Old 97's

I remember the high school chess club. Nearsighted guys with thick glasses and bad dandruff sat around the cafeteria tables after seventh period, contemplating their chessboards and the Sicilian Defense. Everybody else studiously avoided them. Members of the chess club didn’t go to the prom, much less talk to girls. They barely spoke at all, preferring the nonverbal precision of a well-conceived Queen’s Gambit to anything approaching normal social interaction. I know. The hair has improved, and perhaps the social skills have improved, too (you’d have to check with my wife). But I still need the thick lenses.

It’s not quite the stuff of classic rock ’n’ roll. But apparently Rhett Miller also remembers the high school chess club, because he’s written a song about it, “Friends Forever.” And I’m currently pumping the Old 97’s frontman for information about this particular standout track on Drag It Up, the band’s first album in three years.

“No, I wasn’t really in the chess club,” he says, laughing. “But I knew those guys and hung out with them. To tell you the truth —and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this —I was more of a Dungeons and Dragons guy in high school. But the message of that song is that it gets better. I’ve seen it again and again. The cheerleaders and the homecoming kings and queens —what happens to those people? A lot of them end up living these very disappointing lives. They peak at 18. And the nerds end up taking over the world. But yes, I was pretty much your basic, brainy high school misfit.”

That future prediction certainly held true for Miller. His heart-on-sleeve songs and charismatic stage presence have long made him a fan favorite (if not a full-fledged rock ’n’ roll sex symbol), and the doe-eyed poster boy cover of his 2002 solo debut, The Instigator, only added to his reputation as the Casanova of alt.country. From high school pawn to king of the world. Not bad for a self-proclaimed high school nerd.

The nerd and his bandmates have been busy. In the three years between 2001’s Satellite Rides and the new Drag It Up, the Dallas-based quartet has seen wholesale changes. The band moved from the mega-label support of Elektra Records to roots-rock upstart New West. Bass player and songwriting collaborator Murry Hammond married singer/songwriter Grey DeLisle and relocated to Los Angeles. Guitarist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peoples added a couple of second-generation bangers and screamers to the extended family. And lead singer/songwriter Miller got married, had a son and relocated to upstate New York. Two years ago, many fans saw his aforementioned solo album as an omen of their favorite twangcore band’s impending demise.

“A lot of people thought that,” Miller concedes. “But we never broke up, and we never intended to break up. We took a break from one another and lived our lives. That’s all. And now we’re back.”

Indeed. After the British Invasion power-pop leanings of 1999’s Fight Songs and the masterful Satellite Rides, Drag It Up marks a return to the Old 97’s’ cowpunk roots. Songs such as “Won’t Be Home No More” and “Friends Forever” feature the chugging train rhythms and twanging rockabilly guitars longtime fans will remember from the band’s earliest albums. But Drag It Up is far more than a reprise of familiar sounds. Hammond’s “Smokers” features a manic surf-guitar solo that would make Dick Dale proud. With the delightfully idiosyncratic, off-kilter Tex-Mex rave-up “Coahuila,” Bethea makes his singing and songwriting debut, while his swirling psychedelic guitars at the end of the pensive ballad “Valium Waltz” call to mind Sgt. Pepper in old San Antone.

“We were aiming for a stripped-down, distilled version of the early Old 97’s,” Miller says. “Before we recorded I had been listening to a lot of David Bowie, particularly the Ziggy Stardust album. And the thing I love about that album is its looseness. That band had been out on the road for years, and they knew each other so well. And they just went into the studio and played the songs live, and you can hear it in the results. It’s not slick. It’s not over-rehearsed and overproduced. It’s just the chemistry of a good rock ’n’ roll band at the top of its game. That’s the vibe that we were trying to capture with Drag It Up, and I think we nailed it.”

Several of these songs also have a dark, brooding quality that replaces the smart-ass brashness of the early party tunes. Maybe it’s a product of the troubled times in which we live; maybe it’s simply the product of growing up and having kids. But the Old 97’s are making rock for grownups these days, and Miller wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Not to be melodramatic,” he says, “but my wife and I were two blocks away from the Twin Towers on 9/11. We saw people —a lot of people —jumping from the buildings. We had to evacuate our apartment. We ran through the rubble. And we saw a lot of death. I’m not saying that what we experienced can even compare to the great loss that many people experienced that day, but that changes you. It has to change you. And I’ve realized that the stakes are big. There are consequences to what we do, bigger machines that you can either be a cog in or fight against. And I have to say, as corny as it sounds, that it feels great to be a part of something that is an agent for good. It’s a cliché to say that music saved my life, but it’s true. And I feel so fortunate to be able to do what I do. I get to make music with my buddies.”

It’s a sentiment echoed on “Friends Forever,” a pure blast of rockabilly mayhem that finds the four members of the band huddled around the same microphone, screaming the chorus in unison. In a world in which a rock band’s shelf life only gets shorter, and the tyranny of the urgent threatens to upstage the less flashy ebb-and-flow of community and relationships, it’s positively refreshing.

“We’ve been doing this for 11 years now,” Miller says, “and I really see no reason why we shouldn’t be doing this when we’re old men. It’s been a gentle kind of career arc. Really, what could screw it up? Great success? We’ll take our chances. Great failure? We started out playing in dive bars, and we had a great time together. It doesn’t matter. These guys are among my closest friends.”

It’s a long way from high school geekdom to a career fronting one of the best roots-rock bands in the world. Old 97’s have got the list covered, and it’s a pretty good one, one that would make all former nerds and past chess club members proud. Longtime rockers, husbands and fathers, and friends forever. Check.