Gypsies Now - Interviews

Excerpts from a transcript with Jason Ringenberg and Warner Hodges at Praxis International Management, Nashville, Tennessee
1-10-85
By Kathleen O’Brien
Tasty World Magazine Athens, Georgia January, 1985

TW: It is a publicized fact that Jason and the Scorchers attribute their musical influences to a wide spectrum of artists that range from country greats, Hank Williams and George Jones, to the more recent legends in rock, including Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols. What do you think has determined Jason and the Scorchers as one of the only major new music forces out of the contemporary Nashville music scene?
JR: I think they all want that - they’ve been talking about it for years - breaking a rock band out of Nashville. But I think they were thinking about doing it in terms of MOR pop. The Scorchers are a little bit out of their league.
But you have to understand that the Nashville music scene is such a vital thing...there are so many things happening and so many different people involved. That is a question we are often asked - what does the Nashville music scene think of Jason and the Scorchers - and you can’t say what they think because there are so many different elements of that. Some of them like us, and some would just as soon see me shot or see Warner hung at sunrise.
WH: Who can say what they think? Once again, there is too broad of a base. We just happen to be on that one side or the other that is too far off the base...
JR: There is no way to consider the Nashville music scene as a collective unit. It is a whole bunch of different units.
TW: Why is the nightclub activity so limited in a city the size of Nashville? There seem to be few venues for contemporary acts like yourselves.
WH: I’ve lived in Nashville for ten years and live gigging here has always been what we (young people) term rock and roll. Whatever it might have been ten years ago or whatever it is that is happening in rock and roll now, there have never been more than one, two max, clubs in town booking music.
You see, you’ve got to realize that there is a huge music scene here but the music scene is studio players and session players. There is not really a huge live music scene here, as far as clubbing goes, for up and coming bands. And there never has been.
JR: The reason there isn’t a club scene, and I think Warner made a very good point that hasn’t been talked about too much, is that Nashville is a recording town...
WH: There is more recording done here than in LA...
JR: And it is only natural that the emphasis is not on live acts. People are going to spend most of their time in the studio, not out on the streets.
TW: How did Jason and the Scorchers develop as such a strong live act in a recording town?
WH: There was a boom during the recession - about 1980 or ‘81 - when the clubs started opening up. When the music industry went down, you had a lot of session players here who were not players, that had to go back to playing live some...because they weren’t working as much. As soon as the music industry picked back up again, they naturally went back to doing what they do best - playing sessions. They didn’t want to play live. They didn’t want to haul their equipment around...that isn’t their gig, they’re session players. And they are very good at what they do, but as a result, the live scene suffered a recession again.
JR: When I first came to town, which was during the period Warner just mentioned, the club scene was expanding and I caught it right at the time it was at its peak. And I think that was really good for me - I don’t think I could have stayed in Nashville without that happening. There were three or four clubs literally a block away from where I lived and there were bands playing every night, so I could live in that lane...As soon as the Scorchers started, the club scene started dying out and then we caught the tail end of the whole independent college-radio, underground sort of thing. And we did that for two years. But we did catch the tail end of it, and I think that R.E.M. and the Scorchers were probably two of the last bands that were able to break that way...on the live, underground circuit...in America. Now there are clubs drying up everywhere.
TW:Was the initial concept of Jason and the Scorchers to be a strong live band?
JR: I saw the Scorchers as an alternative in the fact that I didn’t see us going through the Nashville music business machine. You can’t say that the music scene (in Nashville) has a collective way of thinking, but the music business does. I couldn’t see us going through that.
I wanted to see the band on the road, both for business reasons and economic reasons. It was a necessity to play live, simply to make a living, because we have such a strong rock and roll identity in the band. It is hard for anyone in the band...to keep jobs and that sort of thing.
WH: Playing live also strengthened the band...Jason surrounded himself with live musicians...and the band is live musicians, probably first and foremost, including Jason. Going out live, on the road, has its rough spots...but everyone in the band lives to play that hour or hour and a half...That is as important to each member of the band, I think, as breathing air.
JR: I don’t think the Scorchers would have survived if we hadn’t played live for the first couple of years, even if it was very tough...[shaking his head] Tough, tough time for us...I think the live thing held us together because we had to develop - we had to come so far as musicians.
When we started out there wasn’t a lot of real musicianship talent in the band. Perry had just learned drums; Jeff had just learned bass, Warner was probably the best musician among us. We all needed to come a long way as musicians before we could compete...you know, make a record like Lost and Found. We couldn’t have done that back then so we needed to get a name together.
WH: Playing live was our growth too, it was our maturity. We had to learn how to accept each other...and all of the band matured as a group...and we were able to play off each other - make each other stronger, rather than weaker.
JR: Being out on the road together gave us something to look forward to...something we all believed in...and again, we wouldn’t have survived without that collective belief.
WH: There is bound to be some tension...when you take four people who believe in something collectively, but at the same time, believe in other things. We all had our heads set in different directions and that works creatively. Sometimes it’s harder to make it work creatively, but if you’ve got four heads thinking in different places, and if you can get them together, then you are going to have that old cliché...the total is greater than the sum of the parts. We’ve learned to take each other for what we are...and how to make things work for us instead of against us, which was our own doing.
TW: What is your personal reaction to the band’s present circumstances based on past experience?
WH: I’ve matured...I’ve come to respect everybody in the band and respect is as much as any of it. I was probably the most skeptical one in the band...Now I play with the boys I want to play with...there ain’t nobody I’d rather play with. I’m just lucky enough to get to play with my friends, and how many people can say that they work with their best friends?
JR: I consider myself very good friends with everybody in the band. I believe in them and I don’t want to play with anyone in the world besides them.
WH: I think we honestly do know, between the four of us, that we are going to go out and give it everything we’ve got...we’re going to try as hard as we can and then, if we fall on our face, we can live with it. As long as we can say we did our best, the rest of it doesn’t matter.
TW: Jason and the Scorchers have a reputation for the incomparable live performance, pouring “heart and guts” into your playing and taking the audience by storm. In the early days of the band, the stage presence was less refined. Have you consciously toned down the onstage antics?
JR: I think what happened there, how I perceive it, was a very natural craziness craziness onstage there. But I think as the months wore on and we played more shows, it began to be a parody. I think people started expecting us to be crazy and out to lunch, and then we started trying to live up to that reputation.
WH: Being foolish and trying to put a point across are two different things - that is maturity, like I said.
JR: That is when I think the band was at the lowest point that it ever was and ever will be. I think we gradually started working out of that slump...about a year and a half ago...and the only way you can do that is to start believing in the music and believe in playing the music and do better and better shows.
WH: I feel like when we started, there was such an urgency to get out there and play...we wanted to play live and started...then realized that it was no big, romantic, luxurious dream...that was something we learned in the process, and Jason probably came to grips with that sooner than the rest of us...I was the last one to come to grips with that fact. It wasn’t until a year and a half ago that we started progressing as a band and started changing.
JR: We are on a certain plateau now and we can at least care about what we are doing up there.
TW: Is Nashville supportive of Jason and the Scorchers?
JR/WH(?): We owe Nashville a lot...We’re the only band in Nashville history who did one show to twenty people, and then came back and did 150, and then the next time sold out. I don’t think anybody has ever risen that fast, or ever will...I think that it is true that the Atlanta/Athens axis and Nashville kept this band alive for the first year.
TW: How deep are the band’s Southern roots?
WH: As Southern boys - Jason is not from the South, but the rest of us are - we take the South to heart. We were all born, bred and raised in the South...and you tend to take a liking to your home-ground. The band sometimes embraces more rural areas than cities...feels more at home, comfortable and at ease.
JR: I’ve noticed that.
WH: Sure, we can go up to New York, have one big show and rock, but sometimes I’d just as soon be in Lincoln, Nebraska. And Lincoln, Nebraska is just as important as New York, maybe not in terms of sales and interviews, but 150 people who go out to see you in Lincoln is worth just as much, if not more, than 1500 people in New York.
JR: I think we enjoy smaller town gigs because of the audience appreciation. There is a certain innocence that is lacking in big cities.
TW: How did the recording of Lost and Found compare to previous studio sessions?
WH: It was a bit different this time, in that Jason and Perry had their own idea of how things were done and a lot of that, naturally, was the way they heard things live. Jeff, Terry and myself emphasized the studio sounds. We had to capture our live feeling and energy, and at the same time, capture good sounds and good playing. We had to revert everyone around...to think...that the studio is a creative process, it is not live. We had to enhance and elaborate upon the songs and I think we accomplished that.
The four members of the band work so much better together...the whole record is a real consensus of ideas from the band, Terry, Jack and Andy. Between the seven of us, we knew what we were after. And if we could please ourselves, we could please anybody. There was such a wide spectrum of ideas that each song was an attempt to please the entire organization. And all the parts work so well together that everyone was satisfied.
We don’t think in terms of, ‘Let’s record a hit single!’ We record each song to its fullest potential, which is a complicated process involving the band, management and the record company.
JR: We’ve been lucky enough to write our own records, produce our own records, and have a say in how they promote it. And Jack, who played bass in the original Scorchers, has more creative input than a manager usually has.
WH: We knew the album effect that we desired, but each song was its own little album. Each song was the most important thing we have ever done.
JR: We’ll put out albums with lots of what we think are quality songs. We’ll never put out filler...bad word, ‘filler.’
WH: We’ve got to live with this when it’s all said and done and we believe in it. We stand behind Lost and Found good, bad or indifferent. You have to put out a good product to satisfy yourself. You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know you did the best you could and you’re proud of it.
TW: Any changes foreseeable in the near future?
WH: The band still puts all of its strength, all of its money and ideas into doing a show really well...that is the most important thing. We take the most qualified and the least amount of people on the road with us...We all hit the stage, including the people who work with us on the road, with the idea that we are going to do the greatest show that we’ve ever done each night...We play from the heart I think...In fact, we play a lot more from the heart than from our own talent.
JR: Yeah, we just go out there and kick ‘em in the ol’ ass!
WH: The Rolling Stones play from the heart...they still rock, yet make money...I’d like to think that is what we are doing. We’ll do the best we can do and we won’t do anybody else’s anything because we have a hard enough time doing us.
TW: What is the Scorchers’ reaction to added responsibilities in the business and their increasing popularity?
WH: The band was naïve...We just wanted to play and knew nothing about the mechanics of the record business. We still don’t, but we like to make out like we do! We’re just musicians.
JR: I guess that is the romance of the music business...no matter how much you know, you still don’t know everything there is to know. It’s all based on...a hunch.
WH: We’re just down-home boys who wanted to play. We thank God - if we’d known about the music business, we probably wouldn’t have gotten into it...
JR: I’ve heard that said by a hundred different musicians.
There is an art to handling business wisely...as much of an art to that as making good music itself. I think one of the sins of the new wave movement - probably the only thing I really have against it - was that it threw out a very Bohemian outlook on bands. It promoted a Bohemian outlook to guage talent...so once a band, if they are talented, starts making money or becomes commercial, it is somehow not as good anymore...And I don’t see that being valid to anyone at all.
That only puts pressure on bands to put out one or two albums and then fade away into obscurity. And I don’t want to do that...I don’t want to die at 28 in a van accident on a road going to Wallawalla, Washington or something. I can’t see (success) as being a detriment to a person’s creative process.
TW: It is rewarding to recognize an industrious young band like the Scorchers that is realizing its commercial potential without compromising its philosophy. How do you view the band’s new status?
JR: I knew this band would make it - I’ll be honest with you - from the start. This is what I was hoping for and I had no idea what I was getting into. And I know that faith never died...never died, not once. And I am proud to say that.


News Meet The Scorchers Learn Back to Interviews > Look
News Meet The Scorchers Learn Back to Interviews > Look	Excerpts from a transcript with Jason Ringenberg and Warner Hodges at Praxis International Management, Nashville, Tennessee 1-10-85 By Kathleen O’Brien Tasty World Magazine Athens, Georgia January, 1985 Copyright 1985-2001 Tasty World Magazine TW: It is a publicized fact that Jason and the Scorchers attribute their musical influences to a wide spectrum of artists that range from country greats, Hank Williams and George Jones, to the more recent legends in rock, including Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols. What do you think has determined Jason and the Scorchers as one of the only major new music forces out of the contemporary Nashville music scene? JR: I think they all want that - they’ve been talking about it for years - breaking a rock band out of Nashville. But I think they were thinking about doing it in terms of MOR pop. The Scorchers are a little bit out of their league. But you have to understand that the Nashville music scene is such a vital thing...there are so many things happening and so many different people involved. That is a question we are often asked - what does the Nashville music scene think of Jason and the Scorchers - and you can’t say what they think because there are so many different elements of that. Some of them like us, and some would just as soon see me shot or see Warner hung at sunrise. WH: Who can say what they think? Once again, there is too broad of a base. We just happen to be on that one side or the other that is too far off the base... JR: There is no way to consider the Nashville music scene as a collective unit. It is a whole bunch of different units. TW: Why is the nightclub activity so limited in a city the size of Nashville? There seem to be few venues for contemporary acts like yourselves. WH: I’ve lived in Nashville for ten years and live gigging here has always been what we (young people) term rock and roll. Whatever it might have been ten years ago or whatever it is that is happening in rock and roll now, there have never been more than one, two max, clubs in town booking music. You see, you’ve got to realize that there is a huge music scene here but the music scene is studio players and session players. There is not really a huge live music scene here, as far as clubbing goes, for up and coming bands. And there never has been. JR: The reason there isn’t a club scene, and I think Warner made a very good point that hasn’t been talked about too much, is that Nashville is a recording town... WH: There is more recording done here than in LA... JR: And it is only natural that the emphasis is not on live acts. People are going to spend most of their time in the studio, not out on the streets. TW: How did Jason and the Scorchers develop as such a strong live act in a recording town? WH: There was a boom during the recession - about 1980 or ‘81 - when the clubs started opening up. When the music industry went down, you had a lot of session players here who were not players, that had to go back to playing live some...because they weren’t working as much. As soon as the music industry picked back up again, they naturally went back to doing what they do best - playing sessions. They didn’t want to play live. They didn’t want to haul their equipment around...that isn’t their gig, they’re session players. And they are very good at what they do, but as a result, the live scene suffered a recession again. JR: When I first came to town, which was during the period Warner just mentioned, the club scene was expanding and I caught it right at the time it was at its peak. And I think that was really good for me - I don’t think I could have stayed in Nashville without that happening. There were three or four clubs literally a block away from where I lived and there were bands playing every night, so I could live in that lane...As soon as the Scorchers started, the club scene started dying out and then we caught the tail end of the whole independent college-radio, underground sort of thing. And we did that for two years. But we did catch the tail end of it, and I think that R.E.M. and the Scorchers were probably two of the last bands that were able to break that way...on the live, underground circuit...in America. Now there are clubs drying up everywhere. TW:Was the initial concept of Jason and the Scorchers to be a strong live band? JR: I saw the Scorchers as an alternative in the fact that I didn’t see us going through the Nashville music business machine. You can’t say that the music scene (in Nashville) has a collective way of thinking, but the music business does. I couldn’t see us going through that. I wanted to see the band on the road, both for business reasons and economic reasons. It was a necessity to play live, simply to make a living, because we have such a strong rock and roll identity in the band. It is hard for anyone in the band...to keep jobs and that sort of thing. WH: Playing live also strengthened the band...Jason surrounded himself with live musicians...and the band is live musicians, probably first and foremost, including Jason. Going out live, on the road, has its rough spots...but everyone in the band lives to play that hour or hour and a half...That is as important to each member of the band, I think, as breathing air. JR: I don’t think the Scorchers would have survived if we hadn’t played live for the first couple of years, even if it was very tough...[shaking his head] Tough, tough time for us...I think the live thing held us together because we had to develop - we had to come so far as musicians. When we started out there wasn’t a lot of real musicianship talent in the band. Perry had just learned drums; Jeff had just learned bass, Warner was probably the best musician among us. We all needed to come a long way as musicians before we could compete...you know, make a record like Lost and Found. We couldn’t have done that back then so we needed to get a name together. WH: Playing live was our growth too, it was our maturity. We had to learn how to accept each other...and all of the band matured as a group...and we were able to play off each other - make each other stronger, rather than weaker. JR: Being out on the road together gave us something to look forward to...something we all believed in...and again, we wouldn’t have survived without that collective belief. WH: There is bound to be some tension...when you take four people who believe in something collectively, but at the same time, believe in other things. We all had our heads set in different directions and that works creatively. Sometimes it’s harder to make it work creatively, but if you’ve got four heads thinking in different places, and if you can get them together, then you are going to have that old cliché...the total is greater than the sum of the parts. We’ve learned to take each other for what we are...and how to make things work for us instead of against us, which was our own doing. TW: What is your personal reaction to the band’s present circumstances based on past experience? WH: I’ve matured...I’ve come to respect everybody in the band and respect is as much as any of it. I was probably the most skeptical one in the band...Now I play with the boys I want to play with...there ain’t nobody I’d rather play with. I’m just lucky enough to get to play with my friends, and how many people can say that they work with their best friends? JR: I consider myself very good friends with everybody in the band. I believe in them and I don’t want to play with anyone in the world besides them. WH: I think we honestly do know, between the four of us, that we are going to go out and give it everything we’ve got...we’re going to try as hard as we can and then, if we fall on our face, we can live with it. As long as we can say we did our best, the rest of it doesn’t matter. TW: Jason and the Scorchers have a reputation for the incomparable live performance, pouring “heart and guts” into your playing and taking the audience by storm. In the early days of the band, the stage presence was less refined. Have you consciously toned down the onstage antics? JR: I think what happened there, how I perceive it, was a very natural craziness craziness onstage there. But I think as the months wore on and we played more shows, it began to be a parody. I think people started expecting us to be crazy and out to lunch, and then we started trying to live up to that reputation. WH: Being foolish and trying to put a point across are two different things - that is maturity, like I said. JR: That is when I think the band was at the lowest point that it ever was and ever will be. I think we gradually started working out of that slump...about a year and a half ago...and the only way you can do that is to start believing in the music and believe in playing the music and do better and better shows. WH: I feel like when we started, there was such an urgency to get out there and play...we wanted to play live and started...then realized that it was no big, romantic, luxurious dream...that was something we learned in the process, and Jason probably came to grips with that sooner than the rest of us...I was the last one to come to grips with that fact. It wasn’t until a year and a half ago that we started progressing as a band and started changing. JR: We are on a certain plateau now and we can at least care about what we are doing up there. TW: Is Nashville supportive of Jason and the Scorchers? JR/WH(?): We owe Nashville a lot...We’re the only band in Nashville history who did one show to twenty people, and then came back and did 150, and then the next time sold out. I don’t think anybody has ever risen that fast, or ever will...I think that it is true that the Atlanta/Athens axis and Nashville kept this band alive for the first year. TW: How deep are the band’s Southern roots? WH: As Southern boys - Jason is not from the South, but the rest of us are - we take the South to heart. We were all born, bred and raised in the South...and you tend to take a liking to your home-ground. The band sometimes embraces more rural areas than cities...feels more at home, comfortable and at ease. JR: I’ve noticed that. WH: Sure, we can go up to New York, have one big show and rock, but sometimes I’d just as soon be in Lincoln, Nebraska. And Lincoln, Nebraska is just as important as New York, maybe not in terms of sales and interviews, but 150 people who go out to see you in Lincoln is worth just as much, if not more, than 1500 people in New York. JR: I think we enjoy smaller town gigs because of the audience appreciation. There is a certain innocence that is lacking in big cities. TW: How did the recording of Lost and Found compare to previous studio sessions? WH: It was a bit different this time, in that Jason and Perry had their own idea of how things were done and a lot of that, naturally, was the way they heard things live. Jeff, Terry and myself emphasized the studio sounds. We had to capture our live feeling and energy, and at the same time, capture good sounds and good playing. We had to revert everyone around...to think...that the studio is a creative process, it is not live. We had to enhance and elaborate upon the songs and I think we accomplished that. The four members of the band work so much better together...the whole record is a real consensus of ideas from the band, Terry, Jack and Andy. Between the seven of us, we knew what we were after. And if we could please ourselves, we could please anybody. There was such a wide spectrum of ideas that each song was an attempt to please the entire organization. And all the parts work so well together that everyone was satisfied. We don’t think in terms of, ‘Let’s record a hit single!’ We record each song to its fullest potential, which is a complicated process involving the band, management and the record company. JR: We’ve been lucky enough to write our own records, produce our own records, and have a say in how they promote it. And Jack, who played bass in the original Scorchers, has more creative input than a manager usually has. WH: We knew the album effect that we desired, but each song was its own little album. Each song was the most important thing we have ever done. JR: We’ll put out albums with lots of what we think are quality songs. We’ll never put out filler...bad word, ‘filler.’ WH: We’ve got to live with this when it’s all said and done and we believe in it. We stand behind Lost and Found good, bad or indifferent. You have to put out a good product to satisfy yourself. You have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know you did the best you could and you’re proud of it. TW: Any changes foreseeable in the near future? WH: The band still puts all of its strength, all of its money and ideas into doing a show really well...that is the most important thing. We take the most qualified and the least amount of people on the road with us...We all hit the stage, including the people who work with us on the road, with the idea that we are going to do the greatest show that we’ve ever done each night...We play from the heart I think...In fact, we play a lot more from the heart than from our own talent. JR: Yeah, we just go out there and kick ‘em in the ol’ ass! WH: The Rolling Stones play from the heart...they still rock, yet make money...I’d like to think that is what we are doing. We’ll do the best we can do and we won’t do anybody else’s anything because we have a hard enough time doing us. TW: What is the Scorchers’ reaction to added responsibilities in the business and their increasing popularity? WH: The band was naïve...We just wanted to play and knew nothing about the mechanics of the record business. We still don’t, but we like to make out like we do! We’re just musicians. JR: I guess that is the romance of the music business...no matter how much you know, you still don’t know everything there is to know. It’s all based on...a hunch. WH: We’re just down-home boys who wanted to play. We thank God - if we’d known about the music business, we probably wouldn’t have gotten into it... JR: I’ve heard that said by a hundred different musicians. There is an art to handling business wisely...as much of an art to that as making good music itself. I think one of the sins of the new wave movement - probably the only thing I really have against it - was that it threw out a very Bohemian outlook on bands. It promoted a Bohemian outlook to guage talent...so once a band, if they are talented, starts making money or becomes commercial, it is somehow not as good anymore...And I don’t see that being valid to anyone at all. That only puts pressure on bands to put out one or two albums and then fade away into obscurity. And I don’t want to do that...I don’t want to die at 28 in a van accident on a road going to Wallawalla, Washington or something. I can’t see (success) as being a detriment to a person’s creative process. TW: It is rewarding to recognize an industrious young band like the Scorchers that is realizing its commercial potential without compromising its philosophy. How do you view the band’s new status? JR: I knew this band would make it - I’ll be honest with you - from the start. This is what I was hoping for and I had no idea what I was getting into. And I know that faith never died...never died, not once. And I am proud to say that. © 1985-2001 — Tasty World Magazine — All Rights Reserved

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