The first time that guitarist Frank Agnew went to a punk show, he was about 13 years old, and even if he was a minor, he was able to enter the whiskey from seeing the bags, Black Randy and the Metrosquade and the Sigés. It was in 1978 and he went with his older brother Rikk.
“When the crazy people arrived, Holy S – who changed my life forever because it was so good,” said Frank. “Since I saw the crazy whiskey, I'm sitting there thinking:” I want to be so good, I want to be so tight “, and it was my goal.”
Frank and his brothers Rikk and Alfonso “Alfie” Agnew spent the next decade to train and play for some of the most important groups of the Punk cannon, including adolescents, detours, social distortion, Christian death, Tsol and Di, among others – and now their trip as a punk musicians is finally told for the first documentary “Agnew”. Recently, the work of their life in music has been exposed as part of the new exhibition “Punk OC – From the streets of the suburbs” at the Fullerton Museum Center which made its debut last week. A recent afternoon, the Agnew brothers gathered at the museum to pose photos and relive memories through artifacts of their Punk Rock youth.
“I am constantly asking me questions about my family and Rikk, di, adolescents, all that is incredible for me how many people know not only but care about it,” said Alfie, who is also a mathematical physicist teaching at Cal State Fulerton. “It is just as much about the Orange county scene and the people who supported it, not only in the late 1970s and 80s, but also so far, so I think it's a kind of celebration for all of us.”
The documentary of filmmaker Gabriel Zavala Jr. was almost filmed between 2018 and 2024 and returns to the history of the brothers and their legendary musicality while capturing the brothers while they play various shows and sail in the circumstances of their personal life. Zavala told Times that he had been inspired to create the documentary after watching the Agnetws play an explosive show at the Santa Ana Observatory.
Director Gabriel L. Zavala Jr., on the left, takes a photo of the brothers Frank, Rikk and Alfie Agnew of the Punk adolescent group next to an exhibition that presents the group of “Punk OC – From the Streets of Suburbia” at the Fullerton Museum Center.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It was such a precipitation because at that time, people were again reinvigorated by Punk Rock and Rikk and Frank of the teenage version and it was such an electric night,” said Zavala. “I just said to them:” What if we had a documentary on your family? ” »»
Rikk, Frank and Alfie have all agreed to do the documentary with Zavala, who quickly started filming and interviewing various musicians associated with Agnews, notably Gvllow, Gypsy Demon of Christian Death and Casey Royer of Adolescents and Di-Di
Zavala, a feature filmmaker who directed and wrote the independent film of 2015 “Rude Boy: The Movie”, also interviewed the parents of the brothers before dying during the shooting of the documentary.
“I think they would be proud of that, they were always very proud and supported their children, I think my parents were reasonably unique to support such an activity – being punk rock and being musicians instead of going to be doctors and lawyers, although I finally became a teacher,” said Alfie.
As the infants of Irish and Mexican parents to the roots of immigrants, the brothers say they grew up surrounded by an eclectic variety of music, listening to Irish folks in Mariachi, and although their parents were not musicians themselves, the brothers are likely to be suitable for their musical gene for their maternal grandfather, Alfonso Fernandez. According to the brothers, Fernandez was a professional drummer who emigrated from Guadalajara and played throughout Mexico and the southwest of the United States in a Latin jazz group called the Latinaires.
“When I learned my grandfather, which was particularly personal for me because my name was – in fact, my first instrument was the drums – I really had this connection and I have always been very proud,” said Alfie, who also plays the guitar.
Frank and Alfie did not know their grandfather – Fernandez died in 1965 – but as Alfie, Frank also attributes the heritage of his grandfather as influential in his own trip as a musician.
The Frank brothers, on the left, and Alfie Agnew, teenagers of the Punk group at the exhibition “Punk OC – From the Streets of Suburbia” at the Fullerton Museum Center.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“My mother obviously said:” Your grandfather Alfonso was a drummer, and he was the best drummer “, said Frank. “And he had a reputation throughout Mexico as one of the best drummers and therefore by her telling us that and showing photos of him to his battery kit, it was really inspiring, it's like 'Oh S—, grandfather was in a group, we can also.” “”
The brothers were at the height to play shows during the shooting of the documentary, but in 2020, several difficulties took place which made the project retreat and also pushed the crew to finally finish it. First, the COVVI-19 pandemic founded all operations, especially when household orders were implemented in 2020.
“Covid struck in the midst of that, God, so we were as in these limbo where we could not film for a month, then we had to proceed with people who were ready to come together and work under the restrictions,” said Zavala.
This period is also when Rikk's parents, Frank and Alfie died of old age – first their father Richard Francis Agnew, then six months later, their mother Lia Paula Fernandez. Zavala's father, Gabriel B. Zavala, a famous interpreter and professor of Mariachi, died at the beginning of 2021 of COVVI-19 complications.
Brothers Alfie, on the left, Rikk and Frank Agnew of the Punk Adolescent Group with the director Gabriel L. Zavala Jr. at the exhibition “Punk Oc – From the Streets of Suburbia” at the Fullerton Museum Center.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It was deep and it was sad, but I know that he wanted me to fight and finish the documentary, that's what we did,” said Zavala. “We have completed and, in a way, it was also a healing process of not having to really think about it and I just focused on the goal of finishing this, no matter what he was going to take to finish it emotionally, financially and with a skeleton team.”
Thanks to the difficulties, Zavala managed to finish the documentary for more than six years, and the brothers say that they are grateful and always humbly surprised that anyone thinks they are interesting enough to appear in a full film.
“I often hear people how much we have influenced things and how it was like a positive thing in their lives, and if it is the only point to remember, I think it's cool,” said Frank. “Some things we have done happy, have made them move their feet or influenced them in a way it is like” wow, I'm not the only one to feel this “, and I just think it's fantastic and a good thing, and I hope that the documentary will display a game.”
