Old punks never die

Social Distortion endure & endure & endure

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

We are living in the age where The Offspring's "Gotta Keep 'Em Separated" has become a high school prom staple. Punk rock is being used to authenticate everything from beer to video games. But Social Distortion have been playing their highly melodic brand of punk rock for 15 years now, having started off when the genre was still considered undesirable by most record companies and radio stations. Now that time has cleansed punk's rep and commercialism has desegregated the scene, Social Distortion have found waters calm and highly profitable, to boot. The Mirror spoke with co-founder and guitarist Dennis Danell about the roots and the rehash of that adulated music Social Distortion has been immersed in for so long.

The Mirror: Having been part of the original punk wave in the late '70s, how do you feel about a lot of bands jumping on the proverbial bandwagon?

Dennis Danell: It's funny, in the mid '80s when you said you were a punk band people would just laugh at you. Now, Hollywood heavy metal guys who used to look down their noses at us are slicking back their hair, getting pierced and running around telling everybody how punk they are.

M: Given your band's past problems with drugs, how do you explain your 15-year endurance?

DD: When we started we were just juvenile delinquents. Being caught up in the Hollywood rock scene, we thought that getting wasted and doing drugs was the norm. Looking back I wonder how the hell we survived--we gave ourselves every opportunity to self-destruct. But we've learned from our mistakes.

M: What have you learned?

DD: Now we know that playing shows isn't about picking up chicks and seeing how much beer we can drink anymore.

M: With your last couple of records, it sounded like you were denying your punk history for a rootsier rock 'n' roll sound. Why?

DD: Those records had more of a rockabilly sound and I think that was a reaction to a lot of what was going on in the punk scene at the time. There were a thousand hardcore bands screaming in a microphone and confusing intensity with tempo. I guess we just distanced ourselves from them unintentionally.

M: So who did you affiliate yourselves with?

DD: A lot of early rock 'n' roll. That music sang about the same things as punk rock--alienation and frustration. It isn't too hard to find the similarities: I mean, in the early '50s white America didn't want their kids listening to rock 'n' roll because they considered it the devil's music...

M: But now punk's accepted. Are you happy?

DD:I don't know if I'm happy or sad about it. I just can't believe it took this long.

Social Distortion with Tenderloin and Orbit play an all-ages show at the Spectrum on Wednesday, April 16, 7pm, $17.50 plus tax