Local supergroup shares stage with Evil Twin at the Corner Lounge July 10
“There goes Sara Washington, she won’t play with me,” hollered longtime Pegasi51 drummer Kicki Pena, playfully mocking his friend, former bassist and vocalist for Tina Tarmac and the Burns, outside the Pilot Light one evening as they dispersed into the night with their respective posses.
“I said, ‘Kicki, I’ll play with you anytime,’’” Washington recalls, laughing.
Kicki brought his old bandmate Rusty Yarnell in on vocals and the guitarist slot–again, in true punk fashion–was filled by Michele Quist, a local visual artist new to the music scene but who had the vibe the band was looking for–and thus Mercy Lights, the newest Knoxville punk-rock supergroup, was born.
The whole band joined Blank on the party line for a very punk phone interview: true to form and undoubtedly making their scene ancestors proud, the band talked little, had no interest in discussing past projects, occasionally playfully scoffed at certain basic questions, and talked less about themselves than about their admiration Evil Twin, the punk stalwarts helmed by longtime scene mainstay and original Teenage Love 13 frontman Russ Harper, with whom they will share the stage at The Corner Lounge on July 10 in their first show since going underground during the pandemic.
“F*** Yer Hands,” the one single the band has released, writhes in defiant angst. The instrumentation is straight-ahead hard-rock/old-school punk. Yarnell’s and Washington’s vocal performances are edgy but don’t attempt to minimize twang, creating a new voice in what some would call the most stable version of a ‘Knoxville Sound,’ if there is one, which was somewhat cemented by Gen X alt-rock bands throughout the 80s and 90s and early 2000s in a succession of bands with garage-rock tendencies and twangy, edgy vocals. The rise in college rock radio brought a plethora of Southern indie rockers from Athens to Knoxville and everywhere in between to the fore. Washington’s close friend, Jeff Heiskell, rode the lightning to national notoriety with his band The Judybats, and still releases new albums in that general tradition. The video for the song takes snippets from a B horror movie “Manos: The Hands of Fate” and re-edits them in line with the rhythm of the song to hilarious effect.
The band has been working on their debut EP with John T. Baker and Gray Comer at The Arbor Studio in South Knoxville. “Fantastic studio and very talented individuals,” says Pena.
They’d played a few shows, “then COVID hit,” Washington says, “and so we just kept writing and recording.” The band has recorded four so far but have not set a release date for an EP. They return to the live scene with the show with Evil Twin in a month and go back to the studio in August to finish the tracking.
“We’re excited to be in the scene and start playing more shows together with other bands in the area, not only in Knoxville but get out of town a little bit,” Washington says. “Just excited that everything is starting up again and nightlife is coming back. We think people will like it.”
You can follow Mercy Lights on Twitter, bandcamp and facebook and check out their video for “F*** Yer Hands” on YouTube. They take the stage with Evil Twin at the Corner Lounge on July 10. Catch ‘em for $7.
