Deaf Pedestrians
Bio:You’ve probably heard their nerd anthem, “Hail to the Geek” on the radio and in the TV shows “My Super Sweet 16” and “Beauty and the Geek.” You might even be amongst those who are wearing Spiderman T-shirts, sporting mullets or playing Dungeons & Dragons...such geek traits celebrated in the song. But there’s much more to Deaf Pedestrians than “Hail to the Geek.”
Deaf Pedestrians formed in 2001. At the time, guitarist Garrin Walker and drummer Russ Dignam were in a band called Loop 12 and Parker was in an unknown two-man group. Eager to build his audience, Parker asked Walker, who had a recording studio, if he and Dignam would help him record some new demos. When the four musicians got together and started jamming, it became clear that their chemistry was strong and the new songs they were playing were a quantum leap from their older stuff. So, they joined forces and, after days of debate, decided to call themselves Deaf Pedestrians.
Sure, Deaf Pedestrians value humor, sarcasm and irony, but the band is no mere novelty act or one-trick pony. The group’s songs are clever, emotionally expressive and sonically diverse, revealing a range of musical knowledge, including Alternative, Hard Rock, Punk and Pop, all of which have been crucial to singer, songwriter and bassist Charlton Parker’s development as an artist and individual. Born to a strict, religious family, the songs of Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder and The Clash have provided Parker with a desperately needed form of escapism.
As effective as Deaf Pedestrians serious songs are, it’s their barbed, humorous material that has really struck a nerve, whether it’s 15 Beers Ago,” an anthem for drunken misadventure or “Splatter,” a song about killing and burying an unfaithful girlfriend in an shallow grave...
“A lot of our songs have humor, but it’s not joke music,” Parker says. “Music is a medium where people will sometimes not take you seriously if you use humor. And I just think that’s ridiculous. You just get tired of the Mad At Your Dad kind of stuff after a while.”