BASS PLAYER LEAVES JASON AND SCORCHERS

By BRAD SCHMITT
The Tennessean
January 23, 1997, Thursday

Copyright 1997 The Tennessean

He brought Jason and the Scorchers back together after a three-year hiatus. Bass player Jeff Johnson really wanted Nashville's best-known rock band to give it another go after problems ripped the band apart. But he's the first to bail on the reformed group. Johnson quit after last Saturday's show in Birmingham, Ala., saying he wanted to retire from the music biz.

"Jeff basically is just tired of the music business and he's tired of touring," lead singer Jason Ringenberg said. "He doesn't want to do that anymore. And with us, it's totally cool."

Adding to band woes are poor sales for the group's critically acclaimed album, Clear Impetuous Morning, a possible victim of distribution problems at Mammoth Records in New York.

But Jason says the group is sticking together and, with new big-time management here in town, members are really looking forward to the summer. That's when the album will be re-released, and the Scorchers with a new bass player will return to Europe, fertile ground for the band. "Don't count us out," Jason says. "We're just in an interim period."

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