On May 16th, California band Social Distortion will be in Bend to rock the Midtown Ballroom. I talked to Social D. guitarist Jonny Wickersham last week for a SOUND piece that will be on newsstands this Wednesday. Check out a little extra coverage from that interview and watch the music video Social D. did for “Machine Gun Blues”, their biggest hit off last year’s release Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes. Each band member played a spirited role in bringing the song to life.
Jonny Wickersham:
On his 12 year (so far) experience as a guitarist for Social Distortion…
“It’s cool to play music that a lot of different people respond to… different walks of life, different ages. It feels good to play in a band that has the capacity for that as opposed to being a band that only one generation likes or one demographic.”
On writing songs with Mike Ness…
“My contribution to the stuff is purely musical. On Sex, Love, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, I brought a few tunes to the table that were more mapped out. Mostly I might come up with an arrangement and a few working lyrics and Mike will do a rewrite [of the words]. He’s not the kind of guy who would want to sing someone else’s lyrics because the songs are deeply personal to him. I bring in guitar parts and melodies and then Mike will shape up the structure of the tunes.”
On the song “Machine Gun Blues” and the music video for it…
He [Ness] wanted to write an old gangster story. It’s a traditional heist kind of thing and we put together a video for it. It was a really fun thing to do. The video was really killer. In the video, we extended the song with guitar solos and story and made it over seven minutes long.”
Social Distortion with Toadies and Lindi Ortega
$36 at bendticket.com
8pm, Wednesday, May 16th
Midtown Ballroom, 51 NW Greenwood Ave.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2012.
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