'Holy s---! I'm in a real American rock band!': Toxic Reasons drummer's long, winding road

It’s Sunday morning at Ruth’s Cafe: sunlight floods the kitschy dining room, the clatter of cutlery punctuates the warm din of chatter. J.J. Pearson drapes a leather jacket over the back of a decoupaged chair and takes his seat at “the council.”

“They said ‘You and J.J. need to start a — what were they calling it?” recounts Glenn Labita, his tuft of mohawk as silver as his earrings. “Oh! A geezer punk band, where your shows are at 4:00 in the afternoon!’”

“It comes with the blue plate special! The sixteen ounce prime rib,” jokes back Pearson, a stalwart member of the group of old guard punk rockers who meet every Sunday to digest their week over brunch.

When Pearson was 15, his dad gave him a my-way-or-the-highway ultimatum: give up this punk rock stuff or get out of my house. So Pearson chose the highway, a winding and occasionally bumpy one that would ultimately lead from his native British Columbia to a new home in Indianapolis.

At 11, Pearson mapped out his future for the first time. In those days, the youngest of five was in the height of his first career as a skateboarder on the Duraflex demo team (think Canadian Lords of Dogtown).

“I’m walking down the beach smoking a Kool Filter King with a Bud tall boy going ‘eh, I wonder how long this skateboarding thing is gonna go? What am I gonna do after that? I wanna be in a rock band, put out an album, and then open a restaurant on Salt Spring Island,’” he recalled. “Boom, I’ve done all that.”

At 59, Pearson has a round face, spiked blonde hair and earnestness that gives the impression he hasn’t changed much since then.

But his sense of humor is tempered with the humility that comes with age and sixteen years of sobriety.

“I should have thought ‘I wanna be in a successful rock band and have a successful restaurant,” he added with a laugh.

Not long after leaving home, Pearson was picked up by a touring band called Toxic Reasons that was stranded in Vancouver in need of a drummer.

Their first show together was in San Francisco with Dead Kennedys and Hüsker Dü.

“Holy s---! I’m in a real American rock band!” he thought. “I don’t wanna go back to Vancouver!”

For 15 years, Pearson toured with Toxic Reasons as the band tried to break through, first in the states and later overseas. It wasn’t exactly the glamorous life he’d imagined.

The one dollar per diem would cover a pack of flour tortillas, "chili hot beans" and a shared pouch of Bull Durham tobacco.

“We were crazed kids on a mission to be rockstars,” he explained from the comfort of his suburban kitchen. “We thought we were destined for something to happen.”

The band made Indianapolis its home base in the late eighties because rent was cheap, there was a decent recording studio and bars stayed open until 3 a.m. In 1995 the band decided to stop touring. Side-hustles became main gigs and families took center stage.

Pearson raised a son, then a niece and nephew, and ran a series of office cafes before briefly returning to his childhood dream of owning a restaurant on Salt Spring Island near Vancouver.

Though not exactly the future he pictured for himself, if he had seen this house back in days on the road, he said, he would have thought he was rich.

In the sun porch turned jam space, behind an old weight bench and a clutter of tools and instruments, is a token of Pearson’s status as an institution in the Indianapolis music scene: his “Joey Ramone Lifetime Achievement Award” from Punk Rock Night at the Melody Inn.

But his favorite room in the house is the kitchen. On Thanksgiving, the granite-topped island overflowed with magazine-worthy side dishes Pearson prepared for friends and former band mates. Cooking, he says, is how he shows his love.

In the touring days, Pearson used to joke about getting old and fat, driving a truck and playing in a country band — a prophecy that has fulfilled itself more faithfully than the destiny he pursued single-mindedly for a decade and a half.

“When you’re in your current state of affairs you think, ‘this is who I am, what I am,’” he said. But it’s only down the road that you’re able to look back and see how many lives you’ve lived.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis punk rock drummer J.J. Pearson's colorful life