The recording of Twelfth, the Old 97’s aptly titled, um, 12th record, was not without its “oh shit!” moments.
The recording itself was sandwiched between a natural disaster and a global pandemic, with the band decamping to Nashville to record the same day a devastating tornado tore through the city and finished just days before COVID lockdowns would force band members into isolation for the next few months.
But somehow, in between the chaos, the band – together for almost three decades at this point – were able to create another brilliant Old 97’s record combing elements of classics from their cannon like Too Far To Care or Blame It On Gravity, once again finding the crossroads between Americana and rock and roll. Twelfth comes out on Friday.
Singer/guitarist Rhett Miller was kind enough to talk to Glide recently from his home in upstate New York, discussing everything from punk rockers turned Americana singers, promoting a record when the world has essentially closed-up shop and the Nashville tornado scare.
It’s kind of funny how many former punk musicians now play Americana music or folk rock. Everyone from Mike Ness to Chuck Ragan seemed to have moved to more acoustic music from time to time.
I was just remembering one of the earliest Old 97’s tours, right when we signed to Elektra, we got a tour with Social Distortion and it was 1997 and it hadn’t become clear yet to the punkers that they were going to have to like Roots music, and every afternoon when we were opening there would just be a phalanx of dudes with middle fingers in the air the whole time we were playing. I just should have said, “hang in there. In five years, we’re all going to be listening to music with acoustic guitars.”
It’s kind of fun to watch the evolution of these genres.
Well, Murray (Hammond), our bass player, is a perfect example. He was in a super psychedelic band and was self-publishing these punk rock fanzines and whenever a punk band would come through Dallas they’d sleep in his tiny apartment. He had The Dead Kennedys – he was a giant punk rock fan and then he started playing the Carter Family boxset and the next thing you know he’s wearing gingham and plaid shirts and saying we need to call our band the Old 97’s after and old Tommy Collins’ song.
You grew up in Dallas. What music did you listen to as a kid?
My musical education was really all over the place. There was a radio show on Sunday nights called The Rock And Roll Alternative hosted by George Gimarc and I remember all these a-ha moments listening to that show. REM’s “So. Central Rain” would come on and I would say “oh my God, this is now my favorite thing,” and early Smiths. Before that, I really liked Joan Jett. The Bad Reputation album was super important to me. I found it in a half priced store and then “I Love Rock N Roll” came out and she got even bigger. I heard her playing live on the radio, The King Biscuit Flower Hour. Then I heard “Rebel Rebel,” which began my fascination with Bowie, which became my all-encompassing number one thing. I just sort of skipped across the surface of all the different stuff. I loved Buddy Holly, but I didn’t know about Waylon Jennings until later. I was all over the place.
Your audiences now seem to have just about every type of person in them.
It’s funny, I don’t want to throw Social Distortion under the bus, but part of their cultivated image was “Fuck you if you’re not punk rock.” I remember every night Mike Ness would go out on stage and go “Did your mommy pick out that shirt for you? Did your mommy tell you that was punk rock?” For me that was the reason why I never went too far down the punk rock rabbit hole is because it seemed so exclusive. I could never be punk rock enough to make my skater friends think I was cool. I liked what I liked.
With our audiences, I guess it makes since because we did spring from a lot of different musical wells. I guess we tried to make everybody feel welcome if that makes since. We never tried to tell anybody they weren’t cool enough or legit enough to be at our show.
When you were recording Twelfth in Nashville, I think I read that you had just started when that massive tornado came through.
Yeah, that was our first day. We had just finished our first day of recording and had come back to the Airbnb we were renting and it had floor to ceiling windows and we were exhausted. We had a great day and we look out the windows and all of a sudden there is just this explosion happening across the skyline and we were “What the hell is happening?” It was breakers just exploding. It was crazy!
We were fine. I felt a little funny about this being a talking point in our [press materials] for this record because there were friends of mine that lost a great deal and there were people who were friends of friends who lost their lives. We were fine and it was weird and scary, and I had to field a lot of phone calls that night from terrified friends and family members, but we went back to Sputnik Sound the next morning to keep making that record.
And then the Covid shut down was not too long after that tornado. Had you finished the album at that point?
It’s funny, I’m super clear on the timeline because the start date of our album was the second (of March) and then I flew home on the 12th and the shut down in New York started on the 13th. We had finished tracking at that point and there were a few overdubs that Ken (Bethea, guitar) had to do remotely from Dallas once he got home. But most of it was done and we mixed it remotely, which is easy now because there’s a program where the producer/mixer sends us a link and we’re listening to what he’s listening to in his control room, so thank god that was possible. But we couldn’t have cut it any closer. It was right under the wire.
You also worked with the producer of this one, Vance Powell, on the last Old 97’s record, Graveyard Whistling, right?
Yes, in fact the first time I worked with Vance was when he mixed my first solo album, Traveler. They said, you’re gonna want to get this guy Vance, you’ll love it and they were right. Vance is one of my favorite people and as soon as I met him, I thought, “This guy is going to fit in perfectly with The Old 97’s” and that was certainly the case. We worked great together on Graveyard Whistling, but once we really got to know how to work with each other it all fell into place perfectly with this record.
You knew right away that you wanted to work with him again after the last album?
Yeah and I think my band – and I don’t want to talk for the other guys – but we’ve been together for 27 years, so I have a pretty good feeling about what’s going on. But we like to work with people multiple times. It’s that thing where once you develop a level of comfort with someone the idea of starting over with someone new… BUT inevitably it becomes time and you need to try something new and switch things up.
In normal times, you guys would be touring as soon as the record came out. Did you have second thoughts about releasing the record now, with the pandemic essentially shutting down tours?
In considering whether to release the album now or wait, there were two schools of thought: people are captive audiences, waiting at home for new music, but then there’s also, we’re all in the middle of this shared trauma, now might not be the best time to sell your product. But I kind of discovered there’s more than two angles on this. It’s such a weird tapestry of emotion and turmoil going on with the pandemic; yes people need music, but at the same time nobody is really listening to the radio and there not in their cars that much, so the radio aspect isn’t what it was and people are needing art and music, but the only way their getting it is through their laptops, but right now their laptops are flooded with streaming shows and streaming concerts and it’s all coming through this one source and the Internet is just shoving all this stuff at you and it’s hard to tell what’s art and what’s product.
In the end, we decided that we love this thing, we’re proud of it and we need to put it out into the world. I think it’s going to resonate with a lot of people. It has a lot of accidental overtones with what’s going on. Specifically the first single, “Turn Off the TV,” I only really thought of as a memory of the early ‘90s when I got free cable because I moved into a new place and someone left the cable spigot on and I was suddenly watching TV for 12 hours a day because it was free and I realized, “Oh my God, there are some many better things to do than watch TV for 12 hours a day.” That sort of resonated now because there’s no good news on TV right now. Go find a love one and curl up.
