Interview with Mike Ness of Social Distortion

“We’re just coming off a 27-show run, and we put a lot of thought into that set list, so I feel like this one would be perfect over there [in Australia]; it’s kind of a journey through the catalogue from beginning to end, including some new stuff. For me, it’s interesting performing it because you don’t always realise it when you’re up there – you’re not really thinking about what a song really meant to you when you wrote it. It is very interesting to see the journey from Mommy’s Little Monster to Hard Times, to Prison Bound – not in that order necessarily, but growing up and going through life experiences and having it all documented in songs. When I’m up there doing it, it’s like Oh God, this is my life, literally. So I feel like that’s interesting for the fans as well, to see us play stuff from the very beginning that we hadn’t played in over 30 years from our first single playpen – the fans were going crazy over it, and it actually sounded better than it ever had, so to be able to do that and have something from the beginning of our career and then to play a new song shortly after, it’s like people really appreciate that!”

As expected, creating a set list when you’ve been releasing music for forty years can prove quite the task, but to the initiated, it is a very real craft, as Mike Explains. “As a rule of thumb, I kind of just pick a couple from each album but there’s a lot more to it than that – I have to figure out what key is that one in, and what’s a good key to start the next song, so when we end one song and start a new one, and it sounds bitchin, it’s so exciting! And it’s just little things like that that people don’t think about, and you know, the fans don’t really know what goes on when planning a setlist, but it’s little things like that that make it more of a show.”

“Actually, he continues, “the bass player (Brent Harding) and the drummer (David Hidalgo Jr.) had been bugging me for years to bring up Playpen, and I was like man I wrote that song when I was 17 years old – When I first started writing songs I was writing about rebellion; against your parents, and the cops and all this, so first it was a little hard for me to go back that far, but we just started playing and it sounded better than it ever had, and I was like alright, I can get behind this, it actually sounds really cool!”

In this era, we’re seeing something of a punk rock renaissance; the albums many of us grew up listening to are celebrating 30 and 40-year anniversaries, leading to subsequent tours from bands that we otherwise may never have had the opportunity to see live on stage, especially in Australia. The most interesting part is the way some music translates to multi-generational audiences. This statement is one that rings true with Ness as he talks about the crowds on their more recent tours.

“It’s the whole spectrum you know, sometimes I bring up kids from the crowd in the last song and talk to them and get their point of view – it brings me so much joy to see the old timers that have been following Social Distortion for the last 40 years, and then there’s the 40 year olds, and the 30 year olds, and the 20 year olds, and then I bring up some 7, 8, 9, 10 year olds, you know; it’s a multi-generational thing and that doesn’t always translate with rock ‘n roll – for us it has, and we-re super lucky that it has, that a guy or a girl that grew up with Social Distortion, now they’re married and they’ve got 5 year old kids there, dressing them in Converse sneakers and skinny jeans and playing them social D – to me that’s really cool. and sometimes if the bus is parked out front, I like to look out and see the line and see the different demographics and the different shapes and sizes and ages and backgrounds, it’s just so cool that it’s so diverse you know. Sometimes it’s the parent bringing the kid, and sometimes it’s the kid bringing the parent!”

Social Distortion fans will be well aware of the fact that the band’s most recent studio album was back in 2011, and for many years there has been talk of new material on the way, but is there any truth to this, or is it simply a pipe dream? “Literally five days after we get back from Australia, we’re going into pre-production” says Ness, “which is 4 weeks of just rehearsing the songs and working out the kinks, and then we’re going into the studio – so it’s happening now and we’re really excited about this new stuff! It has a very signature sound, but it also goes back to the beginning, you know, that first wave of punk in the late 70s – The New York Dolls, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, kind of just paying an homage to that period of time because that was my favourite period of punk, where it was still very kind of Blues-based rock ‘n roll, but faster with a lot more attitude and a lot more style. It was still pretty traditional rock ‘n roll, just a little faster and, you know, primitive. I like the primitivity of it… is that a word? It’s primal.”

“I don’t know the title of the album yet but it’ll come. It will come as we start recording and singing and start seeing the real common thread between them; it’s all subconscious, but there’s a common thread that even the writer doesn’t know until it comes to them. I guess there’s some exceptions, where you have a premise before you write the songs, but for me it usually works better the other way.”

It’s no secret that over the years Mike has struggled with addiction; arguably some of their best music was written about those times in his life, but has there ever been a time where he considered just walking away from it all? “Never, not at all” he answeres without hesitation. “I would tell this to any young musician, it’s a long and often discouraging road, but the thought of giving it up was never an option, even when we were on a school bus touring across America for $20 a night” he laughs, “you know, I was living the dream at 20 years old but no there’s never really been that time. Covid was weird though; it was the first time that I had not been able to do what I love to do, so that was weird, but I think that that really built up an angst in everybody, not just musicians but fans as well. I like to use the analogy of prohibition, and this is the roaring 20s, but now prohibition is over we can get back to normal again, you know, now it’s a celebration, and it still is for me.

We all need live rock ‘n roll music.”

Wise words from a punk who’s been through it all, and still managed to come out on top.

Social Distortion are touring with Bad Religion for a string of co-headline shows throughout Australia and New Zealand, starting Feb 15 in Auckland.

Get tickets here.

Check out our interview with Bad Religion’s Jay Bentley here.