A controlled fire Jason and the Scorchers add discipline to their wild act

By Greg Kot
Chicago Tribune
September 14, 1989, Thursday

Copyright 1989 Chicago Tribune Company

For nearly a decade, chaos has been the calling card of Jason and the Scorchers, a Nashville band whose wild-eyed shows are legend. But their superb new album, "Thunder and Fire" (A & M), was forged out of discipline.

"It took blood, guts and sweat," said singer Jason Ringenberg, who will lead the Scorchers onstage Friday at Park West. "Before I'd write songs as some sort of cosmic accident. But I wrote and wrote and wrote for this album - 40 songs - then we did demos and even some live shows to get them just right. When we went into the studio, we meant business. And I'm proud because I think we came through under a lot of pressure."

Pressure that began building when their "Still Standing" LP of 1986 stiffed, and bassist Jeff Johnson quit. Pressure that intensified when the band had to go hunting for a new record label. And pressure that reached the breaking point when the Scorchers found themselves being upstaged by their opening act, the Georgia Satellites, who were riding high at the time with the hit "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." Three years later, the Scorchers still haven't scratched the Top 40. But the band has never allowed commercial concerns to water down their shot-and-a-beer music.

In 1981, a callow Ringenberg emerged from life on a hog farm in Sheffield, Ill., and several years of college study, and set out to conquer Nashville. "I went there because I knew it wasn't big enough to engulf and swallow me like L.A. or New York would," Ringenberg said. "Nashville had this small rock 'n' roll pond, and I made a very tiny splash."

At the time, Warner Hodges and Perry Baggz were "the kingpins of the Nashville underground scene," he said. The two checked out Jason, who by that time was fronting his own band, and saw something they liked - a fellow with a great voice and a cowboy hat who had the guts to sing rock 'n' roll in the heart of the country-music capital. "People had warned me to stay away from Warner, that he was too wild to work with," Ringenberg said, "but that never bothered me."

With Hodges on guitar, Baggz on drums, Johnson on bass and Ringenberg singing, the band soon "shook up the town. Everyone either loved or hated us, but nobody forgot us. We had that punk edge that wasn't exactly in tune with Nashville, but people came to see the shows. We had really diverse crowds, too: Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols checked us out, Emmylou Harris, Danny Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys once sang onstage with us."

With the release of the "Fervor" EP in 1984, the Scorchers put themselves on the rock 'n' roll map. "We were reacting against everything that was popular at the moment - metal, synth pop, the Nashville establishment, you name it." The band's blazing guitars recalled vintage Rolling Stones, their bassist played runs of eighth notes worthy of Dee Dee Ramone, and Ringenberg's boyish voice ranged from Hank Williams' forelorn wail to Jerry Lee Lewis' devilish growl. The sound was exciting, but unclassifiable. Commercial radio didn't know what to do with it, and neither did the Scorchers - until they recorded "Thunder and Fire," that is.

Producer Barry Beckett arranged for the band to play in the studio under the glare of stage lights, and gave Ringenberg a hand-held microphone to simulate the concert experience as much as possible. "The energy of musicians playing together makes something happen - no one can explain it, but something does happen," Ringenberg said. "We'd gotten away from that on the last two albums." But the proper ambiance would have meant nothing if the songs weren't top of the line, which is why Ringenberg is so proud of the new album.

One of the best is "Six Feet Underground," which was inspired by "a local yokel politician talking about how much his party had done for blacks in the South." The ghost of a black man raises a sarcastic toast to the cosmetic changes made since his death: "I cheer your justice from six feet underground."

But the lead track on the album, "When Angels Cry," may be the finest Scorchers song yet. As the guitars roar behind him, Ringenberg sings plaintively about assembly-line lives wasting away in a modern-day hell on earth: "And sometimes when the skies are blue/You hear the moan of heaven's wind/Saying 'I wanted more for you'/It's there and then it's gone again."

The song's coauthor was Grammy winner Don Schlitz, who showed Ringenberg the "real discipline" behind the art of songwriting. "Schlitz is probably the biggest country songwriter there is, but I went into it with this cocky young dude attitude, you know, 'Show me what you can do,' " Ringenberg said. "But when we finished writing 'When the Angels Cry,' it sent a chill up my spine. It was like watching a miracle unfold."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Jason and the Scorchers overcame pressure to create their finest LP, "Thunder and Fire."

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