Like Saint Peter on the occasion of Jesus Christ’s arrest, I have denied Social Distortion three times.
The first was when I heard rumors of lead singer Mike Ness sending signed photos of himself sucking his own dick to girls he’d slept with, and I, like a worshipper of a golden calf, spread those rumors farther, regardless of their validity, blinded by their garish allure.
The second time I denied Social Distortion was when I went all in on being a Murder City Devils fan, reveling in the small differences as I pretended that a tattoo of the number 13 surrounded by flames was less corny than flaming dice, and that pomade as a tool for dishevelment was superior to using God’s cream to shape a beautiful pompadour — as though chaos was somehow better than carpentry. Looking back, I hate myself.
The third denial was, on the surface, the most benign. But if we subscribe to the ecclesiastical notion that indifference to God, not rebellion, is the worst sin, denial No. 3 was arguably the most insidious: I simply forgot about Social Distortion. Life got in the way, and I actually went a stretch without once thinking about America’s premier purveyors of hard-luck hairdo rock. For that, like Peter upon hearing the rooster crow after the Last Supper, I repent like a motherfucker.
Social Distortion — formed in 1978 in Orange County as a better-than-average punk band made distinctive by Ness’s strung-out, bummed-out vocal fry — is an easy band to hate and love in equal measure. An earnest cliché factory that made a personality out of cigarettes, without ever getting that sweet Tom Waits cachet, Social D makes tough-guy music for car nerds (except actual tough guys tend to prefer hardcore or, like, freestyle).
The band mainly appealed to the sort of guys who wanted to date girls who looked like Bettie Page but settled for girls with Bettie Page tattoos, and girls who wanted to date Ness but would leave with the drummer, any drummer. Most of the Social Distortion fans I grew up with just settled on racism and, eventually, death. I’m not better than any of these people; Social Distortion just made me want to be a badass, and I’m lucky enough to have moved to a town that rewarded posers.
Besides writing songs as catchy as anything by the Ramones, Social Distortion’s glory lies in the way it exists entirely outside of time. With their deep attachment to a historical period that never existed, they can’t help but be an eternal anachronism. Despite all the gestures to James Dean and Sun Studios, no prior band ever sounded like Social Distortion. They’re like time-traveling aliens trying to blend into 1950s society, but in 1994. Their closest counterpart in this devotion to an America that never was is Lana Del Rey. Or the Republican party.
Like the face of God and grilled cheese, Social Distortion never changed once they found their true voice on Prison Bound, a 1988 album of sexy junkie regret. If there was any evolution, it was just to become a more perfect, truer, and streamlined version of what they were before. They wear cowboy shirts over wifebeaters and play three-chord blues and countrified punk rock. That’s all they do, and if EDM or rap ever happened, they certainly weren’t made aware.
It’s a purity of vision that might lead some people, including some of their fans, to believe that Social Distortion is conservative. They are not. While their choice of Rolling Stones covers (“Back Street Girl,” “Under My Thumb”) probably won’t get Ness invited to any campus women’s studies groups, the man does love to punch Nazis.
When Ness was recently in the news for roughing up a MAGA-type show attendee (not necessarily a proponent of National Socialism but, for the purposes of this discussion, close enough) who took issue with the insufficiently racist stage patter, I was delighted. But those whose love of Social Distortion has never wavered poo-pooed the whole kerfuffle by saying, “Mike Ness has always punched Nazis.”
When your fans can be blasé about your penchant for knocking out cretins, you’re doing something right.
Not one to ignore portents, especially when delivered by rockabilly cherubs, I have turned my heart back unto the light of Social Distortion. I started talking about them to my friends (Mike Berdan from pig-fuck noise-rockers Uniform is a longtime fan, which… surprised me). I played all seven of their albums, in chronological order, in the bar I work at. The place filled up nicely for a Sunday night and even the Europeans tipped, a rare miracle I lay directly at the feet of our grease-stained troubadours. I even played Ness’s solo albums, which should suck, but instead rule.
I felt wild and free, a bad enough man with a heart of gold, whose hair was slicked if not growing back. I didn’t feel like I did the first time I heard Social Distortion — thank God — as I now know what I didn’t then: that I will, eventually, have sex. But there was a shadow of that electricity of desire and possibility just offscreen, like I was some sort of hero in some sort of movie while that music was playing.
And if the truth is that, like Saint Peter, I’m more a character actor in someone else’s noir, well, shit, at least some bad trouble and hard loving was going down for someone’s rockin’ daddy. I don’t know if the cock crowing three times at the end of JC’s final rave-up is analogous to last call at a dive bar on MacDougal Street, but it felt like a real cool time to be redeemed all the same.
