Teen Titans
Peelander-Z is always super cool
Fifty percent of what Peelander-Yellow first tells me on the squawkbox sounds legit: “We come from the planet Peelander-Z, and I am yellow because I like curry.”
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No shit. We already have something in common.
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No question though, Peelander-Yellow is the nicest guitar-playing anime-punk, Mexican-style wrestling superhero I’ve ever spoken with, even if I don’t understand half his jokes. “We don’t wanna say we’re a punk band, although our sound is punk,” he says. “We have costumes, red, yellow and blue — and we do the wrestling onstage. But it’s kind of a secret.”
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Costumes and wrestling have always been integral to punk shows anyway, so we’re gonna just let this fly. The way Peelander-Z really stir the awesome pot is via human bowling. “Blue and Red throw me at the bowling pins,” Yellow tells me. “Everyone is very happy.”
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The Peelander-Z experience appears to be more about audience participation than anything else, which is cool, because most of the group’s fans are insane. On the bowling song, he gives his guitar to someone in the audience. “Does it matter if they can play?” I ask — sort of joking — and for the first time in the interview, he gets serious for a second.
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“Yes.”
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That doesn’t last long, though.
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“Sometimes,” he says, “we give cowbells and pans to the people in the audience and they can hit the pans KONG-KONG! It’s always super cool.”
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When most of your fans are costumed robotophiles, putting on this type of show is mandatory. “A lot of the fans wear costumes ‘cause they wanna be Peelander-Z. They wanna dance with us. We are the same as Kaiju Big Battel — we love them and they love us.”
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As crazy as their fans may be, they could still learn a thing or two about crazy from the band: “I love the curry,” Yellow says. “I love the banana peel. I am so, so crazy I don’t have the front of my teeth. I do the high kick on stage and now I don’t have the front tooth. My hair is like a panda bear.”
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As for the others, “Red is tall. Don’t get too close to him or you are gonna get pregnant. Blue is a Japanese toy collector. He is handsome and he holds the Peelander-Z Wrestling Championship Belt.
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“Maybe you can’t imagine what our stage is like,” Yellow says, wrapping up. “But come one time, then you will come again.”