Name: Joey Catanzaro
Age: 26
Band Name: Unpaid Debt
Where did you grow up: Western Sydney
Role in band: Front man
Web: http://www.mp3.com.au/unpaiddebt
How do you describe your bands’ sound?
Australian punk rock
Name one song or album that totally sums you up?
How I spent my summer vacation by ‘The Bouncing Souls’
What other bands influence your music?
The Clash, Midnight Oil, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Bouncing Souls, The Police
ActNow is all about taking action on issues that people are passionate about – so what does “action” mean to you?
Action to me means being actively part of the solution to a problem.
What issues are you passionate about?
Workers rights, racial and gender equality, holding politicians and big business accountable for their actions, protecting our environment, freeing refugees in Australia and withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq for starters.
What are some hot issues in your local area?
The relevance of the aforementioned issues are not limited by geography. They concern me and every other Australian.
Do issues in the world around you effect how you write your material?
Definitely. I generally write songs about issues or incidents that affect me and those that I care about. Often these issues or incidents have political origins, and inadvertently spark some form of social commentary on my part. If everything in the world was peachy, I guess I’d write love songs, but until than…
How important do you think music is to create awareness around issues that the world faces today?
I don’t write music necessarily for myself, I don’t write it for other people. I write it for the me in other people. There’s often an opinion or a message being delivered, but it’s buried under a load of hooks, punk rock guitar and catchy melody. People can choose what level they’d like to appreciate our music on. The message is there, but you can choose whether or not you want to really listen.
If you weren’t a musician what would you be doing?
I love words. Writing is my day job, I guess I’d be writing in my spare time as well.
Where do you see your band in five years time?
Making music, playing shows, traveling the country.
If you could change one thing about the world in which you live, what would it be?
I would hope that those people that are religious, that still refuse to accept reason and rationality, and still refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, would at the very least not seek to impose their ideologies on others, or judge others simply by their own concepts of morality.
