The students of San Antonio high school Spanish teacher and punk rock musician Pavel Demon call him "Mr. Demon" in class, and they do it with a straight face.
Demon immigrated from Mexico at the age of 8, and later, as part of becoming a naturalized citizen, had the chance to legally change his name. So, at 21, he left Pavel Martinez-Guzman behind, and Pavel Demon was born.
"I considered Pavel Evil, but when Austin Powers came out a few years later, I was glad I didn't," he said, laughing.
It may not be an approved school function, but Demon and his band the Revenant will perform Saturday, June 17, at Busted Sandal Brewing Co., celebrating the release of the new, four-song EP Chris The Barber, along with a recently shot video for the track "Chris."
The Revenant's brand of straight-ahead punk is well-worn — think Rancid or a slightly raunchier Social Distortion — but stands apart from the pack due to Demon's storytelling style and deft use of hooks.
"It's as if George Thorogood went punk rock," Demon explained. "All of my songs are stories about something that directly happened to me or happened around me to someone I know well."
Old pros
To that end, the barber of the EP title is Chris Zepeda, an actual figure in the Alamo City punk scene who markets his services as Chris the Barber. To ensure he had enough material to construct his story song, Demon even interviewed Zepeda about his work.
But the stories are just part of it. A listener doesn't need to love punk rock to get the catchy bits from the songs on Chris The Barber stuck in their head. Both "Chris" and "Texas Summer" qualify as earworms. The spaghetti Western-style riffing on the former track even gives the title character his own mini-theme.
The adept musicality likely stems from the fact the guys in the Revenant have been around forever, plugging away at what is clearly a labor of love. The band has existed since 2004, though lineup changes have left Demon he only constant.
Drummer Vic Somberson has collaborated with Demon in assorted bands since they met via a flyer at San Antonio College circa 1994. They were members of another local punk outfit, The Drones, in the '90s.
Somberson, the original drummer for the Revenant, left the band after five years then came back in 2021, citing his long-time friendship with Demon.
With three years in the band, bassist Bucky is the "new guy."
On camera
The dedication of the Revenant's members to their art was on full display when the Current watched the band shoot its video for "Chris."
The shoot was to involve the group lip-syncing to the song at the Woodshed, a clean and relatively un-punk practice space tucked into a corner of Fredericksburg Road. Even though the band didn't need to be plugged into its amplifiers, the members schlepped their heavy gear inside anyway.
"It has to look real," Demon explained with a shrug.
The band has never done a lip sync before, and as silly as it all appears to a group used to expressing itself in a stripped-down, authentic manner they appeared dedicated to making it work.
Even so, Bucky provided intermittent commentary about the weirdness of miming along to a backing track.
"I need a fake beer," he deadpanned.
The first few takes were a little rough. The track wasn't playing loudly enough, making it hard for Demon to know whether he was actually mouthing along in time. Somberson's fake cymbal crashes looked just like what they were: fake.
"Let's just crank it up," Demon finally said.
With the track now turned up loud enough to blow innocent bystanders into the next room, the band was suddenly on. The members mimed along with the track a handful of times with pauses for the directors to move the cameras to get shots from varying angles.
It all seems to come together as part of a band-as-gang mythos that draws from some of the punkest forebears a band could have: the Ramones.
In the end, it's a wrap, and Chris the Barber himself even puts in an appearance in the video. To Demon's point, it's all in service of the story and the song.
$5, 8 p.m. Saturday, June 17, Busted Sandal Brewing Co., 7114 Oaklawn Drive, (210) 872-1486, bustedsandalbrewing.com.
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