MIKE NESS
\n“SOLO DISTORTION
\nINTERVIEW BY J. BRYAN STAHEL<\/p>\n
The Card Cheat for twenty years, Mike Ness has been a near-mythical figure of classic punk rock rebellion, equal parts Johnny Thunders and James Dean held together with angst and attitude to burn. Hard luck tales of sin and redemption such as his would be hard to swallow coming from anyone else but you know that when it\u2019s all said and done, Ness will be viewed as something more akin to a modern Johnny Cash by way of affordable tract housing in the suburban land boom of mid \u201860s Orange County. Fronting Social Distortion and now solo he knows what it\u2019s like to sing blues of maybe a different shade. Tattoos, big cuffs and classic cars. Rebel with or without a cause, visionary or revivalist, it really doesn\u2019t matter. Mike Ness knows how to write a song.<\/p>\n
What do you want to do different solo than with Social Distortion?<\/strong> How autobiographical are your songs?<\/strong> What makes you write a song?<\/strong> Who are your top five all-time badasses?<\/strong> No guitar slingers?<\/strong> What\u2019s the metaphor with the title \u201cCheating At Solitaire\u201d?<\/strong> What do you think of your influence on what\u2019s punk nowadays? Are you cool with it?<\/strong> That\u2019s okay. It took 15 years to sell 500,000 copies of Never Mind the Bollocks.<\/strong> So are you solo for keeps now?<\/strong> And Setzer and Springsteen? I can see Brian Setzer, but Springsteen seems kinda unlikely. . .<\/strong> You\u2019ve gotten a lot of ink over the years.<\/strong> You embodied the hard-living lifestyle for many years and were famous for it.<\/strong> You managed to stop and stay rock and roll.<\/strong>
\nWith Social D, it was only going to go so far and it wouldn\u2019t be Social D anymore. I mean, I\u2019ve played rockabilly stuff and country stuff with Social Distortion. When I was writing \u201cWhite Light\u201d, I found myself going back to more \u201870s punk just because it felt more natural. That enabled me to go down the avenue of roots stuff on my own. There\u2019s just less restrictions, y\u2019know I don\u2019t like to feel restricted but at the same time, Social D doing a country song wouldn\u2019t be Social D.<\/p>\n
\nThey\u2019re pretty autobiographical, but I like to write fictionally as well. It seems my best songwriting comes from personal experiences. Hemingway said that about writing. Yeah, I mean you have to have stuff to write about and, for me, it\u2019s stuff I\u2019ve gone through, but I like to toy around with my imagination from time to time, too.<\/p>\n
\nOh, I don\u2019t know. I guess it\u2019s the only thing I know how to do (laughs). Put it this way, I\u2019m a bad communicator, so music helps me to communicate.<\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s see, Marlon Brando would definitely be one, John Dillinger, Lucky Luciano, for sure, Cassius Clay. . .<\/p>\n
\nUm, Keef, Johnny Thunders, Johnny Ramone, Hank Williams, Elmore James, Chuck Berry.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s kind of like, you can cheat but that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve won, y\u2019know? It\u2019s reflective of my life, times I\u2019ve short-changed myself, making decisions based on self or something and hurting yourself. You set out to make yourself feel good but you wind up harming yourself. Kind of like having to live the blues to sing them? Yeah, I kinda say it in \u201cCharmed Life\u201d that some people have had worse lives than me; some have had better. I do know that my experiences when they were rough, helped me to learn about life a little bit better. At the time, maybe it was tough but now I see that it was all necessary to get to where I am now. I heard of one blues player who was asked \u2018Are you going to be able to sing the blues now that you have all this money?\u2019 He said \u201cSon, lemme tell you, all this money and all these women cause me so much grief that I got the blues!\u201d<\/p>\n
\nYeah, but I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll ever be a million-selling band.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, punk today is like bubblegum. It\u2019s hard for me to relate to because I always liked music that was dangerous. But there\u2019s still some good bands out there that make some decent music, so it\u2019s not all bad.<\/p>\n
\nNo, we\u2019re just taking an intermission. I\u2019m gonna tour this and then we\u2019ll work on the next Social Distortion record. I got some friends and really good players backing me up and were gonna play the shit out of this record. Charlie Quintana is playing drums. He\u2019s been around since the Hong Kong Cafe days, an amazing drummer.<\/p>\n
\nWe just called them up and said \u2018Hey, we\u2019re doing this record. Wanna be on it?\u2019 They were stoked and it blew me away when they said yes.<\/p>\n
\nWell, initially the main reason I got tattoos was for antisocial reasons, know what I mean? It was basically to separate myself from mainstream society and that was 20 years ago. Now it\u2019s a phenomenon and mainstream society wants to get tattooed and that\u2019s cool but I can\u2019t relate to waiting \u2018til something\u2019s safe to do it. My tattoos are very personal. I\u2019m not the kind of guy who goes in a bar and says \u2018hey look at this – yeah let me see yours\u2019 sort of thing we have to have more in common than just having tattoos. That\u2019s like living in the same city, it doesn\u2019t mean anything to me. Eric Boski does most of my stuff now. He\u2019s one of the best guys on the West Coast doing the traditional bold line stuff and I\u2019m still collecting \u2018em, I guess.<\/p>\n
\nAnd it almost killed me and I realized that if I didn\u2019t stop that I would die. I just, I don\u2019t want to die, y\u2019know.<\/p>\n
\nI thought that I would have to give up rock \u2018n\u2019 roll for a while there because the two went so hand-in-hand. First show, I had been clean about thirty days and we played with 999 at the Santa Monica Civic. I got paid, stayed with some friends in Venice, bought a leather jacket, got a tattoo and went home on Sunday and I didn\u2019t get loaded. I didn\u2019t fuck up. Then I knew that I could probably do it. Without being a flag waver, maybe I could communicate through my music and maybe people could get inspiration from it.<\/p>\n