18 January 26–February 1, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents We’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive Propelled by some mysterious drive And they still let me do it as weird as that seems And I do it most nights and then again in my dreams – from “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive” The Old 97’s will mark its 30th anniver- sary with a run of four concerts in Deep El- lum during the first week of February. And this isn’t your average 30th birthday. There have been no lengthy gaps in productivity, no extended hiatus, no break-up and re- union and, perhaps most remarkably, no turnover in the band’s membership. The four guys who hit Deep Ellum to- gether shortly after Bill Clinton was inaugu- rated as the 42nd president are the same ones who will celebrate at the corner of Canton and Crowdus in 2023. “It’s wild, it’s crazy,” Hammond says. “You roll back 30 years from 1992 and you have 1962. That’s before the Beatles started put- ting out records. Before Revolver, way before Sgt. Pepper’s. For me, the band has just been this ever-present thing. We’re always writing songs, we’re always playing gigs and we’re al- ways thinking about the next thing.” While Bethea and Peeples have remained in Dallas, both Miller and Hammond have called a different coast home for much of the band’s run. Miller’s time in New York and Hammond’s years in California have per- haps aided the band’s prosperous continu- ity, but it really comes down to the fact that the guys all really like one another. “Well, to quote a song off our most recent album, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder, that’s why I wander,’” Miller casually sings into a video call. “But I think a lot of things have allowed us to stay together for so long when other bands don’t. I think the fact that the rest of the band has been supportive of me making solo albums, so I don’t just end up resenting them for the songs they don’t want for the Old 97’s, is a big reason.” Let’s say you’re in Chicago and you’re breaking up all over the El You were so in love but you were only in love with yourself – from “The El” The support Miller mentions for his excel- lent string of solo records is there, but that didn’t come immediately. In a tale almost as old as rock ’n’ roll itself, Miller’s maiden voyage into solo waters as a member of the band is the only time Bethea says he was nervous the band might not continue. Miller’s 2002 LP The Instigator surprised Bethea by being a full-band record featuring non-97’s musicians as opposed to an acoustic collection with only Miller and his guitar. A few years earlier, Bethea says Hammond had predicted Miller would make a record by him- self, but Bethea and Peeples admit they were still not in favor of it when it . They had built some momentum as a band thanks to a trio of well-received major label albums on Elektra Records. They were tour- ing all over the country, making the rounds on late-night network talk shows, getting write- ups in national magazines and hearing their songs on movie soundtracks and having them placed on television shows. And now, there was a fear it would suddenly stop so that the singer could become a bigger star. But that was then. Over coffee not far from those Marquita Courts apartments, the guitar player and the drummer recall their reserva- tions surrounding “Rhett Miller, solo star” while acknowledging that Miller’s solo pur- suits have actually been yet another helpful aspect in making them a long-lasting entity. “I wasn’t surprised by Rhett making a solo record,” Bethea says. “But I was against it, and I talked to him about it on our bus one night. I said that it never works out for the lead singer when he goes solo, and he didn’t understand why I was saying those things to him.” He adds with a chuckle, “I was harsh- ing his mellow.” Peeples adds, somewhat incredulously now, “I even had a conversation with Rhett’s mom about it! The way I saw it was that the Old 97’s were sort of this thing where 2 plus 2 equals 16. It just works, even though there’s no logic to it.” One night, now more than 20 years ago, Miller went to a diner alone so he could write during a tour stop in Chicago. He says it had been a stressful day with his mates because of the planning for the solo album. Over his din- ner-for-one, he wrote “The El,” a rollicking tune that would’ve fit nicely onto a 97’s al- bum, although it ended up on The Instigator. Along with the new song, the solitary night soon yielded a valuable revelation. “‘The El’ is ostensibly a romantic song,” Miller says. “But I realized not too long after having written it that it might be about our band. You know, you’re in Chicago and ‘breaking up all over the El,’ and I had this question of ‘what happens if I lose all this?’ I knew that I didn’t want to lose it.” In time the confusion and uncertainty subsided, and Miller has continued to flex his songwriting muscle over the course of several solo albums. He records songs that don’t fit onto 97’s albums, and as a result, Bethea says, the band’s presence is ulti- mately still felt even if they aren’t touring as a unit. It all goes to keeping the band active in the studio and out on the road. “So, I’m glad they stuck with me through the growing pains of having a dual career,” Miller says. I got a check for nothing All made out to someone I truly love myself Murry says we’re going to take the money sometime Well it might as well be this time We’re going to spend it all on ourselves – from “The One” Any relationship that’s lasted three de- cades has endured its share of near misses. Miller’s solo career may have injected some doubt into the band for a short while, but the band has surged past the kind of roadblocks that have derailed other bands. The Old 97’s would likely make for an uneventful episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.” After a three-album run with Elektra, the label dropped them in 2001. Not long after that, the music industry began to implode, thanks to the advent of illegal mp3 stream- ing. At that point, artists who did snag re- cord deals were seeing barely a fraction of the money they would have earned just a few years earlier. The 97’s members were also getting older. Even young is old when it comes to re- cord labels wanting to invest in something.. And they had started families, which brought about new priorities and schedule demands that didn’t always harmonize. In 2020, Miller attracted some headlines when he declared he had stopped drinking alcohol, but even that announcement was less than dramatic, as he had been sober for five years at that point. In hindsight, the truly hard parts of stay- ing close as a band had come and gone when the band marked its first decade to- gether. “I think making it 10 years was harder than making it to 30,” Peeples says. “So many bands don’t make it past 10 because they had some idea of how things were supposed to go or how much money they were supposed to make. We hit 10 years and just kept going.” Oh and if you try If you don’t let a living thing die It might wind up Better than brand new – from “Belmont Hotel” The Old 97’s are often cited as one of the forerunners of the ’90’s alt-country craze that saw bands including Wilco, Son Volt and Whiskeytown spring forth. Their sound bene- fited from the diverse perspectives of each in- dividual. They weren’t trying to sound like a renegade cowpunk group as much as they simply played their own songs, their own way. With a developed style geared more to- ward the roots music world rather than the radio rock realm, the Old 97’s were able to set themselves up for the kind of longevity they may not have anticipated in 1993. “This was all accidental, but one of the nice things about the Old 97’s is that when Murry and I turned our back on so-called ‘proper’ rock ‘n’ roll to go more towards a rootsy, folksy thing, is that it’s been scalable,” Miller says. “It wasn’t calculated this way, but we’re great at [former Dallas club] Nao- mi’s and we’re great at the Fillmore. It’s also the kind of thing where it’s scalable in terms of youth and insanity. Even though I don’t drink anymore, we still have nights where I jump around a bunch and nights we’re more subdued, but we still rock.” Peeples says the band’s success might be due to many factors, but an overabundance of strategizing isn’t among them. “I’ve only ever wanted to play the drums,” he says. “No matter what I was do- ing in life, even when I was a kid, I would only do something else if I could also play drums. For me, the band is sort of like that in that I started playing drums with them and I just haven’t stopped.” Bethea still conveys a giddy excitement about having been able to make a career out of his love for music. He’s self-assured in just how good his band is, but he can’t hide that he knows he’s one of the fortunate ones. “I love being in this band, and I have never once wanted it to go away,” he says. “Once I hit that corner and was staring at turning 50, I was like, baby, there’s nothing else I’m going to do. I could go on stage and play with Bruce Springsteen and it would be super fun, but it wouldn’t be in the top 100 musical moments in my life because being on stage with the 97’s and playing the songs we write is just so badass.” “Hey, it’s worked out for me,” Peeples adds with a laugh. “I got free banana pud- ding at Intrinsic [Smokehouse and Brewery] the other day.” Thirty years is a long time for a band to stay intact and active, no matter how easy the Old 97’s have made it look. Each new al- bum gets glowing reviews, and the band’s tour stops are as crowded as ever. The way in which they have made the years glide by is the very reason it’s not hard to imagine more decades passing under their tour bus tires. Besides, they have studio time booked to make their 13th album soon. “I love being in the Old 97’s more than anything else in life, outside of my family,” Miller says. “There’s nothing that will keep us from going until it’s just not physically possible anymore.” Kings of All the World from p17 Tara Renshaw/courtesy Ken Bethea The Old 97’s play in Dallas at The Gingerman in 1995.
