Terry Adams Reflects on NRBQ’s Legacy and Pushes On with ‘Dragnet’ (FEATURE)

NRBQ frontman Terry Adams is pleased to hear that his band’s latest album, Dragnet (out on November 12th via Omnivore Records) seems uplifting, despite being created during these dark times. “That’s the highest compliment you could give us,” he says. 

The way Adams sees it, keeping a positive attitude is part of his job description. “It’s something that a musician has to be able to do,” he says. “Even before these times, there were other things [wrong] – it’s not a perfect world. A musician has to see above that and be able to keep the spirit of what got us into music in the first place, or what makes the tones and sounds you make feel meaningful. They are higher than the things that annoy us, the things around us that we disagree with. You have to rise above it, as opposed to being in the middle of it.”

Adams certainly has proven that he knows what he’s talking about: he co-founded NRBQ in the mid-‘60s, and has been its sole constant member ever since. Under his leadership, the band have become revered for their eclectic and evocative mix of rock, blues, jazz, and pop, as they’ve deftly shown on their nearly two dozen studio albums (and a dozen more live albums). 

NRBQ (which stands for New Rhythm and Blues Quartet) has a current lineup of Adams on piano, guitarist Scott Ligon, bassist Casey McDonough, and drummer John Perrin. Dragnet is unique in NRBQ’s discography because it is the first album with all of these members. Though Adams is the undisputed leader, he says all members contribute songs, and that it’s a harmonious process. “Everybody knows what belongs and what doesn’t,” he says.

Adams says it isn’t hard for him to figure out who to ask to join NRBQ. “It’s about personalities and feelings, and how you relate to the world,” he says. “I got Scott in the band without ever hearing him play the guitar because I knew he was the right person. I knew he could play, but it’s not like it was a guitarist audition or anything like that. We just know when somebody’s in the same spiritual plane, musically.”

This camaraderie is necessary, as the band members tend to record rather sporadically. “Whenever we get together to play, we’ll go in the studio and record a song or two. You look back and say, ‘Hey, there’s enough for a good record here!’ Then you take the best of those [songs] and put it out,” Adams says. 

Even though the band members can’t do this frequently because Adams lives in Vermont and the others are based in Chicago, they’ve shunned doing any work via file sharing online. Adams says even the COVID-19 pandemic, when many artists turned to working remotely, wasn’t enough to make his band switch their method. “We like to record at the same time so you get to react to each other and get more personality out of it,” he says.

When writing songs, “We try to be in tune with nature and be organic,” Adams says. “We’re not trying to fit into anything, in some kind of corporate sense. It’s for the love of the music and the love of the people and love of the planet and environment.” There is also humor, as the band show on the new album’s title track, which is a playful reworking of the Dragnet TV show theme.

This empathetic and adventurous approach has earned NRBQ a fiercely loyal fan base. Adams thinks this bond has come about because of the way in which he and his bandmates approach their work. “The motives for making music are apparent,” he says. “We have something to give. Some artists only have something to take, where the idea is to take it to a different place, and if that doesn’t work, then quit. Or, if it does work, get enough money, then quit. People have a formula in mind for some kind of imaginary success. 

“To me, success is to keep going – longevity,” Adams continues. “When I was a teen, the guys in the neighborhood would race around the block and they were always faster than me, but I could keep going when they would fall off to the side.”

As he looks back on his childhood, Adams remembers being drawn to music from a very early age: “I think it chose me because music was the only thing I related to when I was young boy. That’s what spoke to me. I’m from Louisville, Kentucky, so I could hear New York City coming out of the music, even though it’s not specifically about that. You can hear the vibes from different people and different parts of the country and different parts of the world, and it spoke to me. So I wanted to do the same.”

Still, Adams recalls that it was something of a fluke that he began playing music himself. “When I was in the sixth grade, we were going to have a talent show at the end of the month, so everybody picked out what their talent was going to be and write it down on this card,” he says. “I was entering, but I didn’t know what my talent was going to be. I looked across the room and I saw the piano and I said, ‘Okay, piano – I’m going to do that!’ It got me up there on stage.”

As soon as Adams did that talent show, he knew he was on the right path – and he hasn’t deviated from it since. “I think off stage, I might be considered awkward or shy,” he says. “Onstage and through music, we can really express ourselves. It can just come out, that happiness that we have, and the fact that we’re alive.”

Photo credit: Norm DeMoura