April 12, 2016
GOLDEN MOMENT:
Cult heroes: Jason and the Scorchers - the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world. In July 1985 : The guitarist loved AC/DC, the singer loved country. Live, their combustible union was a total blast, but this Nashville band couldn't sustain the momentum (Michael Hann, 12 April 2016, The Guardian)Ringenberg was a pig-farmer's son from Illinois who moved to Nashville in 1981, with the dream of forming a high-energy roots band. He didn't realise rock'n'roll didn't exist in Music City, but somehow stumbled across the other three, who brought the punk counterbalance to his desire to make country music. Hodges, whose parents were country musicians, had already had his fill of the twang - "He always said that country music was shoved down his throat, and he hated it," Ringenberg told writer Clinton Heylin - but the tension between the guitarist's desire to sound like AC/DC and the singer's love of Hank Williams meant that, for the first few years of their career at least, Jason and the Scorchers made music that sounded like no one else, a berserk, overdriven racket, in which country covers and Ringenberg's originals were played with Never Mind the Bollocks power by the other three.
The Scorchers' vinyl debut came in early 1982, just a few weeks after their first show, with the Reckless Country Soul EP, featuring three Ringenberg originals and covers of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. They earned a fearsome reputation opening shows for whichever punk bands visited Nashville ("Because we were so explosive, it had such an energy and we attacked the stage so fiercely, they allowed the twang," Ringenberg said of the punks' attitude to the Scorchers), and became associates of the similarly upwardly mobile REM. In 1984, a new EP, Fervor (a cleaner and better recording, restating the premise of the band), featured vocal appearances from and a co-write with Michael Stipe. After they signed to EMI, a staggeringly exciting version of Bob Dylan's Absolutely Sweet Marie was added, though it was only recorded because Ringenberg told Hodges it was an original; the guitarist wouldn't have recorded it otherwise.
That summer of 85 high-water mark came off the back of the band's full-length debut, Lost and Found, where Hodges' guitars - given a modern studio and bigger production values - were finally allowed right off the leash, without suffocating Ringenberg in the process. Unlike most of their "cowpunk" peers, the Scorchers didn't wrap their take on country in irony; Ringenberg's love of his forefathers was palpable, and the rest of the band were so steeped in the music that they made Lost and Found sound as if it was always intended as an 180mph rush of speed.
As you'll already have guessed, the moment of greatness was brief. The Scorchers became less Ringenberg's band than Hodges', as EMI ushered them towards big hair and big makeup, to go with the big guitars. If the Pistols at the Opry worked, Poison at the Opry most certainly didn't. Their next album, 1986's Still Standing, might have been better retitled Going Backwards. One more record, Thunder and Fire, and the Scorchers were no more. They reformed in the 90s, and still play live periodically, but the moment was gone - as fun as they might be, they would never again be the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.
One heck of a moment though...
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 12, 2016 1:43 PM