Social Distortion

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Social Distortion

Punk Rock Band

In 1996 Social Distortion, Orange County, California punk stalwarts, released their third major label album, White Light, White Heat, White Trash, to critical acclaim. It was the band’s first album in four years, the belated follow up to their first major success, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. In those interim years the band lost its longtime drummer and would lose a second drummer before the album was released. Mike Ness, the pumped-up, tattooed singer and songwriter, struggled with newmaterial. The band spent a year in the recording studio, the final results sounding much like previous Social D albums, with its signature blend of roots rock and punk, angry, angst-ridden lyrics and Ness’s gravelly baritone. Upon the album’s release, the band netted legendary punk drummer Chuck Biscuits, of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and D.O.A. fame.

Formed in 1979 by childhood friends Mike Ness and Dennis Danell, Social Distortion came at the tail end of the initial punk movement. From the beginning, Ness’s songs were marked with anger and frustration. As it was in the beginning, so it is with White Light, White Heat, White Trash. As Lorraine Ali, wrote in Rolling Stone, “One reason for Social D’s longevity is that they never have bought into any one trend but instead have written songs with a timeless, outlaw attitude.” The band has stayed close to the essentials; loud guitars, angry vocals, hard-beaten drums. Social Distortion’s voice, which grewout of angry adolescence, has not changed.

The early Social D played hard-driving Ramones-style songs typifying teenage attitudes like distrust of parents and of authority. Suburban punks from Orange County, they entered a scene dominated by Los Angeles groups like X, the Weirdos, and proto-hardcore bands like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. The band’s early years were tumultuous. Fast driving hard core was replacing the punk rock of the seventies. Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols was dead of an overdose and a hero to some. Hard drugs were rampant. “I started drinking and doing drugs when I was eleven,” said Ness. “I did them until I was twentythree. I got thrown out of my house when I was fifteen. Then I just survived. My houses were mostly just a bunch of dope fiends shooting up,” he told Chris Mundy of Rolling Stone.

Ness and the band itself were on shaky ground when they toured cross-country in an old, unreliable tour bus. The film Another State of Mind documents that troubled tour. There was a defection of two original members and Ness fell deeper into addiction. John Maurer, a childhood friend of Ness and a former roadie for the band, took over as bass player in 1984. Later that same year, Chris Reece, from the San Francisco punk band, The Lewd, became their drummer. The band tried to get it together to record while Ness battled his drug addiction. Social D reformed itself, releasing Prison Bound in 1988, their first recording since Ness got clean. Their early punk, Ramones-style sound took on a rockabilly/country flavor which was to become, over the next several albums, their signature style. The band was blues-based, set at punk pace. “We were never hardcore,” says Ness. “And by 1984 punk had lost it. Like anything, when it gets big, it gets diluted.” he told Mundy. The album included a cover of the Johnny Cash classic, “Ring of Fire.” The band continued to tour, much as they had in the early days, and in 1990 they released Social Distortion, their major label debut. They toured that year as the supporting act to NeilYoung.

Persistence and Success

Their follow-up album, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell was released in February of 1992. It marked the band’s first real commercial success. The video for “I Was Wrong” was in heavy rotation on MTV’s “Buzz Bin” for 12 weeks. The album sold over 400,000 copies. With songs titled “Born To Lose,” “King of Fools,” and “Bad Luck,” the album continued Ness’s interest in the dark side of country while remaining true to the band’s punk origins. Various critics decried the record as sounding like a shotgun wedding between two disparate types of music, a wedding that was surprisingly successful. A review in the Los Angeles Reader described Somewhere

For the Record…

Original members include Mike Ness, guitar and vocals; Dennis Danell, guitar; Brent Liles (left band in 1988) bass; Derek O’Brien (left band in 1988), vocals, drums. Later members include John Maurer (joined band in 1984), bass; Chris Reece (member 1988-1994), drums; Chuck Biscuits (joined band in 1996), drums.

Addresses: Record company —Sony Music, Attn: Dave Gottlieb, 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022-3211; phone: 212 8330-8491; fax: 212 833-4060.

Between Heaven and Hell as “somewhere between the Ramones and Johnny Cash.”

Persistence had finally paid off. The band’s longevity, it’s origins in the tail end of the initial punk wave, and Ness’s personal history had earned the band the recognition it deserved. While the outlaw pose adopted by Ness and the songs about drifters, losers and hard luck were rock and roll clichés, Ness had lived what he sang about, and this authenticity shined through. The band toured for nearly sixteen months, co-billed with the Ramones, and later headlining with the Rev. Horton Heat.

Four years passed before the release of their next album, White Light, White Heat, White Trash. During this time Social Distortion was engaged in a lengthy legal battle to reclaim ownership of its back catalogue. They were eventually victorious and the early singles were released on a compilation on Mainliner records, as well as their first EP and “Mommy’s Little Monster.” The band also assumed ownership of “The Casbah,” the Orange County studio wherethey recorded their first two albums, after its owner died in an accident. Chris Reece, who had been with the band for over ten years, left at the end of 1994, as Ness struggled to write new songs. A replacement drummer lasted little more than a year and it was only upon completion of White Light, White Heat, White Trash that Chuck Biscuits, legendary drummer for Black Flag, Circle Jerks, D.O.A. and recently Danzig, joined the band.

White Light, White Heat, White Trash marked both a return to the roots of the band and a culmination of all that the band had worked through overtheyears. Ness sings “in a compassionate growl that fuses pain, anger, shame, and courage, he’s chased by memories he can’t outrun,” wrote Ira Robbins, in Rolling Stone. Ness did not veer from the familiar terrain of frustration, anger, and contrition. However, while the subjects seem familiar, they are viewed with a more mature and wizened outlook. The first single and video “I Was Wrong” reflects upon the singer’s self-destructive past; it is the song of a survivor.

The album was produced by Michael Beinhorn who has recorded Soundgarden, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Basic tracks were recorded in New York; overdub and mixing were done in LosAngeles. Ness, a Southern California native, immersed himself in the local scene while continuing to write songs. The sound is more raw, less country than the roots-punkof Social Distortion and Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. As Ness explained, “Every record I write is an example of what I’m listening to. The last two albums, I was listening to a lot of Hank Williams and dark rockabilly and blues as well, so that came out. What I’ve been listening to the last couple of years is back to Johnny Thunders and the Clash and Ramones and Dead Boys, as well as early LA bands: X, the Dickies, stuff like that. That stuff has so much more soul and substance than what’s called alternative now.”