BAD HOMBRES’ TRUMPIAN-BLUES SOLUTION,
Alun Piggins has toured and played all over the world.
The Kitchener-born, Toronto-based singer/songwriter from Alan Piggins and The Quitters has shared stages with artists ranging from Fugazi to Fred Eaglesmith.
His song “Ballad of Fleeting Wisdom” about pivotal moments when something terrible or amazing happens in a life-changing flash was used for Hockey Night in Canada.
He’s a dark wit, and a self-described news junkie, who reads multiple newspapers a day. And with the current American president spewing fire-and-fury rhetoric, Piggins has finally had enough.
“I am worried about the future for my kid. That is the point of Bad Hombres. This whole thing was my reaction to the election of Donald Trump. ‘Bad Hombres’ is from one of his lines about Mexicans and keeping them out,” he says.
“We are all screwed anyways,” Piggins says. “I was writing all of these sad songs about the future — so let’s have an absolute laugh.”
“We are a fun party rock band. This is a joke and a departure from anything I have done in the past mainly because I have given up on humanity,” he says, adding that fellow Quitters including drummer Jay Santiago and bassist Terry Pidsadny, are also fed up with the state of the planet. So joined by guitarist Craig Browne, they invented an alter-ego band: Bad Hombres.
The alter-ego band has an alternatetruth biography to match.
The ‘story’ of Bad Hombres begins on a resort in the Philippines. Brothers Ceres Johnson (Piggins) and Rage Johnson (Browne) found themselves penniless, sleeping on the beach.
Their band “Mississauga Don Henley” had been in the middle of a successful tour when original drummer Paco Jago was killed in a bizarre firecracker accident. (The same accident permanently disfigured the face of guitarist Rage Johnson. To this day, he wears his old Jr. B goalie mask to hide his face.)
While picking through garbage looking for something to eat, Ceres found an old cellphone. The phone rang. It was Paco calling from beyond, telling the brothers to continue on and call the band Bad Hombres.
Joined by former wrestling champion, Daga Kahoy on drums and Russian Game of Thrones enthusiast, Olag Dothrakian, Bad Hombres soon became favourites on the Panay music scene.
Singer/songwriter of the band, Ceres Johnson, quickly wrote ten songs mining the rich history of classic rock radio to augment their Bon Scott-era AC/DC meets Guns and Roses sound.
The rest is history.
(But this is a tentative bio, as the Hombres keep switching aliases!)
Bad Hombres also happen to be good pals with fellow hombre and Beat Club member Lucas Stagg.
The prolific singer/songwriter/guitarist is currently reading Sebastian Junger’s book “Tribe.”
“It narrows down where we are at as a society,” says Stagg adding the book centres on why people feel the need to be a part of something and “join parties” which he feels is a big part of today’s troubling political climate. “But whether they have thought it through or not is another question.”
The Beat Club is essentially acclaimed drummer Cleave Anderson’s band.
Anderson, has played with many bands from alt-country balladeers Blue Rodeo to notorious 80s punk anti-heroes The Viletones, and The Forgotten Rebels.
“I wrote most of the songs,” notes Stagg. “But Cleave wrote some fun instrumentals like “Wild Jungle Rock” and “The Beat Club Beat.”
Stagg says The Beat Club show also includes songs from Anderson’s late 70s Toronto punk bands Tyranna and The Sharks.
“Most of tunes are all under a minute and half. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom! And it’s lots of fun,” exclaims Stagg. “Big and bouncy like three-piece 70’s-sounding power punk,” he says adding Beat Club bass player Tim Jackson is a talented player from Humber College who plays with Stagg and (Toronto singer/troubadour) David Celia, “But it is modern — what they like to call modern lounge punk,” he adds.
“The Beat Club album is going to be released on 2 7-inch vinyls. That was Cleave’s evil idea, so it is going to be expensive. But it is going to look cool,” notes Stagg.
He’s looking forward to this zany double bill.
“I know Alun’s also having a riot with this Bad Hombres thing. So it’s a fun night with two really different sounding bands. But we are all in it for the right reasons.”