Native Tongue laps up JuneFest exposure

Melissa Schorr

Friday, June 5, 1998 | 10 a.m.

Andy Warhol was right: Everybody does get their 15 minutes of fame.

But for local "instrumental gods" Native Tongue, that small sliver of time is just not enough.

The spotlight will shine on the band Saturday, when it opens the 6th annual JuneFest concert -- with an abbreviated 15-minute set -- at 11 a.m.

"It's a lot of work for 15 minutes, and I don't know if anyone will see it," Matt Muntean, Native Tongue's 27-year-old drummer and frontman, grumbles. The band, a self-described "long shot," beat out 60 other applicants and three talented finalists at KKLZ 96.3-F.M.'s "Battle of the Bands" for the privilege.

Then, so as not to sound like an ingrate, he moderates his criticism.

"We shouldn't complain -- it's cool to be a part of it. It's great to win. We can say we did JuneFest, and people who weren't there will think it's a big deal, that we played in front of 40,000 people."

The biggest crowd in the band's resume to date, Muntean admits, "was the three to five hundred people at the Battle of the Bands last week." More often, they can be found playing mostly to crowds of friends at local bars such as Money Plays and the Double Down Saloon.

The quintet, which formed with three members in the early '90s, consists today of Muntean, brothers Darrin and Jimmy Pappa on guitar and bass guitar, Andy Heilman on guitar and Tony Plecencia on percussion.

Despite opening JuneFest, none of them have quit their day jobs yet. But they are working steadily, bringing their repertoire up to 40 songs, performing at last month's EAT'M musicians' festival and passing around their 2-year-old CD in hopes of landing a recording contract.

Described as a cross between the flamenco-style Gipsy Kings and rock guitarist Joe Satriani, the purely instrumental band has resisted adding a vocalist, despite the irony of calling the band Native Tongue -- which would suggest lyrics. When asked for the hundredth time why they don't want to add words, they cringe and explain that it may be a more "sophisticated" -- and thus less commercial -- music form, but ultimately, they prefer to let their melody lines do the talking.

And those who have heard them don't seem to mind: the band received two standing ovations at the play-off.

"Ninety-five percent of the people like us," Muntean boasts.

"And the other five percent is one big fat guy," Darrin Pappa quips.

Still, they point out that the final selection was made by the station's impartial judges, not a house packed with their friends.

They're not quite sure if their win is due to that crowd-pleasing energy, or Pappa's lucky underwear ("You don't want to know," he says when asked to elaborate). But either way, they are enjoying the week's interlude of 'round-the-clock fame: The band's achievement has been touted on the airwaves, by friends coming up to congratulate them, by bartenders buying them rounds, and the group hopes that a record producer or two may be lingering in Saturday's crowd.

Although classic rock station KKLZ can't exactly slip its chosen band into rotation, it has been able to give Native Tongue one added boost: audio clips of their music have turned up beneath traffic and weather reports.

"It's an honor to be under the traffic report," Heilman says, fairly seriously.

"Given that our format, classic rock, doesn't lend itself to being local music scene friendly, this is nice," explains Robey Gibson, principal of The Event Group, the concert's organizer.

"We can't promise them contracts, but it's great exposure, it's fun, and forever more, if nothing ever happens again, they can say, 'We played on a festival of 25,000 people and opened for Joan Jett and REO Speedwagon.' "

Still, the band hardly seems to fit into the lineup of the festival's seven classic rock stalwarts, which include REO Speedwagon, Gregg Allman & Friends, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Kansas, Loverboy and the Romantics.

While all express interest in paying their respects to rock legend Allman, the band members are more interested in networking with the musicians' producers than the musicians themselves.

To put it delicately: "We're on our way up," Muntean says. "We can't get just about any lower than this. And we're young -- time is on our side. Then again," he sighs, "at least those other bands have hits under their belts -- that's something."