Grilling with TheSunstreak
There’s
always the straight job. Many musicians who profess to making a living playing
rock ‘n’ roll still find themselves in a hairnet, wearing an apron, punching
the clock at some Joe-job. A man’s gotta eat.
Most
of these poor slobs wind up in food service. The pay is lousy, but the hours
are flexible, and there’s always another tattooed hopeful waiting to twirl a
spatula ’til it’s time to hop in the van again.
The
Sunstreak’s Gary Foster hasn’t got a straight job.
Foster plays drums. Period. Yet somehow he wound up flipping
burgers. Gary’s
mom had warned him.
“She
was like, ‘If you’re going to play in a band the rest of your life, you’re
going to be working in fast food to pay the bills,'” Foster says.
So
I’m watching a Warped Tour special on FUSE one evening back in September. There
was footage of sweltering crowds, bands playing live, and The Sunstreak’s Gary Foster flippin’
burgers.
What?
I
mean, this Rochester
quintet is a good band; a really good band. They’re hard-working, and they draw
large crowds at home and on the road. And Foster is tattooed like a walking
comic book, assuring him a place not in the 9-to-5 world.
Foster,
26, has been pounding the drums for more than half his life. He was a founding
member in Third Estate. He joined The Sunstreak last
year after the name got changed from One Year Nothing.
The band just released its first album on B and W Records in June 2006.
This
self-titled release is a pop record, really. It’s
hooky, and the vocals are clear, if not a little too urgent. But the band’s preference
for whirling in the minor more than the major keeps them from coming off a
straight-up pop band. Minor + hooks + urgency = emo,
right? Nope. Foster helps The Sunstreak dodge that
bullet with his rudimentary rock drum attack. Plus he just doesn’t like emo.
“There
are so many screaming emo bands,” he says. “And we’re just not like that at all.
It’s just pop-rock; simple Beatle-formula songs; to the point with good hooks.”
These
hooks and the band’s work ethic landed them on this past summer’s Warped Tour
on stage and behind the grill. The band pitched the rock-star, grill-chef
scenario to Warped Tour wigs, who gave them the thumbs up.
So
The Sunstreak wound up playing music and flipping
burgers in 48 cities this past summer. Maybe Foster’s mom was right all along.
“We
were the barbeque band,” says Foster. “We basically cooked for the whole tour
every night. We actually got paid. We were considered part of the tour not only
as employees but as a band, so we got a good stage spot. We were guaranteed to
play every day.”
The
Sunstreak sizzled on stage during the day and staged
the sizzle at night. The band cooked $400 in hot dogs and hamburgers at these
nightly cookouts that quickly evolved into parties, with bands like Valiant
Thor and The Living End playing impromptu sets or The Buzzcocks
DJ-ing with their I-PODS. The Sunstreak
was playing with their heroes and cooking for them, too.
“I
grew up on NOFX,” Foster says. “And I’d have El Jefe
come over to me at the end of the night poking me, like, ‘Can I get a burnt hot
dog?'”
And
what does Joan Jett put on her hot dog?
“She
never ate a hot dog,” Foster says. “She always ate vegetarian patties. She’d
eat ’em plain. She always tipped me $20 and would
give me a big kiss.”
The
dude must grill a mean veggie patty.
The
Zone’s Holiday Havoc Show with The Sunstreak, Shelflyfe, The Hoodies, Draffin, Tonight The Riot, Spiral Staircase happens
Saturday, December 23, at The Harro East Ballroom,155 Chestnut Street,
454-0230, 7 p.m., $9.41.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2006.
