The Father Figures

Tom Reardon is been a guitar-beating, band-organizing, lyric-spitting juggernaut who’s been a major figure in Phoenix’s rock scene for more than 15 years. In addition to his lengthy involvement with on-again/off-again noise-rock act Hillbilly Devilspeak and the defunct joke-punk band Pinky Tuscadero’s White Knuckle AssFuck, the bespectacled 40-year-old has also been a longtime member of hardcore rock terrorists The North Side Kings. As the latter project has been on hiatus since a fire destroyed the Scottsdale home of frontman Danny Marianino last year, Reardon’s been gigging around town lately with his new band The Father Figures. The trio’s name is apropos, considering it’s also made up of such music-scene warhorses as guitarist Michael Cornelius (a.k.a. the former bassist for local legends Jodie Foster’s Army) and drummer Bobby Lerma, who’s a veteran of such ’80s bands as The Voice. Given that they’re punk progenitors, it should be expected that their powerful sound is a pastiche of Shellac-era Steve Albini, Fugazi-like power chords, and pop hooks straight out of the playbook of Elvis Costello.