom Grohl played drums, and later Foo Fighters.
Now it's time for a bit of payback, thanks to Grohl. The Wrigley show will find Raygun playing in front of one of the biggest audiences of its career. "We're not used to playing places that big, but when I take off my glasses, I can't see more than 15 feet ahead," Pezzati says. "There'll be a nice happy blur out there. If I can get through it without falling off the stage, that'll be a good day."
Greg Kot cohosts "Sound Opinions" at 8 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday on WBEZ-FM 91.5.
greg@gregkot.com
Naked Raygun with Foo Fighters, Cheap Trick, Urge Overkill
When: 5:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Wrigley Field
Tickets: $50, $75; www.jamusa.com
