Interview with Mike Ness
 
  
Dave: My name’s Dave Corey and I’m dining this evening with Mike Ness, previously of Social Distortion, and taking a small break from that to do a solo album. Welcome to Joe’s Grille, brought to you by Doctor Martin’s. Thanks for coming on the show, Mike.

Mike: Thank you for having me.

Dave: Let’s see. I just wanted to first off start off by saying I’m interested to hear about your kind of solo career here that you’re doing with a lot of roots music and you’re really kind of concentrating on some of your older influences such as Johnny Cash and things like that. If you care to comment on what that stuff’s meant to you and...

Mike: Yeah, well, I founded Social Distortion in 1979, and I’ve basically been doing that the whole time, almost 20 years now, and I just really felt like I needed a change, I wanted to try and do something different, and I have this affection, I grew up with punk music, the first wave of punk music, but I also grew up with a lot of other stuff and always wanted to sing these other styles of music and play these other styles, and Social Distortion wasn’t really the appropriate platform for all of it, you know. I could bring elements of it to that, but I always felt that if I went so far, it wouldn’t be Social D anymore. So I had the idea about five or six years ago, and I just patiently waited for a window of time to do it, and I really felt like now is the proper time.

Dave: How did you come to hear most of that music? Was it something that you heard growing up with your family?

Mike: Yeah. I had uncles who were old greasers, building Harleys in their garages and playing in garage bands. My Uncle Pete gave me my first Fender bassman and guitar, and, yeah, you know, I had the Rolling Stones records when I was in third grade and really decided at an early age that I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be a rock star, you know.

Dave: Has your family largely shaped what you’ve become?

Mike: My what?

Dave: Your family?

Mike: Well, my family life had. I mean, I come from an alcoholic home and a broken home, and yeah, so it was all, everything that happened in my life from the day that I was born ‘till now has all happened for a reason, and, yeah, it all shaped me, yeah, whether it was good or bad. At the time, it happened for a reason.

Dave: What’s your favorite Stones album, man?

Mike: Probably Exile in Main Street.

Dave: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. You know, I really used the Stones and bands like Creedence Clearwater as a measuring stick when I was making this record, because first of all, I didn’t want to do a contemporary country or blues record, really. I feel like contemporary roots music has really lost its edge and become like the new pop, but what I liked about what the Stones and Creedence Clearwater and a lot of other bands, like T Rex or whoever, that was they brought these elements of primitive roots, to rock ‘n roll, whether it was hillbilly or Muddy Waters blues or country, to rock ‘n roll, yet it still remained rock ‘n roll, so I wanted to do that on this record. I wanted to make sure that it was still the same Mike Ness that people knew, but he was singing different styles of music. I wanted to show people that I could do more than just one thing, ‘cause for 20 years, that’s all they’ve seen me do.

Dave: And it’s been received tremendously, have you felt that?

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Dave: Are the show that you’re currently playing now supporting the new record, different from Social Distortion shows, you’re seeing different kinds of faces and stuff like that?

Mike: Yeah. I mean, it’s very flattering to be doing this 20 years later and still bringing in 20-year-old girls. Honestly. That’s, to me, that feels very good, but, yeah, there’s a lot of young kids, there’s a lot of older people bringing their kids, there’s a lot of kids bringing their parents. But one thing I notice about this, 99% of the time, is that it’s a little bit different because it’s not, I mean, it’s sad, but punk and alternative shows today you get a lot of kids coming for the wrong reasons. I mean, tonight was a perfect example, you know, and usually at these shows I notice that people are just coming because they love this music and they’re not there to prove they’re a man, they’re not there to prove how much they can drink or how good they can fight. They’re here just to see some honest rock ‘n roll, and so that’s one thing, it’s a little less chaotic, you know, without a mosh pit. That’s refreshing for me, because I get to kind of concentrate a little more and just on singing and being a showman.

Dave: This honest rock ‘n roll that you’re playing right now, you’re obviously taking a lot of influence from people like Johnny Cash, who you’ve covered, and Bob Dylan, who you’ve covered. Are there bands or artists out there right now that you respect that you think are pushing back into the roots direction, keeping it....

Mike: Well, sure, there’s a lot. I mean, I love bands like Reverend Horton Heat and there’s a lot of good bands out there, and a lot of good punk bands too. Yeah, I try and keep an eye out and keep up on what’s happening.

Dave: How do you feel about, I know you guys played the Warp Tour last year and things like that. I’m sure you get a lot of kids coming in. How do you feel about the younger scene that’s happening right now, the new generation of punk, and even the swing revival, things like that that are happening.

Mike: Well, I mean, for someone who was there when it was really going on and to see an interpretation of it, it’s a little odd sometimes. It meant something completely different 20 years ago, and that’s no one’s fault. I mean, these kids have every right to do what we did. But I think it’s very important that they understand what it was about. I mean, it’s like me, you know. If I want to ride a Harley Davidson, I better know what the fuck I’m talking about, you know. I’m gonna be a fuckin’ poser, you know what I mean? I need to know how to work on my bike, I need to know how to do it. So to play for that, these bands came a long way, and then you treat ‘em like that, it’s just like, and I don’t know where all that started, you know? A lot of people, you know, it’s 1999 and I don’t know. Is it time to recreate like a new dance or something? Is a mosh pit really, what is it now? It’s a lot of just like geeks getting up and wanting crowd surfing, hoo, look at me, you know? They’re not even there to see the band. So it’s weird, you know. It’s one thing about Social Distortion and this solo project I feel, for me personally, is that what I think people respect about what we’ve done is that we were not afraid to evolve into something. We started as a garage band and a punk band, and we evolved and grew, we learned how to play our instruments, and had various levels of success, but we were not afraid to try something different and do something different, and because there was a lot of stigma and stereotypes that came with punk music, and we fought them hard, because that wasn’t what punk was supposed to be about. Like this new record, I think is more punk than anything, because it is defying everything that’s stereotypically punk today. I hear a new band who’s allegedly a punk band, and all it is is a recycled TSOL rep. Or a recycled adolescent song. Where’s the initiative, where’s the talent, where’s the balls, you know, to create something new and do something different. It’s so easy to just, and that’s why I feel that there’s guys in bands and then there’s musicians, and there’s a big difference, you know.

Dave: Do you guys feel like you put more into this album because it’s got more aspects to it, do you feel like you’ve come a longer way and therefore you can put more stuff into it, or was the raw power of the older stuff...

Mike: It was a little bit of everything. It was a lot of experimentation, it was a lot of new instrumentation, it was a different format of song writing, it was a risk, you know, but it was one of those risks that before I was halfway through I knew I was making the right decision, and I think that it’s a very natural progression or evolution from where I come from. I don’t know if Social Distortion has another ten years left in them, you know. We’ve been together 20 years. This is the first generation of rock punk music that, it’s not like the Shirelles, 30 years later you can go and see ‘em and they can do their hits. Those people will be 50 years old. They’re not going to be in a fuckin’ mosh pit, you know. They ain’t even going to be out of the house ‘cause they’re gonna be married with fuckin’ kids. So this I feel is a very natural progression. This I can definitely do ‘till I’m old. Just open the door for a future record making, maybe where Social Distortion may leave off, I don’t know.

Dave: Absolutely. Well, I don’t want to take too much of your time. One of the things that our show focuses on, it’s called the Joe’s Blue Plate Special, and we focus largely on independent artists and bands that are coming up from the bottom, trying to make their to where you’ve been and where you’re going, and since you’ve recently put out these records on Time Bomb, how do you feel that you are able to operate creatively on an independent label versus a major label?

Mike: Well, we did the major label for seven years and it had certain advantages like they pay for hotels or, I don’t know, we were always going in debt, so who knows. I mean, we owe like so many, like a million dollars, it’s great. They’ll never get it. They really didn’t do anything for us that we hadn’t done ourselves. I think the songs are what do it, and obviously a good company behind you helps you because you’ve got a staff of 40, 50 people, 100 people, with the same objective, pushing a product that you all, your all objective is the same. I feel that independents can do the same thing, sometimes better, because they’re much more at a street level. These mother fuckers up in the towers wouldn’t know cool if it mugged ‘em in an alley, you know what I mean? So it helps now, now instead of me calling my manager and him having to call New York and having them get back to us when we just want to like get a simple, little thing like the artwork worked out, and now it’s just like, you know, when I go down there, we work on it, it gets approved, it’s done. And the creativity is, you have much more control of things now, so it’s great.

Dave: That’s great. Would you mind doing a couple station id’s for us? The show’s called Joe’s Blue Plate Special, and there’s not actually any specific radio station it does, and if you want to talk about Dr. Martin’s, that would be cool too.

Mike: Alright. Hooray for Doc Martin’s.

Dave: Joe’s Blue Plate Special.

Mike: Hey, this is Mike Ness here at Joe’s Blue Light Spe....sorry, man.

Dave: Eatin’ Joe’s Blue Plate Special, something like that.

Mike: Hi, this is Mike Ness and I’m eatin’ Joe’s Blue Light Special right now, and I’ve been wearin’ Doc Martin’s for 20 years.