Staying motivated and busting ass your hardest while being yourself might seem a harder road to travel, and people get jaded, sure, but the lessons bequeathed in the trenches to the general public by bands like Supersuckers or The Jesus Lizard or The Dicks have proven their worth time and time again when you hear a real, honest-to-goodness upcoming punk band like Anchor Down or Altercation Records stand out’s Born To Lose, two bands hankering down out there as similar practitioners carrying on with the fine tradition of “keepin’ it real”. And “Keepin’ It Real” for Supersuckers doesn’t mean aping themselves over and over either. The band continue to adapt and grow musically regardless of whatever style they need to express themselves in. Everybody knows Supersuckers write as good a country song as anybody, can still tap into real feeling or shit-brain humor in equal measure, or just rip it on open with a capital “PUNK RAAAWK!!!” barn burner. They are battle scarred pioneers in the field of “Awesomosity”, to cite one of Eddie Spaghetti’s philosophical terms.

I spoke with Washington resident (and Supersuckers resident axe-man, of course) Rontrose Heathman about hitting the twenty year milestone, kicking way more ass than should be allowed for one band, and following your dreams. Hell, we even talked about William Shatner. Ron is one of the most talented guitarists in music today or any day and was also a real straight shooting, down-to-earth person to interview.

MORGAN Y. EVANS: Where to start?! It’s an awesome record and great to talk to you today.

RONTROSE HEATHMAN: I’m glad you like the record. I’m really proud of it. Lookin’ forward to trying to top it as well. We’ve got to tour this one first. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I’m already lookin’ towards the next one. I think we can do an even better one. I want to be one of those bands that gets better with age, you know.

MYE: There’s certain things I’ve gotta talk about ‘cuz they are very important to what’s been going on with you guys.

RH: Sure.

MYE: Well, you’ve got the twenty year anniversary of the band recently! Bands this late in the game aren’t putting out quality material sometimes. Get It Together is still one of the best records Supersuckers have ever made.

RH: I agree with you. I think what happens is, a lot of bands, especially if they get success early on, the writing goes. We’re lucky, you know. We’re still writing good tunes. We’re still writing better tunes.

MYE: The album title Get It Together, comes from a song that has the phrase “Get it together” in it, a tune called “Listen Up”. That song’s opening riff is so cool. You always have memorable tunes but that riff is like, I dunno, you guy’s, like, Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”. [laughing]

RH: Yeah. It is. It’s really, I mean, it started out…in fact, the other guitar player came up with the initial riff and we sort of re-worked the entire tune. It’s one of those things that seemed way too simple to be good. As with a lot of things a lot of times simpler is better and, you know, we ended up just changing the whole song as it took on a life of its own. It seemed like a logical lyric to pull for the album title. The album contains some more in-depth material, if you will, but “Listen Up” is one of the more bonehead type of rock songs. We’ll always right those, so...They’ll always have a place in our hearts. We needed the album title. We actually did feel like we got it together a bit on this one. The last album still had strong tunes but there was a lot of things off with that one. That’s why we waited so long. [Note: since 2003] We wanted to make sure we put out something quality.

MYE: Your last record had a lot of attitude, though.

RH: Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. Song-wise it was good. We could’ve taken a little more time with vocals and arrangements, that’s all.

MYE: It’s cool though, with your own record label Mid-Fi, it’s a great name for your sound. It sounds good but it’s not over done. You guy’s have independence and good people on board. Because of the band’s pedigree and miles you’ve put in, you still play good venues and have released good DVDs.

RH: The label was something we did because we had the option. It’s not to say that Supersuckers aren’t for sale. It would have to be for the right price and the right terms.
We proved that we can do this on our own. It’s not easy. It’s a lot more work than we ever thought it would be. Eddie’s said countless times, “None of us got into this to work”. We kept doing it. None of us had a plan. That was our plan, to not have a plan.

MYE: You have it together and still have so much attitude and people can see, “Oh wow, these guys are doing all this.” Ya know?

RH: We’re still hungry. Sometimes literally. We’ve gotta go out there and we’ve got mouths to feed. Sometimes the perception of the Supersuckers is actually bigger than the band and that surprises some people. Especially in this economy there’s a lot of competition for people’s dollar out there and it’s hard to sell rock. It’s hard these days.

MYE: Seeing the DVD, I know sometimes people have said you have been one of those bands like the Ramones or even, like, Soul Asylum or something, where people love your records but they say the live show is where it so is at. It’s so cool with the live DVD on here seeing you and Eddie dueling or working up the crowd and stuff. You have so much more energy even spankin’ many of these younger bands outright.

RH: Thanks. Live is definitely where it’s at. There isn’t one time in this whole thing, well, maybe a few times when I’ve been sick…Live and in studio are very different things. Anybody who’s done this for awhile will tell you that. Live is our forte, as it were.

MYE: This House Of Blues DVD from back in September has a lot of songs on it including the new ones.

RH: In weird arrangements, too, ‘cuz they weren’t done yet! Some totally changed after that. It was film and we had it and it was something to throw in there, extra.

MYE: Yeah. One of the new tunes was faster, I think “Anything Else”, it was. Some of the soloing on the live set of yours is just smokin’. It’s cool.

RH: You get to see the evolution of the song. Once we got in the studio we totally added a part and added a part, the quiet part at the end, changed the solo break, everything. Everything changed. You can’t listen to it back, I mean, you can at practice, which we normally don’t do too much anyway. A little boom box tape or whatever. You can hear , ya know, the little garage band recordings, but once you get into the studio you can hear “Ya know, we don’t need to do that part again.” Now that we’ve got Scott Churilla on board, who is such a fabulous drummer, we’re able to change arrangements on the fly like that and still have it sound really natural.

MYE: How’d you guys meet? You met Scott from when he used to be with The Reverend Horton Heat, right?

RH: Yeah, yeah. We’ve known all those guys for a long time and done tours with them and stuff. We did one tour where he actually played drums for us AND the Reverend Horton Heat and he had so much fun playin’ with us. We kind of threw it out there for him and he was kind of burnt on playin’ that gig. We were like, “Well, if you wanna play rock instead of rock-a-billy…” Not insulting the Rev. He’s great at what he does.

MYE: Yeah. “Big Sky” and “Lie Detector” are completely brilliant songs of his.

RH: I think the Rev is premier, bit it’s got its limitations and I think Scott saw something with less limitations in us. It’s not about a scene, it’s about songs. He’s a rock drummer, man. They don’t get much better than this guy. No slight on Dan (Seigal), our old drummer, but he was slower in the studio. It got worse as the years went on. He got less interested in the drums. That can happen. Complacency happens. Scott is a drummer’s drummer. He’s always talking about drums and buying new drums and, ya know, reading drum magazines. He lives and breathes drums.

MYE: It’s good to have a person in the studio that knows what they want and can also execute it without hogging the recording session. [laughing]

RH: Yeah. It’s something I’ve had to develop as a musician, too. I didn’t start out in this band as the most kick-ass guitar player, and I certainly don’t think I’m that, but I’m really good within a band. That’s the thing, Scott knows when to lay back and when to hit it. He’s got that good balance of technical ability and feel.

MYE: And he wails the shit out of the toms!

RH: [laughing] Yeah. Even though sometimes it looks like he’s not even hitting back there, he’s got such good technique. He’s the loudest drummer I’ve ever played with. He’s not reaching to the sky and coming down and wasting all his energy. He has a technique where he just snaps those things, but believe me, man…He’s hittin’ hard!

MYE: Back to the new song “Anything Else” and the twenty years of the band thing. Sometimes when you have a new band member it’s almost like a new girlfriend or something. Not any slight, again, to your old drummer or other people.

RH: Right.

MYE: Over the years it seems like you guys are really being yourself whereas a lot of bands kind of take for granted what they have because they’re more worried about making it or their future. You guys kind of just buckled down and I really like Eddie’s message on that song of, “I’d rather not be anywhere else”.

RH: Yeah. I mean, ultimately, you are who you are. It’s real easy in this business to look at and make the analogy of, “Oh, how come Green Day got popular and we didn’t?” But, whatever. You can do that or you can look at what you have. We’ve all had our frustrations with each other. We’ve been a band for twenty years. You’re gonna. There’s no such thing as perfection, but at the end of the day you gotta step back and say, “Ya know, we’re fortunate to do this.” People are paying good money to see us and to hear it and we want it to be as good as it can be.

MYE: You have had ups and downs like any band but with the reputation you’ve cultivated as these, kind of, maniacs, you’d think it would’ve derailed by now. [laughing]

RH: [laughing] We did at times. We lived up to the reputation for quite a few years. It’s not like we’re trying to change it. We’re getting older too, but that doesn’t mean the music has to suffer.

MYE: Like you said, this album has some deeper songs but there’s still “I’m A Fucking Genius”, which could be on some funny college comedy soundtrack and has attitude, or whatever. The lead-off track, “What It Takes”, has a good message of bein’ a man but is also sassy, for lack of a better term. [laughing]

RH: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. There’s still a lot of rock there. There’s guys who, their whole career, like, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, put out consistently great records. Some better than others, but still stellar. He hasn’t lost the passion for music. That’s the thing, as long as you’re passionate about music you can go on.

MYE: It’s cool you mention Tom Petty. Some of your new songs are, I won’t say more mature, but there’s something about some of them that have that. It still comes from a punk background but with a “rock” edge to things. You know what you’re talkin’ about and it doesn’t seem like just some goofball shit, ya know? You’ve always expanded, like when you first did country and worked with Willie Nelson, and on this new record there’s “Breakin’ Honey’s Heart” which is a great, straight forward country song. I hate it when, back to being yourself—not even bands but fans—it happens to Hank III a lot, like punks dig the country-western songs but some country fans don’t like the punk. Did you guys ever get that?

RH: Yeah. You always wonder what that’s gonna be like, but the trick for any artist, the test, for lack of a better term, is not worrying about that. You have to do what makes you happy, and if you can keep that in mind, generally you are gonna win over more fans because they’re gonna know you’re doing something that you’re passionate about.

MYE: I love your country songs and it makes the live set even better because you can do more types of shit.

RH: Yeah. We’re starting to do that even more now and break it down in the middle and have a bigger show all the time. That’s the thing we sort of asked ourselves on this record. Certain songs lend themselves to it. We have been guilty of it in the past, thinking people might think a song’s too slow or whatever. This record was the turning point. A song like “Breakin’ Honey’s Heart”, we have a fast version of it we were doing live, but it was just better this way. That’s how the song should be released and recorded. Our songs aren’t rocket science. They are good tunes. I think writing a good rock or pop song is one of the hardest things in the world to do. It should be easy, but it’s not. That’s the trick. If you can make it look easy you’re doing a good job.

MYE: That’s something about your playing, man. I’ve been in bands for fifteen years and seen all types of players and always thought you were great, but it was real chill to watch the DVD up close of your playing where there is some stuff that seems simpler than it is, but I was watching closely and just buggin’ the fuck out on it. [laughing]

RH: [laughing] Well, ya know, I’ve slowed down a bit in that I’ve gotten to where I want things to fit a tune and be melodic. Rather than play just what I wanna hear, I want to play something that works. That’s actually harder than it looks. It’s so easy to fly off into hyperspace but it’s a lot harder to sit down and think, “Ok, the vocal melody goes there. Let’s start there. Let’s really think about it, as far as where the guitar solo goes”.

MYE: You guys maximize it and don’t step on each other.

RH: And then sometimes there’s a barn burner like “Mud head” and it’s all about, “Boom!” Ya know, just throwin’ it all in there. If you do that all the time and throw every trick in the book in there it can wear the listener out for days. That just gets to be a little annoying.

MYE: “Paid” is a great example. It’s mid-tempo and stays with you and also is working class and motivating.

RH: It’s the AC/DC template right there. That’s all you have to look at, a band like that where everyone knows there role and they do what they do best. Yeah, that song “Paid” is a good example of when not to throw everything in.

MYE: How was it, speaking of AC/DC, working with producer Billy Joe Bowers on Get It Together, who of course also worked with AC/DC recently to great success? Your record has similar, awesome big tones and sounds real.

RH: Yeah. It’s definitely real. We tracked it all to tape. Dan and I have a good little arsenal of amps now and guitars. Billy is an old, old friend of ours. Billy and Eddie and I were in an ‘80s glam band together twenty three years ago!

MYE: Really? I didn’t know that. What was it called?

RH: Thai Pink.

MYE: No shit?

RH: Thai Pink, yeah. So Billy went off and eventually worked for (producer) Brendan O’Brien as his guy (Velvet Revolver, Bruce Springsteen, King’s X). The reason it took longer was Billy needed time off to mix it by himself. We actually did this record almost exactly a year ago but then as soon as Billy was ready and Brendan was gonna take some time off he got the call they got the AC/DC record. Who’s gonna turn down that?! Now look what happened! So, we hadda wait, but…

MYE: Hey, man. Whatever. You ended up with an awesome product.

RH: Yeah. Absolutely. At that point we were like, “What’s it matter if it comes out now or six months from now? Let’s make sure it’s right.”

MYE: How was it having been in bands with Billy, having a studio relationship? What did you want to accomplish ahead of time?

RH: Working with Billy, he’s gotten to be such a stunningly good engineer. He used to write in Thai Pink, too. He’s also gotten to watch Brendan a lot. Working with Billy was really, really easy for us. He doesn’t take it easy on us. We have a great relationship where he’ll let us know if he doesn’t think something is working and if he has an idea we can try and work it in and can tell him if we don’t think it’s working or not, ya know. It’s really great to have a whole ‘nother set of ears in there. That was my only fault with the Motherfuckers Be Trippin’ record is we did it ourselves so it tended to be a little one dimensional sounding or that even had the experience to know what to try.

MYE: It’s cool for any band to do at least one record themselves and try but it’s also cool to bounce ideas off someone. It’s fun. It’s creative.

RH: Yeah. Totally. That’s how it is working with him and I imagine we’ll do our next also. I think it’s a pairing that’s gonna stay around. Maybe at least for two more records. Who was it, Jimmy Iovine, I think, Tom Petty’s producer said, “After three records it’s time to pay your producer.” We’ll see how it goes.

MYE: Hope so, man. What makes it rewarding enough to keep doing music these days besides building your legacy as crazed maniacs?

RH: It’s weird, but I never thought I’d be in a position being in a band called The Supersuckers where I have a more secure career than someone working at Boeing or something, ya know what I mean?

MYE: That’s fuckin’ awesome, man.[laughing]

RH: I have to travel a lot, but I like it and I still get a lot of time at home. I make decent money. My bills get paid. I make a living and enjoy what I do. I wouldn’t go out and do it on a volunteer basis. I mean, I’d still play music for fun, and I even do now around town. I mean, I play in a Humble Pie cover band, too, but I need to make a living. I do that and that’s great. We wouldn’t do it as a career otherwise. We might do reunion shows a few times a year but so far we haven’t had to break up to have the reunion. Some days it’s other reasons. Trying to get the rent paid. Other days, I want to expand further what we’ve already accomplished. On stage, I want it to be entertaining and tight and good and rockin’. That’s what the stage is for.

MYE: You guys have long been known as “The Greatest Rock’N’Roll Band In The World.” There’s also a little bit of contention from the band KISS. They claim that they’re the best. I was wondering if it will ever come to fisticuffs before all is said and done?

RH: There’s the possibility, I’m sure, ya know, of …I mean, everyone will know who the actual winner is. They would probably win in a popularity contest.

MYE: I don’t mean if they could use their KISS Army, or whatever. I mean, in a one on one fight situation. Well, band-on-band. Like at a bar somewhere.

RH: Oh, yeah. We’d take those guys down. They’re old. I’d just grab Gene Simmons fake hair and he’d freak out.

MYE: I mean, Ace Frehley rules. This is hypothetical.

RH: It’s funny. I had an older rocker sister and she played me the songs. There might be, like, twelve KISS songs ever. That’s all I really need, ya know.

MYE: “Strutter”.

RH: Yeah, exactly. “Cold Gin” and “Strutter”.

MYE: “Beth” is a good song. I don’t care.

RH: I was just never the biggest KISS fan growing up even though I was the perfect, prime age for that. My sister’s favorite bands at the time were Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top. I was into all this other stuff when I was a kid.

MYE: Your Thin Lizzy cover of “Cowboy Song” is awesome and that song is very near and dear to my heart. I love it.

RH: I used to have the picture of it but a long time ago we did two Halloweens in a row where we dressed up as Thin Lizzy. Eddie dressed up in black face and we did the full Thin Lizzy set, like, ten songs. “Cowboy Song” is a staple for us and stuck around because of our country leanings. We don’t do it every night on tour, but, it got associated with us pretty early on and people reacted to it. It’s one of those tunes you wish you’d written.

MYE: Of course, it works really well with you guys and the dueling guitars.

RH: We have the exact same set-up as those guys so it’s pretty easy to pull off. It’s a great tune and we covered it and kept it, where there’s other songs that we learned for that show, I couldn’t even play you a note of now. That one, it’s a stand out of the tunes we learned.

MYE: Talkin’ about cowboys, I saw the most fucked up cowboy movie I think I’ve ever seen in my life the other day, maybe even of all movies. It’s this old William Shatner movie called White Comanche and it has jazz stand up bass in the soundtrack and William Shatner is young in it and plays an Indian who takes peyote.

RH: Wow!

MYE: He chases white women. But, his twin brother is like, this cowboy who always gets blamed for the white Comanche’s crimes and it is budget and they never appear on the screen at the same time! It’ll make you really feel awkward.

RH: Strange! I can only imagine. I was on tour one time watching an old episode of Star Trek and it’s amazing how, for lack of a better term, BIG William Shatner has gotten.

MYE: He seems like a cool guy, but woah!

RH: Another movie he was in, our guitar tech is a big horror buff and Shatner was in a horror movie called The Devil’s Rain. [Note: not “reign”] It was the first horror movie I saw as a kid and it scared me out of my mind. I never forgot the name of it. Our tech told me, “Yeah, William Shatner’s in it”. He has the movie and is gonna make me a copy. I’m sure it’s really cheesy but back then it scared the crap out’ve me.

MYE: It’s funny ‘cuz in White Comanche Shatner’s telling everyone that peyote is the Devil’s drug. That alone is worth the $3 DVD.

RH: Yeah, totally. I used to have some of his records, too, but my friends ripped them off when I would go on tour in the ‘90s and had roommates. They were pretty funny.

MYE: Music? I know he did some shit with Ben Folds and Henry Rollins.

RH: Yeah, in the Sixties he did “Shatner sings…so and so”. Really bad.

MYE: Back in the day. That’s crazy, man. That rocks. Well, speaking of quality music, that brings us to trashing the state of music today and your song “Something Good For You”.

RH: Yeah.

MYE: It was initially my favorite on this new record. It has a glammy side and talks about people settling for less in life. Mediocrity.

RH: It seems that’s a prevalent thing in our country. People sometimes settle for so little. It doesn’t mean it isn’t out there, quality. It just means you’ve gotta look for it.

MYE: We’re lucky to have bands like you guys who’ve earned their stripes but also keep giving what you do to the fans even when it is harder.

RH: It’s easy to smile whenever things are perfect but when they aren’t you gotta rise above that stress. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been caught up in moments of doubt or self-pity or whatever. It happens to everyone. But, definitely, I feel lucky to have gotten to do this and I want that to show through. I don’t want to rest on my laurels and I don’t think we have been. I want to keep learning and keep my ear to the ground for newer bands that are good or not so new. I like Kings Of Leon, as far as a popular band. I was also really fortunate to fly over to Holland and play some shows with The Hellacopters before they broke up. I don’t want to be cranky old beard.

MYE: Well, thanks a lot and good luck with everything coming up.

RH: Thanks, man.