Move over, sonny, for Jason and the Scorchers

By Wayne Bledsoe, News-Sentinel entertainment writer
Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, TN)
July 31, 1998, Friday

Copyright 1998 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.

One tends to forget just how much butt Jason & the Scorchers can kick in concert.

The band's live album "Midnight Roads & Stages Seen" is a potent reminder. Even more potent are the reunited group's concerts. In the early '80s, the Scorchers were the band that critics constantly expected to revolutionize country music. They were a speedball of the Ramones mixed with Hank Williams. By rights, the band should've given country music the kick in the pants that punk had given rock.

When country finally did wake up in the mid-'80s, with artists including Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle, the Scorchers still couldn't get a break on radio. "I don't know if we were ahead of our time or what," says Scorchers guitarist Warner Hodges, taking a break from a sound check in Philadelphia.

Doubtless the then-sanitized Nashville had reason to wary of the Scorchers. At the time, country was dominated by the likes of Alabama, Eddie Rabbitt, Mickey Gilley and other purveyors of soft country. Yet, when the Scorchers first went on the road it was at punk venues.

"We were just so wild and uncontrollable," says Hodges. "Early on we did tours with the Circle Jerks, the Ramones and R.E.M. ... played the 688 and the 40-Watt
Club." The group's first New York City gig was at the Danceteria. "It was all techno and Kraftwerk and we didn't go on till 3:30 in the morning, but they loved us," says Hodges. "That show did us a world of good, but what in the world were we doing on the bill?"

Hodges says the band would be playing classic country songs rocked up, but fans just thought lead singer Jason Ringenberg was a great songwriter. Yet, it didn't take long for Ringenberg and the band to accumulate a catalog of their own classics. The group became the hottest bill in the underground Nashville scene and signed on with EMI Records.

The group gathered great reviews, toured constantly, but watched in confusion while other young acts caught fire and they remained only a cult favorite. "In the late '80s record companies were beating us up for a hit," says Hodges. "We started getting away from what we were about." Baggs quit the band in 1987 and as Hodges remembers most of the members were regularly three sheets to the wind.

In 1990, the group broke up and Ringenberg made an unsuccessful bid at a solo career. Hodges says during the next five years he spoke with Ringenberg once and the other members maybe twice each. He says he did little productive over the five years.

At the prodding of Mammoth Records, the group decided to reunite in 1995. "Seven years just melted away," says Hodges. The group recorded a new album, "A Blazing Grace," and followed with "Clear Impetuous Morning," generally regarded as one of the band's best.

In late '97, Mammoth agreed to record a live album of the group -- something fans have wanted since the early days, but no record company till then was interested in. Recorded at the Exit In in Nashville, the album was intended as a single CD. However, when Hodges asked Mammoth's president to pick what he thought should be on the album Mammoth's president couldn't pick less than two discs' worth.

Hodges says it's great to be back on the road. This time out, the group remains sober. And maybe the time is finally right for Jason & the Scorchers to go mainstream. "This alternative country thing, I guess we're the grandfathers of that," says Hodges. "But we're kinda' tired of being 'influential. We'd like to have our day in the sun."

WHO: Southern Culture on the Skids, Jason & the Scorchers, Robbie Fulks
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today
WHERE: Tennessee Theater
TICKETS: $ 15.50, available at Tickets Unlimited outlets. Call 656-4444.

 

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