‘One of the good guys’: Friends remember Suck Bang Blow staple as part of the family
Friends of Stephen Pease can’t picture Suck Bang Blow look without him.
James Moore said Pease became “the face of that business because he was so lovable.”
When spring and fall Myrtle Beach bike week fests came around, “Twice a year, he’d have 3,000 new friends,” Moore said.
“He couldn’t meet a stranger. He had a smile that could break your heart.”
Pease, who was co-owner of iconic Murrells Inlet biker bar Suck Bang Blow, died Saturday night in a motorcycle crash in Garden City Beach. He was 34.
A longtime member of the local bar business scene, Moore eventually became co-owner of a bar where Pease’s wife was bartending.
“She was very pregnant and she told me she was going to have to sign off on her job for a little while because of her child,” Moore said.
One day, Pease showed up to work instead of his wife, Moore said.
“I go in and [Pease] is just standing there. He said, ‘I’m just going to run her shifts.’ I’m like, ‘Have you ever ran a bar?’ He said ‘No, she ain’t never had a kid either but here we are.’”
While they both lived about five minutes away from the bar, they would sometimes take the long way home to spend time together on their bikes, Moore said.
“We would get out of (work) at 4 or 5 in the morning and we would ride two hours before we got home,” Moore said.
“We could both be home in five minutes. But we would take off on (SC Highway) 31 to North Carolina and just ride. Free air. God, it was so cool. We built a real good camaraderie with each other.”
Pease showed interest in Moore’s riding group, who prided themselves on avoiding partying.
“Stephen wanted to ride with my little group. I have a group of riders that . . . we just don’t drink and ride.
“He was an excellent rider. He was a careful person,” Moore said. “He wasn’t a biker, he wasn’t part of the biker lifestyle. He just rode a bike.”
When Moore’s son died in August, Pease was there for him.
“At my son’s reception, one of the first people I saw was Stephen standing in front of me with a tear in his eye.”
Moore called Pease his chosen family.
“We’re family by choice. He’s one of the good guys.”
Eleven years ago, when Bill Barber was general manager at Suck Bang Blow, he hired Pease as a bar-back to help out behind the bar.
Barber could tell right away that Pease, a Bridgeport, Connecticut native, was a hard worker destined for success.
“He went from being a bar-back to an assistant manager to an owner,” Barber said. “It was all by hard work.”
He said he couldn’t imagine Suck Bang Blow without Pease.
“I really don’t know how we’re going to do without him. It’s a major loss.”
Barber said Pease was the kind of man who could bring levity to stressful situations.
“He could make you laugh in terrible moments. Working bike week 16, 18 hour days. Everybody was dead (tired). And he’d say something and perk everybody up,” Barber said.
“I just don’t know if I’ve ever met anybody like him before. He had the personality, the intelligence, the humor, the love.
“Our community is going to miss him badly,” Barber said.
The last time Barber talked to Pease, the day before he died, Pease was on his way to pick his daughters up from gymnastics.
Barber said it was just like Pease to be spending time with his daughters. “He loved his two little girls and he loved his wife.”
The night of the motorcycle crash, Barber joined 60 to 70 of Pease’s friends who gathered in the hospital parking lot, barred from entering the hospital due to COVID-19 visitation rules.
“I hugged some of the guys longer than I’ve ever hugged a woman. It was very sad,” Barber said.
