What the Supersuckers’ re-enactment of Grease lacks in accuracy, it makes up for in machismo
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Warehouse Nightclub
Thursday, September 27 - Thursday, September 27
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Eddie Spaghetti is an icon. With his tattered cowboy hat, shit-kicked Gibson bass and cocksure swagger, the Supersuckers front man is a poster boy for punk rock ’n’ roll, the abrasive and aggressive bastard child of Motorhead’s rock grit and The Ramones’ simplistic straightforwardness.
Sure, it’s an underdog role in which even those influences barely attain the recognition they sorely deserve, but as a sold-out show at The Warehouse clearly proves, some of us get it. After two decades of sacrilicious riffs and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, we know that Spaghetti, guitarists Dan “Thunder” Bolton and Rontrose Heathman, and Reverend Horton Heat ex-pat drummer Scott Churilla have one mission in life — to deliver the rock.
Yet Spaghetti is just as much of an enigma as he is a symbol of rock spirit. Helming the Supersuckers ship as an independent outfit for the past half-decade, Spaghetti has steered the band through their Carlsberg years with ease, but the lack of a full-length release since 2003’s Motherfuckers Be Trippin’ has begun to put fans on edge. Enough live albums and EPs, damn it.
“We’re planning on going into the studio this November and hopefully crank out another masterpiece,” Spaghetti says in an effort to assuage the masses. “I guess I underestimated the desire in people to have a full-length record. I thought we’d just put out a few more EPs, but we need a full-length. It’ll likely be a rock record with a bit of acoustic flavour thrown in.”
Longtime fans will be far from shocked at the thought of an acoustic outing from the band who sings about being born with a tail and rearranging faces with a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. The Supersuckers have embraced their love of country for years. Their fans have, too — 1997’s twang-filled Must’ve Been High is still their best seller. Still, Spaghetti notes that, until recently, the band was somewhat reluctant to let this aspect of their personality fully shine. Garnering more self-confidence as the ratio of finger-picks to power chords expands, the Supersuckers now revel in their bi-polar grandeur.
“(Playing rock and country together) is us showing our full hand of cards,” he says. “We can do both and they work well together. We tried to keep them so separate for so long — country and rock — because we didn’t want to be branded cowpunk, (but) I’m over that now. It lets us be what we are at all times. It’s refreshing to take the training wheels off our operation and get into the acoustic side. I think (age) plays into it. As we get older, we tend to want to do all that we can and who cares what people call it.”
In Spaghetti’s view, the band’s split personality has been a blessing. The move to more diverse sets has made their shows increasingly balanced.
“Whenever we (play) one (genre), the other thrives from it,” he continues. “When we’re on a country tour, it makes us hungry to get up there and rock. On a rock tour, we hanker for the occasional show where we can break out the acoustic guitars. Playing the extremes, they fuel each other.”
Still, none of this would have been possible without the band’s leap into absolute autonomy, ushered in by the dissolution of label dealings after 1999’s The Evil Powers of Rock ’n’ Roll (Koch International). Increasingly frustrated with years of convoluted contracts and general mismanagement, the Suckers opted to create their own Mid-Fi Recordings label in 2002 rather than hunt out yet another deal. Liberated from their label’s expectations, the band was free to come out of the country closet.
“(Being an independent band) has definitely been easier and more straightforward to a degree,” he sighs. “We have to give credit to the labels we were on in the past for getting us out there and giving us the head-start to do it on our own, but there are aspects that are easier by doing it this way. There’s a lot more work though. I didn’t get into music to work, but it’s rewarding to see the fruits of our labour pay off.”
