#145: Land Of Hunger by Earons

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: September 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #10
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Dance Club chart ~ #1
YouTube: “Land Of Hunger”
Lyrics: N/A

The Earons were a band from Tampa Bay, Florida. They were inspired by the cosmic mythology of Sun Ra. Group members use the following stage names: .28 (a.k.a. Henry Pizzicarola, vocals), .22 (Percival Prince, guitar), .33 (Kevin Nance, keyboards), .69 (Melvin Lee, bass) and .18 (Lonnie Ferguson, drums). Prior to joining the Earons, Kevin Nance, Lonnie Ferguson and Melvin Lee were members of The Machine. This was a studio disco funk and rock group, active from 1977 to 1981. In an MTV interview, Earon bandmates wearing space suits, were asked what an Earon is and where do you come from? They responded, “Earons are earotronic energies from here on earth, with no names, only numbers. And we exist in all colors. We are actually products of a civilization known as Sumer, which existed some six to eight thousand years ago, near the spot where Africa, Asia and Europe, connect. Our earotronic energy was stored in an instrument used by the Sumerians called the earotron. This earotron enabled the user to store positive energies to be released at a time designated by the universe. Now is the time. Our energies have been released. And we’ve taken the form of musical beings here on earth to bring the message of sameness to everyone here on earth. We’re all earons, living in love here on earth.”

The Earons may themselves be ancient astronauts

Asked on MTV about the concept for the band, Earons .33 replied that it came from the writing of Zachary Stichin who wrote a book titled The Twelfth Planet. This was a book about the ancient Sumer civilization. Stitchin proposed an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he claimed was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. Stitchin claimed that Sumerian mythology suggests that this hypothetical planet of Nibiru is in an elongated, 3,600-year-long elliptical orbit around the Sun. Sitchin’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages. His readership included the bandmates in the astro-funk band the Earons.

The Earons asserted that the assignment of their digital numbers were, in each case, the perfect number for each individual bandmate. For example, .28 stated that their number was the best number, the most positive number that resonated with who they are, here on earth.

In 1983, the band released “Video Baby” which charted in Cleveland and Buffalo. In 1984, the Earons released a single titled “Beat Sixteen”, which charted in Amarillo (TX), In 1984 they released the album Here On Earth. From the album came “Land of Hunger”.

“Land of Hunger” was written by all the bandmates (Pizzicarola, Prince, Nance and Lee), except .18 (Lonnie Ferguson).

“Land Of Hunger” lyrics are as follows:

We’re in the land of hunger, the land of waste. 
Kinda makes you wonder about this place.

In “Land Of Hunger” the Earons sang in 1984 about “a land of hunger, a land of waste.” The lyrics still resonate today. Recent Canadian statistics from 2021 were examined by the Second Harvest website. They revealed:

1. Nearly 60% of the food produced in Canada is tossed every year.
2. 32% of that food waste and loss was avoidable.
3. 4 million Canadians – including 1.5 million children – are food insecure (underfed)
4. The cost of food waste and loss could have fed every Canadian for almost 5 months
5. One of the biggest causes of food loss and waste in Canada is our culture of accepting waste. We need to rethink what (and how much) we but and what we put in our landfills.

What must we do it make it happen,
to bring this pain to an end.
Don’t want to turn in desperation,
and do foolish things again.

The people say they want their lives to be lived a different way.
The people say they want their lives to be lived a different way.

In this land οf hunger peace and love are very rare.
In this land of plenty people find it hard to share.

In these stanzas, the Earons sing about the challenges faced by modern western societies: pain, desperation and foolishness (on the part of political leaders and ourselves). The “land of hunger” is accompanied by the scarcity of peace and love, and a lack of charity.

And I say: We’re in the land of hunger, the land of waste.
Kinda makes you wonder about this place.

Got to find a solution, and bring it home again.
We’ll join hands in celebration, cause the truth will rise again.

In the lines above, the Earons ask their listeners about a way forward: “Got to find a solution…” They are confident that “the truth will rise again,” a further cause for “celebration.” The band continues to sing:

The people say they want their lives to be lived a different way.
The people say they want their lives to be lived a different way.

Those SS20, trident missiles,
those cruise missiles weren’t made for love.
Were made by man to rule over men,
is this the beginning or is it the end.

In the song’s bridge, the Earons sing “those SS-20, Trident missiles, Cruise missiles weren’t made for love.” The Soviet Union’s intermediate-range ballistic missile, the RSD-10 Pioneer, was called the SS-20 Saber by NATO. The RSD-10 had the capacity to destroy all NATO bases and installations with negligible warning. Thus, after the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union acquired the capability to neutralize NATO’s tactical nuclear forces with surgical nuclear strikes.

The United States Navy developed the Trident missile which was first tested in 1977 and launched in 1979. It had a range of 4,600 miles. The U.S. sold Trident missiles to the United Kingdom in 1982. Each missile cost $70 million (USD), which is $230 million (US dollars) in 2025 dollars. Each was a submarine-launched ballistic missile armed with thermonuclear warheads.

In September 1981, in the midst of the Cold War and one year after the UK began the Trident programme, 36 women chained themselves to the fences of RAF Greenham Common to protest against the storing of 96 American nuclear missiles at the site in Berkshire. This heralded the start of the ‘Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp’ – an activist presence at the base that would last for nearly 20 years. This anti-nuclear weapons protest galvanised the British peace movement in the early-1980s. At its zenith, in 1983, 70,000 women encircled the Greenham Common site in a 14-mile-long human chain. The activists also had the public on side, with 59% of Britons opposed to the basing of U.S. nuclear missiles in the UK in the autumn of 1981.

Cruise missiles are unmanned self-propelled guided vehicles that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path . Its primary mission is to place an ordnance or special payload on a target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision.

In suburban Toronto in 1982 a direct action group bombed the Lytton Systems plant that created radar-evading guidance systems for the cruise missile. Eleven people were injured by the blast including three police officers, five Lytton employees and three motorists passing the plant.

We’re in the land of hunger the land of waste.
Kinda makes you wonder about this place. (fade)

“Land Of Hunger” peaked at #1 on the Billboard Dance Club chart on May 26, 1984. “Land Of Hunger” peaked at #6 in Newton (MA), and #10 in Montreal. It reached #36 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart in 1984. Here On Earth was listed in the Top 100 albums of the year in Lynn (MA).

On Friday, November 21, 2008, the Earons surfaced again on a new official website. They proclaimed that the Earons were still “here on Earth”. Four new songs – “Future”, “Numbers and Wires”, “Juliana’s Cloth”, and “Written in America” – were posted, along with the video for “Land of Hunger”. The website became obsolete in 2019.

Kevin Nance (.33)

Kevin Nance was also part of The Brooklyn, Bronx & Queens Band, a post-disco funk band. They had a Top Ten international hit in 1981 titled “On the Beat”. Known also as the B.B. & Q. Band, they released four studio albums and 13 singles between 1981 and 1987. A fifth studio album, The Legacy, was released in 2022.

What happened to the other bandmates in the Earons is a mystery. Perhaps we should look to the stars and see if we can observe any ancient astronauts in space.

April 11, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Earons Interview,” MTV, 1984.
“The B.B. & Q. Band,” jaquespetrus.com.
Sam Milbrath, “8 Food Waste Facts That Every Canadian Should Know,” Second Harvest, December 1, 2021.
Gideon Coolin, “Forty years on from the Greenham Common protests, do the Brits still care about nuclear weapons?,” Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), September 2, 2021.
“Protest at Greenham (1981 to 1983),” Guardian, May 3, 2007.
“Almost 40-years since the Litton Systems car-bombing by Direct Action group,” South Etobicoke News, December 22, 2020.

CKOI 96.9 FM, Montreal (PQ) Top Ten | September 7, 1984