Another state of mind
Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness talks about being one of punk’s founding fathers
John Kendle

In his book I Was a Punk Before You Were a Punk — the second in a three-part memoir of the early 1980s Winnipeg and Vancouver punk scenes — Chris Walter includes a snapshot of 20-year-old Mike Ness fronting Social Distortion at a Winnipeg gig in 1982.

The occasion was one of those North End hall shows that were de rigeur back in the day. These gigs saw bands as legendary as Black Flag and 7 Seconds pass through town before anybody outside the punk world knew who they were.

At the time — and remember, these were the pre-Internet, pre-CD days — Winnipeg was typical of most North American cities.

Only a few hundred, maybe a thousand, people were clued in to punk, and they were starving to see and hear new bands. So, when a double bill featuring SoCal groups Youth Brigade and Social Distortion came to town it was an event, and everybody who was anybody went to see them.

Fast-forward 25 years and Mike Ness is still the frontman of Social Distortion, and his band’s first Winnipeg shows in a decade are once again an event. But the 45-year-old man of 2007 is certainly not the callow youth of 1982. This year’s model sports full-sleeve tattoos, runs a car and motorcycle customizing business, and he’s been through the rock ’n’ roll wringer a time or two. But he’s still here to tell his tale, and he remains true to his heartfelt, emotionally pure songs — even if his sound has morphed from two-minute speed shots to country-punk confessionals.

Asked about that ancient Winnipeg show, which was part of a tour documented in the film Another State of Mind, Ness just laughs.

“I remember bits and pieces of that tour. I do remember you had that Extra Old Stock beer up there, and that enabled me to not remember too much else,” he says from his Orange County, Calif., home. “If you watch the film, the life we were living might seem tragic or kind of sad, but I couldn’t even imagine not experiencing that or living my life without it.

“Back then, when you saw another punk rocker, on the bus or wherever, you immediately had a friend to talk to about bands or shows or whatever.

“You had to be unified because it really was dangerous to be a punk in those days.”

Ness formed Social Distortion in Orange Country in 1978. He was a 16-year-old tearaway at the time (legend has it he was kicked out of his home at age 15), inspired by The Clash and the burgeoning Los Angeles scene. The band’s original lineup lasted just months before Dennis Danell was drafted to play bass, and then guitar. Ness and Danell subsequently formed a writing-and-performing partnership that lasted through several rhythm sections and five studio albums before the latter’s death from a brain aneurysm in 2000.

Although Social D. hasn’t exactly been the most prolific outfit of the past 25 years, the band’s ballsy, roots-tinged punk sound (refined at about the same time as Rank & File and Jason & the Scorchers were gaining notoriety) has attracted many followers. The group’s ’80s albums came five years apart due to Ness’ heroin and alcohol addictions (he’s clean now), and they were the spiritual forebears of Social D’s golden trio — 1990’s self-titled effort, Somewhere Between Heaven & Hell (1992) and White, Light, White Heat, White Trash (1996).

When Danell died, Ness naturally wondered whether to continue with Social D. Ultimately, he put together a razor-sharp quartet featuring guitarist Jonny Wickersham (ex-Cadillac Tramps), bassist Brent Harding and drummer Charlie Quintana.

That foursome created the band’s 2004 album, Sex, Love and Rock ’n’ Roll, and it’s the lineup Ness is taking across North America on the current tour. While rumours abound that a new album is imminent, the singer/guitarist says nothing has been recorded, save for a new song to be included on an upcoming greatest-hits release.

“That’s called Far Behind (I’m Leaving You),” Ness says. “It’s about anyone and everything who’s ever slandered you or been jealous of you or talked shit or whatever. It’s a great way of telling all those people at once what they can do.”

Though he acknowledges that his fans do have to wait an inordinately long time between recordings, Ness alludes that songwriting doesn’t come easily.

“I’m generally pretty lazy,” he says. “I try not to let too much time go by, but it takes time to come up with good tunes. When it comes time to do an album I usually have 10 or 11 songs without words, and then I have to search for what they evoke in me, how they make me feel — and that can take a while.

“Those moments where songs just come to you all at once? That’s happened to me and those tend to be your best moments — but it’s rare. Very rare.”

Other reasons for Ness being a little slow to get into the recording studio include his family — his oldest son is now a skateboarding teenager whom Dad was trying to impress him when broke his wrist last year — and his automobile business, Black Kat Kustoms.

“Black Kat’s about three years old now. I started it as a clothing line that encapsulated the Southern California lifestyle of cars and motorcycles and clothes and rock ’n’ roll, and then it moved into customizing cars,” Ness says, adding that he has nine vintage automobiles (his everyday ride is a Silverado pickup) to go along with his “roomful” of guitars.

“It all just seems to fit together,” the singer/guitarist says of his interests, though he could really be talking about his life.