Comment on this story What: Old 97’s with Charlie Mars When: Thursday, July 8, 8 p.m. Where: Blue Cats Cost: $15

Old 97’s still rock 11 years and a few kids later

by Clint Casey

After an almost three-year sabbatical from the music scene, the Old 97’s are back. With a new album on yet another record label, and new families waiting in the wings, the band is re-energized and in the midst of an exhaustive promotional tour in support of Drag It Up (to be released July 28).

The hiatus was the result of a mounting need to fill their respective domestic roles. Guitarist Ken Bethea says, “My little boy was born, and [drummer Phillip Peeples’] little boy was born just as Satellite Rides came out, and we were gone seven months that year touring. We needed to spend some time with the families and spend some time with the kids.”

But when the group was dropped from Elektra Records last year, Bethea says it wasn’t connected to their time off. “It just got to the point where they wanted rid of us because we hadn’t sold enough records. It wasn’t really a bad deal at all. I don’t have anything bad to say about Elektra, because, realistically, most major labels are set up to sell to the masses; Britney Spears, Linkin Park, just real easy-to-buy-into genre music, and we’re not. It was always an uphill battle for them.”

Bethea makes his Old 97’s singing debut on Drag It Up with “Coahuila,” a surf-pop ode to the single life that swings with references to love lost, chicken ravioli and cavities. “The only other thing that I’ve done has only been at the demo level, never for sale. I had a little band in Dallas in the downtime called the Scrap Hotel. We played ‘Coahuila’ and the 10 other songs that I’ve written in my life. I don’t really write a lot of songs,” Bethea says.

Recorded on an eight-track and far less polished than 2001’s Satellite Rides, the new album reveals a more personal side of the Old 97’s. Also more lyrically and musically complex than previous releases, Drag incorporates songs both old and new. Bethea says that each older song on the album has its own story. “We never really pulled off ‘Valium Waltz’ right, I didn’t think. Some of them just don’t fit on the albums. On Satellite Rides, we wanted to be ‘60s pop like The Kinks. At least that was what we were shooting for. ‘In the Satellite Rides a Star’ didn’t fit on that album. One thing that’s been misconstrued is most every album we’ve released has older songs on it, three- or four-year-old songs.”

The band is enthused over the upcoming tour, looking forward to playing new material to crowds unfamiliar with the songs. “I think that ‘Smokers’ is a real good live song. It’s fast and upbeat. People really seem to like my song. Because I’m singing it, it’s something different, a good-time party song. But most of the songs on the new album are deeper and more intimate,” Bethea says. “I think that we’ll have to wait until the album comes out before people really like them live. We played ‘Valium Waltz’ the other night, which I think is the best song on the album, but the first time that you hear it, well, it’s more quiet... People like good-time party [songs], and, if they’ve never heard the song before, then if it’s fast, they’ll cheer. ‘Yay, it was fast!’”

Songwriting is a group effort for the band, with each member contributing to the final product. “The genesis of the song is usually from whoever wrote the song or wrote the words or music, and then we all tinker with it,” Bethea says. “Generally speaking, if someone has a real good idea, they’ll just say, ‘Let’s add a bridge here’ or ‘Let’s add a whole musical solo section to flesh out the middle or the intro.’ We don’t ever sit in a room and go over the words. We’d just sit there and argue.”

Since its members are in different places personally than when they banded in 1993, Bethea says conversations on the tour bus have changed—“We all have kids, and nobody gets drunk”—and the group is taking things slowly to insure the energy—and future—of the Old 97’s.

“It’s one day at a time, really,” Bethea muses. “We’ll finish up this year, and we’ll say, ‘OK, did everybody have fun being in the band? Raise your hand. If you don’t want to be in the band or if we toured too much, should we back off? Raise your hand,’ and we’ll figure it out from there. I don’t expect us really to say, ‘Well that’s it,’ but I wouldn’t be surprised if we said, “Let’s take another two years off.” I don’t know that. We may not. I’m having fun right now, but, with my family, I can’t be two places at once. We’ll see.”

July 8, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 28 © 2004 Metro Pulse