Supersuckers frontman Eddie Spaghetti on the band’s new album, hanging with the West Memphis 3, and why rock is dead

The Supersuckers, the self-described “Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,” have returned to the fray once more with Get the Hell, their first proper album in 6 years. Much has changed in the rock landscape in that time, but Get the Hell pays no heed to whatever sub-genre is the current flavour of the month – this is a full-on, driving rock record, as only the Supersuckers can still deliver.

The band first made their mark in the early 90’s with a duo of amped-up garage-rock records on Sub Pop, 1992’s The Smoke of Hell, and its monster of a follow-up, 1994’s La Mano Cornuda. At the height of the band’s popularity they released 1997’s Must’ve Been High, a stripped-down country record that confounded most fans at the time, and went on to tour and record with likes of Willie Nelson, further cementing their reputation as a band that refused to be categorized.

On the eve of the band’s current Canadian tour, we caught up with Supersuckers frontman and primary songwriter Eddie Spaghetti by phone to talk about Get the Hell, his involvement with the West Memphis 3, the band’s upcoming follow-up to Must’ve Been High, and why Greg Graffin of Bad Religion is an asshole.

Supersuckers play Montreal’s Cabaret Underworld (1403 Rue Sainte Élisabeth) on November 7th. Tickets are available here.

Bad Feeling: Get the Hell is the first Supersuckers full length in 6 years, what took so long to get this record out?

Eddie Spaghetti: It’s been sort of a conundrum of trying to get somebody else to put it out. We were putting out our own records for a long time on our own label, and it just kind of became financially unfeasible to do that. So you know, it took us a couple of years to find somebody who was willing to put out the record.

Was there anything specific you were looking for in terms of a label these days?

Well, we were kind of just looking for somebody enthusiastic, someone who saw the value in the band, and I feel like we got that with Acetate in a big way. He’s a great guy and has been super supportive of the band. It’s been a really great relationship to have. And it made it possible to put the record out. We thought we were ready to put a record out, I don’t know, maybe 3 years before this record came out, but it wound up benefiting from having the extra time, because we had more songs, better songs, and we got to pick from the cream of the crop.

You had Blag Dhalia of The Dwarves produce this record, what kind of influence did he have on the recording? 

Well, he wasn’t really there for the recording of the record actually. He mixed it after the fact. We thought we were done with the record, and I played it for him and he was like, “These songs are so good but the sound is just not hitting me like it ought to, you ought to let me mix it.” And I was like, “OK!” So I did, and it ended up being the best thing to happen to the record, because it sounds so tough, it’s everything it needed to be.

When you starting writing for this record, was there a conscious decision to create a full-on rock record this time?

Yeah, we definitely did. We wanted to come at it guns-a-blazing, and I think we needed to because it had been so long. Our last record (2008’s Get It Together) was kind of lacklusterly received by our hardcore fans. When we made the last record, I was super proud of it, but it didn’t hit people like they wanted to be hit by a Supersuckers record, so we knew this one had to really slam.

This is the first record without longtime guitarist Rontrose Heathman, did that affect the songwriting at all?

Yeah, it was surprisingly easy. He wasn’t a big contributor to the songwriting process anyway, I didn’t really miss a beat as far as that goes. And frankly, without him around, everything was so much easier to get done. Not that he wasn’t a really talented guy, he was super talented, but just kind of a troubled, difficult soul at times.

When you’re compiling songs for a Supersuckers record or your solo albums, is there a different mindset for each? Are there things you’d do for one and not the other?

Yeah, probably. I mean, the solo stuff, all those songs, I like them to be songs that I can play on an acoustic guitar all by myself. So that’s really the main criteria for the solo stuff.  And the solo records tend to be more country affairs than rock affairs.

Did recording Must’ve Been High inspire a lot of your later solo work? If you look back, it seems like a springboard for a lot of what comes later.

Yeah, for sure, and just having the hankering to continue to make country music, and not have to drag the band through that process again was a big inspiration for that.

Do you ever feel that Must’ve Been High was ahead of its time? At the time it may have confused some fans, but now that sound is everywhere.

Yeah, I definitely do. When that record came out it was widely panned and considered an aberration and a failure and all these sort of things,  but over time it’s become our best-selling record. So I do think it’s been vindicated to a degree. And actually, we’re currently writing songs for what’s going to be the follow up to Must’ve Been High, so we’re going to make another country record here soon.

That’s amazing, do you have anyone in mind that you’ll be collaborating with this time?

We’ll probably use (Must’ve Been High collaborator) Jesse Dayton again, we’ll get some girl to sing a song again with me, I’m sure. I don’t know who yet, but somebody for sure!

One thing that’s always been interesting about The Supersuckers is that you moved to Seattle in the late 80’s. Did you feel like you fit in with what was happening in Seattle back then?

Yeah, totally, we were just glad to be somewhere that had like, a scene to speak of. We grew up in Tuscon, where there was no kind of, anything. No one was doing anything like we were doing at all. When we pictured ourselves moving to Seattle, we sort of thought we would be the best band they’ve ever seen. We had no idea that there was good bands up here already! Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Nirvana were all already going on, so it was sort of a miracle really, a perfect storm.

What was your relationship like with Sub Pop back then? Did they understand where you guys were coming from, or did they have different expectations for the band?

No, they totally got it and they were really cool, and let us be who were, and let us put out the records that we wanted to put out. In fact, when we put out Must’ve Been High, a lot of people thought we were doing it as our last contractual obligation to Sub Pop, and trying to take the piss, and all this sort of stuff, but we took it really seriously, and made a real country record, you know? And they let us do that, so they were great.

There’s this famed “lost” Supersuckers record for Interscope, what ever happened with that? 

We were supposed to put out a record on Interscope, and that’s why we left Sub Pop, because Interscope was interested in the band. That was supposed to be our big major label debut. Most of those songs ended up being re-recorded and released on the The Evil Powers of Rock n’ Roll record. But that record still exists, and we’ve actually leaked most of it out through our fan club singles and whatnot, but no one’s really heard it in its entirety.

Are there any plans to release that album?

I don’t know, I mean, you would like to think so, because it’s a really cool record produced by Tom Werman who did Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil record, he did a bunch of those old Cheap Trick records, the really classic ones. So I mean, it’s a cool record for sure.

You closed down your Mid-Fi Recordings label this year, how did that decision come about?

It just became too expensive. We were looking at the budget for Get It Together, and then the returns. And when people stopped buying records it became financially impossible to make them. I don’t know how labels do it, other than by sheer volume, you have to have a lot of artists in order to make enough money to put out a record. But the fact of the matter is that people don’t buy records anymore. And that really hurt bands like us, because we didn’t sell a whole lot of them to begin with, and to see those numbers dwindle even a little bit was disappointing.

You guys seemed really passionate about Mid-Fi, do you ever see yourself starting it up again in some form?

Yeah, we haven’t completely folded up Mid-Fi, it still exists, it’s just that it’s not really active. It’s like a dormant volcano right now.

Overall, do you think it’s easier or harder to get music heard today? With the amount of music out there, the noise can be hard to cut through. 

Yeah, I mean, I don’t know how a new band does it really. You have to have some kind of special occurrence happen for you, it seems almost impossible to get noticed, there’s so many bands. Music is as popular as it’s ever been, but the idea of selling it is antiquated for sure.

So do you agree with Gene Simmons that “rock is finally dead?”

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s been dead for a while. And what we do, now it’s sort of a retro thing, that only appeals to people of impeccable taste, I call them. The people who get it and like it, they love it still, and they always will, but there’s less and less of them every year.

Hopefully they’re more passionate than ever to make up for that. 

Yeah, exactly. I mean, they’re rabid fans, there’s just not that many of them.

How did your connection with the West Memphis 3 come about? 

Well, I remember we were watching HBO one weekend, I guess it was the early 90’s,  whenever that first documentary came out,  and we were expecting it to be like this serial killer, dark and twisted story, and it ended up being this sympathetic tale about these kids who were accused of killing (3 boys). And it just sort of stuck with us, and our manager at the time was like, “We should do something.” And I was like, “Yeah, what can we do? We can only make music, that’s all we can do.” And he was like, “Well, we should try and get a benefit record together for these guys.” And we did, and it wound up being a really good thing.

Are you still in touch with any of them now that they’ve been released?

Yeah, actually, we just had Jason Baldwin over to our house on Thursday for diner.

How is he doing?

He’s doing great. He’s super grateful to be out, and he’s loving life. Both of the ones I keep in contact with, Damien (Echols) and Jason, are so unburdened by hatred, they don’t feel any need to go out and vent about how long it was, that 18 years of their lives were taken away from them. They’re just so grateful to be out, it’s inspiring. They’re not bitter at all. Every time I feel like The Supersuckers should be more popular or whatever, I always remember it could be so much worse.

I think the first time I saw you guys in Montreal was with Bad Religion and Samiam in the mid-90’s, do you have any special memories of that tour?

Yeah (laughs). I remember that tour because the singer of Bad Religion is the first real asshole that we’ve ever dealt with. The dude’s such a prick. We played a prank on him, where we stole his shoes, his boots. We were just going to take ’em for one night and watch him play in his tennis shoes, but it was our first brush with a band that had enough money to just go out and buy a new pair of shoes. So he comes to the venue with a brand new box of shoes, and we’re like, “Oh shit! Now we’re going to have to tell him that we took his shoes, that it was just a joke, that we just wanted to see him play a show in his tennis shoes…” So that didn’t work out for us.

The Supersuckers play Cabaret Underworld (1403 Rue Sainte-Elizabeth) November 7th @ 9:00pm with The Von Rebels, Royal Machine and Bearmace. Tickets are $12 in advance, available here.