Road Shows: Scorched Earth

By Brian Q. Newcomb
The Riverfront Times
St. Louis, Missouri - December 11-17, 1996
Copyright 1996-2004 The Riverfront Times

Fifteen years ago, long before it was cool to mix country swagger with edgy,
hard-rock passion, Jason & the Scorchers burst out of Nashville with a sound too potent for the times. These days, thanks to the Bottle Rockets, Wilco and Son Volt, there’s a sense that the roots music of Americana is finally coming into its own.

Calling from Stockholm, Sweden, after a gig (1:30 a.m. his time, 5:30 in the evening here), singer Jason Ringenberg is hoarse and exuberant from the night’s performance. “People are just now catching on to what we did in those days,” he says. “We really were 10 years ahead of our time. But I’ll take that - it’s better than being 10 years behind. There are some problems with that; we’ve had to pioneer so much and, frankly, pioneers take a lot of arrows. And we’ve taken our share.”

If Donny and Marie were a “little bit country” and a “little bit rock & roll,” then Jason & the Scorchers took that formula to the extreme. In the tradition of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams - country artists who sought to keep the songs as close to the earth and real to life as possible - the Scorchers wed Ringenberg’s mournful laments with high-octane rock, ignited by the infusion of the Sex Pistols’ punk energy, on their debut EP, Fervor.

The son of an Illinois pig farmer, Ringenberg says, “It was a pretty natural thing, right from the start. It was a real spontaneous thing - there wasn’t a lot of thought to it, we just sort of did it. I came to Nashville thinking I wanted to do a country and rockabilly, super-charged-up kind of thing, but when I got with those guys...what a band.”

Aggressive to the point of incendiary, the Scorchers fully embody their nom de rock. Like the Rolling Stones sped up to Ramones pace, they play hard and fast, yet with the precision and tightness of a more disciplined form. “Oh, what a rush!” howls Ringenberg at the beginning of the band’s new album on Mammoth/Atlantic, Clear Impetuous Morning, as they launch into “Self-Sabotage.” Clear Impetuous is the second album since the band re-formed after a breakup to dissatisfaction and drug abuse.

Recovered and enlivened, the band sounds as good on the new record as it ever did. “People have been real impressed with it,” acknowledges Ringenberg. “They’re saying it’s probably the best thing we’ve done since Lost and Found, and I agree.”

How do they keep it fresh? “That’s the ongoing challenge,” says Ringenberg. “I remember that the great Cardinal pitcher from the ‘60s and ‘70s, Bob Gibson, used to say the biggest challenge after 10 years was getting up for the game. I think that’s the case for a musician as well. Once you’ve done it enough, and you’re confident and competent, you have to really be committed to making the spark happen, because that’s probably half of the game. With the Scorchers, that’s probably 75 percent of the game. People expect a certain energy, a certain attack and intensity, and if you don’t have that, you don’t have it.”

© 1996-2004 — The Riverfront Times — All Rights Reserved