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Scorchers generate
new heat By MARK BROWN, The Orange County
Register Copyright 1995 Orange County Register
The band had broken up in 1989, but with fresh ears, Johnson liked what he heard. That's when he got on the telephone to other members of one of the most widely acclaimed rock bands of the '80s and told them it was time to come back. Maybe this time around, their fusion of punk, country and rock would make an impact. With a new album, "A Blazing Grace," the band is back on the road for the first time in six years, its shows just as wild and insane as when it was ripping up clubs and theaters in the mid-'80s. "People have all these theories as to why the Scorchers weren't huge. What people always say is the band was just a little ahead of its time," Ringenberg said from his Nashville home. After they got together again a couple of years ago, the band played a reunion tour to see if anyone still cared about Jason and the Scorchers. "It was a big surprise for all of us. The rooms were pretty full. The people remembered the words to all the songs, and a lot of younger people came out to check the vibe and buzz." Ringenberg doesn't sugarcoat anything. The reunion wasn't instantaneous; the old flavor didn't just zing back. "It was touch-and-go in the studio. We were lucky in that we had free time so we could take our time and recut the stuff that needed recutting," Ringenberg said. "To be quite frank, I don't think it really started to gel until we were on tour with the 'A Blazing Grace' tour." It's a miracle the band is together at all. Despite critical and fan raves, the rigors of the music industry just ground the band down. "For me personally, I was just very cautious. I just wasn't ready," Rigenberg said. "I was going through too many things personally to think about a career again in music. It was all I could do to keep from having a nervous breakdown every day when I woke up." Ringenberg went through a particularly difficult divorce. After the band's 1989 breakup, he and the band members took jobs; Ringenberg at one point worked as a landscaper. He also worked as a Nashville songwriter but found sitting down and grinding out tunes was as unfulfilling as the manual labor was. Cranking out songs like sausages isn't art, it's work. "I enjoy writing more when it just happens to you," he said. "I want to get that feeling back - just walking down the street and something hits you, as opposed to meeting some guy at 3 in the afternoon to sit in an office and write a song. I'm having to de-Nashville-ize my psyche," he continued. "I've been here for so long. I really need to purge myself of Nashville songwriting." Jason & the Scorchers, Webb
Wilder
© 1995-2001 Orange County Register — All Rights Reserved |
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