19 August 17-23, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents THE KID IS ALRIGHT Drummer Brandon Pertzborn’s unlikely journey to joining legendary punk band The Offspring. BY DAVID FLETCHER I t’s Sunday night in mid-August, and legendary punk band The Offspring has just finished the first of a two- song encore at Dallas’ Dos Equis Pa- vilion. After introducing the audience to singer and principal songwriter Dexter Holland and bassist Todd Morse, The Offspring’s longtime guitarist Noodles turns to his right to introduce the audience to the band’s newest member, the drummer who replaced Josh Freese after Freese was called up to replace Taylor Hawkins in Foo Fighters. “We have a special treat for you tonight too,” he says. “Back behind Todd on drums, not only was he a teen phenom and a local legend, this is Grapevine’s own Brandon Pertzborn!” “So, this is where all the good drummers come from,” Holland adds (the late Hawkins was also from Fort Worth) as the crowd goes wild. Brandon Pertzborn is just as surprised by his career trajectory as you are. “I started taking drum lessons in sixth grade,” Pertzborn says over the phone from his home in Los Angeles, “but I hated it be- cause they were trying to teach me rudi- ments, and that was boring to me. I quit, developed my own style, and then I went back [to taking lessons] just to refine and im- prove on it.” Pertzborn spent his high-school years go- ing back and forth between Colleyville Heri- tage High School and homeschool as he developed a love for drumming. “I went to Colleyville Heritage, 10th and half of 11th grade, but the second half of 11th and my senior year, I was homeschooled be- cause I didn’t care about anything else ex- cept music,” he says with a laugh. “My parents were beyond accommodating and beyond understanding to allow me to focus on drums full-time.” After graduating in 2013, Pertzborn de- cided that he was going to teach drum les- sons for a living while playing in some bands around Dallas, one of them being alt-metal band Drayter. Former Drayter singer and guitarist Cole Schwartz has nothing but good memories of his time playing with Pertzborn. Schwartz met Pertzborn when the young drummer from Grapevine’s Fellowship Church auditioned for the band, and the two soon became close friends. “When we were playing together, he was definitely my number one musical collabo- rator,” Schwartz says. “We’d always be bouncing off different ideas with each other, jamming different riffs. His willingness to get better and perfect his craft was always something that I noticed from day one working with him, and that energy trans- ferred over to me, making me want to work harder and get better at my craft.” Drayter managed to come up a little in Dallas’ alt-metal scene in the 2010s, finding itself opening for some bigger names and even landing a short run of dates with Stone Sour. While all the backstage antics would generally be a distraction for a teenager, Schwartz remembers Pertzborn always be- ing strictly business. “The whole main focus would be about the show,” Schwartz says. “Brandon was al- ways doing warmups and loosening up his wrists and stretching and getting in the zone, in the right mental space and never concerned with other people or all that ex- tra stuff that comes with backstage life of be- ing in the band.” Drayter had recorded an album, Nine, with Pertzborn on drums, but the latter’s work ethic and undeniable skills caught the attention of every band Drayter played with. As much as Schwartz wanted to keep Pertzborn playing in his band, he felt early on that Pertzborn wouldn’t be playing for Drayter forever. “Ever since I met him and knew him and started working with him, I always knew that he was sort of destined to be playing bigger venues and playing with bigger bands,” Schwartz says. “So, it was always just kind of a matter of time before that happened.” Just as many local musicians work sepa- rate jobs to support themselves while pushing their bands forward, Pertzborn decided to teach drum lessons to help him get by, but he could not have known how a single ad on Craigslist in 2014 would change his life forever. “I’m sure I mentioned there that I can play in the studio, I can tour, I can do anything, but I know it was primarily meant to get me more students for drum lessons,” he says. Not long after posting the ad, he got a re- sponse by none other than the founder and guitar player for legendary punk band Black Flag, Greg Ginn, who asked Pertzborn to come to Austin and audition for the band. One audition and little over a week later, Pertzborn was a member of Black Flag, get- ting ready to tour the country. “I’m sure you can imagine, that was com- pletely life-changing from just a normal high schooler from Grapevine to essentially overnight be playing with Black Flag,” he says. Vera “Velma” Hernandez >> p20 ▼ Music DFW local Brandon Pertzborn is the new drummer for The Offspring.
