IDS #220 - Invasion of the Roly Polies (w/ Rick Miller from Southern Culture on the Skids)

🎙️ This week, Mike and Darin are hanging out with the amazing Rick Miller from Southern Culture on the Skids! 🍗🍌

Grab some fried chicken and banana pudding, and crank up the volume! 🎶

Big shoutout to Rick for letting us use SCOTS tunes in this episode. Don't miss out—visit www.SCOTS.com! 🤘

#SouthernCultureOnTheSkids #LinkWray #TheCamelWalk #DearMrFantasy #WeirdAl

Transcript

>> Dave: This episode of irritable dad syndrome features southern culture on the skids. All music clips were used with permission from the artist.

>> <name></name>: Honey, will you eat that snack cracker in your special outfit for me? Are y'all ready? We gonna get down to it right now.

>> Dave: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome, the podcast that's liquored up and lacquered down. Please welcome your hosts, Mike and Darren.

>> Darin: Hi, I'm Darren.

>> Mike: I'm Mike.

>> Darin: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome. This is episode 220. Now, normally, we are Cincinnati's comedy podcast this week for Cincinnati's rock and roll podcast, because Mike and I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Rick Miller, the lead singer and guitarist of the band, my favorite band, Southern Culture on the Skids. And he told us all kinds of great stories about touring and his favorite, albums. And he's just a fantastic guy, super nice. And it was a thrill, a thrill to have him on the show.

>> Mike: Cool, dude.

>> Darin: So, yeah, right now, here it is. Rick Miller from southern culture on the skits. So with all your albums, what's your best album? What's your favorite album? And what was your most popular album? They may be the same, or they may be all completely different.

>> <name></name>: One of my personally favorite records is zombified. Cause that was the first record we kind of. Well, it wasn't the first record we made by ourselves, but we made that in a, basement of the house where Mary lives, which is kind of spooky. Zombified, zombified my baby been zombified my girl's more dead than a lie she ain't got no light in her eye sad but she won't cry I love Halloween. I love horror movies. I love all the b movie stuff. And, that was just a really fun record for me to make. And I really liked that record. Liquored up and lacquered down was a really good record. There's a lot of songs on that record that we still play too. Cheap motels and things like that. the one that I really.

>> Darin: I mean, I love them all. Mojo box.

>> <name></name>: Oh, yeah.

>> Darin: The first time I heard Mojo box, I'm like, damn, that one doesn't stop from start to finish. It's consistent, and it's just a really, really solid album.

>> <name></name>: Yeah, I agree. I think that's a really good record, too. I kind of like them all. I mean. Cause we make our own records. You know, we work with Mark Williams, who helped me set up my studio. And, we have our own means of production now. And we have had since 1999, I think.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: So we make all of our own records pretty much now. Mojo box was one that we did all at my studio. Everything. Sometimes we track them there and we mix them other places, like liquor it up and lacquered down. We tracked at my place, but we mixed it over at Mitch Easter's fidelatorium, which is a great, great space. And, some stuff, things like that. Oh, I tell you, another record that I really like, and it's all covers, is country politeness favorites.

>> Darin: Favorites. Yeah, because those are all tombstone shadow. You and Mary just harmonized perfectly on.

>> <name></name>: That m two shadow reaching across my path every time I get some good news. Yeah, we don't do a whole lot of covers, so we decided to do a covers record. And one of my favorite is, like, doing, like, life's a gas by t Rex, but doing it more as a duet, like georgian Tammy. And what's really fun is, like, you take that song and you sing those lyrics, and if you approach it like that, you go, wow, this could have been a great country song. Kind of throwing the curveballs with them a little bit, you know? Yeah, that was really fun. You know, to do a good record, a good covers record. You work just as hard as you do to do originals. You just don't get paid as well. But it was really fun.

>> Dave: This portion of our show is brought to you by Lance crackers. Don't go around hungry. Grab some lance crackers today. Now back to you guys in the studio.

>> Darin: Back when you used to be, even before you were on Geffen, and when you were on earlier record labors, did you ever not labor's earlier record labels, did they ever try to tell you, like, you guys have too many different types of sounds that you need to be one way? Or did they try to, like, tell you you need to make this type of record and not that type of record?

>> <name></name>: Oh, yeah, all the time. But it's like I tell them, I said, well, you know, and this was before the term americana was even a thing. I just remember saying, well, you know, I've lived in North Carolina. I've lived on the west coast. I've listened to all these different types of music. I love it all. I just want to make, like a gumbo, you know, like a. Like, I some. I explain it a lot, like, kind of like a plate lunch where you got your potatoes, you got your collards, you got your meat, right? You got lima beans. And you can eat them individually, but that best bite is the one where they all kind of mingle at the middle of the plate.

>> Darin: Right.

>> <name></name>: You know? Yeah, that's always my favorite bite. I, try to mix it up, you know, and try to. And not only that, but it's like rock and roll is old enough now. I think that where it's kind of fun to mix the genres, right? Like the surf music, the rockabilly music, blues, country, you know, and kind of mix it up genre wise. Do a country song, do a surf lick in it, right. Put some three knob reverb on it or something. And it just kind of funnels it in maybe a little different direction or something. I've never really. Even though we're a rock and roll band, I've never wanted to be considered like a, revival band. I always thought of us more as a revisionist band. Does that make any sense?

>> Darin: I think so, yeah.

>> <name></name>: And we're all a little bit historians too. We. We listen to a lot of different types of music. Right. So.

>> Darin: Well, I've been wondering when you were guys gonna do a. Like an all surf album.

>> <name></name>: Well, you know, funny you should say that because my wife was just telling me, she goes, when are you going to do an all instrumental record? Literally?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: So I don't know. I mean, she, said what she said, he said, you just should do a compilation.

>> <name></name>: Of all of your instrumentals. Cause you have at least one, two, sometimes three or four on all your records. Just make a. Just make a compilation record of that and you know, maybe do three or four new ones or something. Or. Or do an all new record. Right. I love instrumental music.

>> Darin: Oh, God, yeah.

>> <name></name>: Oh my gosh. We used to spend. And this is before easy listening was really that popular. But we used. And we could find all kinds of great records, right? Like Escovell and. Oh, Billy Strange. I love Billy Strange records, right? We used to find all these great instrumental records, you know, in thrift stores and stuff. And what you might call Muzak back then, those days. Or easy listening is a better thing for it. But some of that stuff is incredible sounding records. Like the production is really good. And they used to have like a George Barnes record would have a little thing on the back and it showed where all the mics were placed, the little diagram. You ever seen that? On some of those old mercury records and stuff like that. It was when stereos, I think, were getting really, really popular. And the idea of a stereo sound and high fidelity and things like that. I just love all those records. That's kind of what got me into recording too, and things like that. They'd say what kind of mic it was, and I love all that stuff. I love instrumental music of all kinds.

>> Darin: You might know this because you seem like you're a, music historian and a musician. This may be a bad comparison, but a lot of people say Nirvana was the band that killed heavy metal or hair metal music. What happened to surf music? Did something come along that just made people, you know, what happened? Where did it go? It went away.

>> <name></name>: Well, I just think popular culture, there's a high turnover rate, right? The Beatles showed up, folk music showed up. Things got a little more serious, I guess, right? I mean, people, wanted more songwriting, you know, they wanted to hear songwriters. It was just kind of the times where they were a changing. Right. I don't know. Like I say, there's a lot of things like that, you know, when it comes back around, too, like rockabilly. Rockabilly was really big, of course, you know, in the fifties and stuff. But then, you know, it kind of comes back every once in a while, right? Like all of a sudden, the stray cats were in the top ten again, right? In the eighties, yeah. So, you know, it's always there. It's always bubbling underneath, you know, it kind of goes underground every once in a while, these genres, and then something will happen and it comes kind of back up, you know? And I think really with, like, satellite radio and, all these kind of theme oriented music, programs, I think it's really good for things like garage rock and surf music and rockabilly and obscure country and all that kind of stuff, too, because the DJ's are very knowledgeable and they play deep cuts. And I think it can, because just being able to hear stuff like that on the radio kind of gives us some longevity or it gives us some legs, you know, or it gets people interested. It doesn't have to be a lot of people, but enough people to kind of keep it going. That's the important thing because, you know, and, like, record stores were a really important thing for me growing up.

>> Darin: Oh, yeah, record store.

>> <name></name>: Yeah, right, yeah. Because I remember, you spend.

>> Darin: Hours in the record store.

>> <name></name>: Oh, yeah. Well, here's a good example of, like. Like when I was a kid, I heard blue cheer doing summertime blues, right? And I thought, wow, I really like that song. There's something about that song I like. So I went to the record store, I got the record, I looked at it. Summertime blues, Eddie Cocker, Eddie Cochran.

>> Darin: Yeah, yeah.

>> <name></name>: So who's this guy? Right? So you go like, find the Eddie Cochran record.

>> <name></name>: And you go like, this is awesome. Where is this music been my whole life? Right? And then you look on the back of that and you say, oh, yeah, hallelujah, I love her. So I really liked that song. Who wrote that? You know, when you, I don't know. Ray Charles. Right. Who's this Ray Charles guy? Right. You had to do a lot of that on your own. Like a camel. Whoa.

>> Darin: The camel walk is your guys most popular hit. And the, any clip, it was a total throwaway. Yeah, but they would probably revolt. Burn the place down if you don't do the camel walk. I want to know when weird Al did lame claim to fame, did he approach you or what did you think of when you heard that? Because it was totally, an inspirational, not a parody, but up. I can't remember exactly what they call it.

>> <name></name>: Well, Dave is friends with weird Al's drummer. That makes sense. And weird Al, when we were on Geffen, weird Al did a treatment for a video of, I believe, house of bamboo. So he was aware of our band way back before that. I think he came to one of our shows and we met him backstage because he wrote a treatment for that song to do a video. Of course, they didn't do the video. I mean, it didn't go anyplace. I like weird Al. I mean, I like, you know, I like funny stuff. We were all flattered that he did that. And, they dressed up like us.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: In the video. So that was kind of cool. But Dave is friends with weird Al's drummer. They've got a connection there. I was a total surprise. I did not know what was coming. None of us did. It's not like he called us and said, hey, yeah, I'm gonna wear some bib overalls in my lip in my video. Right.

>> Darin: So I got to talk to Dave in Newport, and I told him that I'm also a drummer. And I bought a cocktail kit because I love watching him play. And I think it's cool. It's just really neat looking, and I like the sound you get out of it. And, you're lucky. Dave's a fantastic drummer. Did he ever play with, like, a regular kit?

>> <name></name>: Yes. Well, when Dave first joined the band, he had, like, a heavy m. I called it a heavy metal kit. And like, I remember we said, well, you know, Dave, that's kind of too big for us because we were paring down. It was Mary and I and Dave. And we all decided that this is what we were going to do. So we all, we found an old house that was deserted, and we found out who owned it, and we went to their house and said, hey, we want to rent this deserted house. Will you rent it to us? We'll clean it up. And all this stuff, there's kudzu all around it. And it was back in the woods, so that was our bandhouse. And we used to practice there every night. We all had, like, those jobs. We were talking about delivering pizzas, working at a coffee shop, you know, working in a restaurant. Every night we'd come home and we'd play. Man, no, AC would be so hot and humid in there. You'd be just sopping wet, take all your clothes off, play music, right? All night long. Did it? Oh, for a whole year. We would shed it like that. So, let's see. I kind of lost my train of thought. What were we talking about? I don't know.

>> Darin: Dave having a heavy metal drum kit, and he paired.

>> <name></name>: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, so we had decided that we were going to, like I said, you know, we're going to just stop. We're going to write our own songs. We're going to kind of have this theme, you know, Southern California skids. We're going to really work on it, and we're going to woodshed for, like, a year. Just play local, live out here in the woods, practice every day, write songs all the time. That's what we did. We all lived together. And, I mean, we would practice in the basement. We'd run a electrical cord down there from up in the kitchen, and it wasn't grounded. And I remember when it was kind of wet in there, you'd get the living shocked out of you. It was in a basement, and it had a dirt floor. It had a little concrete footing for the steps. But then you stepped off that in the dirt, and we laid down these thrift store rugs we'd buy, right? And they smelled horrible. And then we get these invasions of mealy bugs, you know, the roly polys. right. I remember practicing and walking down there, and it sounded like you were walking on Fritos.

>> Mike: Oh, God.

>> <name></name>: Wow. But that's what we went through, right? And we had a great time. Then we moved it upstairs. We said, we can't take this anymore. Somebody's gonna get shocked and die. So we moved it upstairs. But I remember we made Dave. I was playing, and we didn't have a car. All we had was a little pickup truck. We had a Toyota pickup truck. And nobody had road cases. So we put our amps and everything in garbage bags and put it in the back of the truck and, like, drive. You know, maybe we'd play in Athens, Georgia, right? That's kind of as Athens, Atlanta was about as far as we'd go. And in that kind of a circle, right. But we'd have to do three in the front of a Toyota truck, mini truck. Right. With all our stuff bagged in. Grocery bag or garbage, bags in the back. So everything we had had to be able to fit into a hefty garbage bag. So I had a silvertone amp in the case, and that's what I played. It was my case with the guitar in it and the amp inside it. Mary had this little tiny, pv bass amp that was the biggest thing, actually, that barely fit in a garbage bag. But Dave had this big drum kit, and we were like, Dave, this just isn't going to happen. So I remember we made Dave, and he fought it a little bit. But you know what? He's a good sport about it, and I think it made him a great drummer.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: But we, we made him play a plastic bucket, and he drilled a hole in the side. Hm. And he put a little splash symbol in it, right? And he had it on a stand, and he played with his sticks, and it was a drip pan. It was like, what you change your oil in the. But it was plastic. And then for a kick drum, he had. We gave him a beer box, like a case of Budweiser case, you know, beer box with all the things taken out of it for long necks. Right. And then he could put all of that stuff inside the beer box, fold the top down, and put it in a garbage bag and put it back in the truck. That's what we did. And we played like that for about a year. And it was great. It was fantastic. Our volume was really low. We could focus on our lyrics, our singing. We had to learn, like, fundamentally parts that worked right. Not a lot of fills, not a lot of extra, you know, not a lot of frosting, all cake. And I think it was really kind of shaped us into who we are today. I really think that was an important part of our kind of career. But, it was interesting, and it was all because we had to. We had no other way to get around. Right. It's just what we did. And we didn't have a. We had a vocal Pa because back in those days, you would take your own pa to a lot of shows. So we just pack up our practice pa and, you know, and you'd make your adjustments on the first couple songs on the Pa. Head over there, right. Play three sets. Some bar in South Carolina, Al's pump house. That was a good place. You know, do your three sets, you know, eat a pizza, pack it all up, pick up truck and go home.

>> Darin: I'm ready to go now.

>> Dave: Yeah, you're listening to irritable dad syndrome, the podcast that's slippery, smooth and in the groove.

>> Darin: You know, I look at your long career and I look back at your early albums, you know, with girl fight and viva del Santo, and then, you know, too much fork for just one fork. And then to look at how your sound has evolved. You guys sound better now than you ever have. And I look at at home with southern culture on the skids and I love call me and very rarely does a band do a cover that's better than the original. And I think you guys did that with Dear Mister fantasy. And Mary has never sounded better. And even when she plays live, her voice is still incredible. But to dear Mister fantasy.

>> <name></name>: Yeah, m. Yeah.

>> Darin: mind blown. What led you to make Dear Mister fantasy?

>> <name></name>: Well, I just liked the song.

>> Darin: It's got a banjo on it. Speaking of banjo.

>> <name></name>: Right. Well, well, there you go. It was like consciously trying to say, okay, let's do something on this version of Dear Mister fantasy that, you know, would just be sacrilege.

>> Darin: Uh-huh.

>> <name></name>: And we thought, oh, let's play it on a banjo.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: Right. So we did, you know, and that was again, like I'm saying, like taking those kind of, those conventions, right. And those, those genres and kind of twisting it up a little bit, flipping it. Yeah, flipping it on its, on its head a little bit. Right. Taking like song like dear mister fantasy and putting a banjo on it. But, but it worked. Mary sings it great.

>> <name></name>: And that's the one thing that I really appreciate, or I think one thing that we've really gotten better is Mary singing more. I tried to get her to sing more for so long and now she's really stepping up and she sounds great. Give it fantastic. It adds another dimension to the show.

>> Darin: You know, singing a lot in the early days or.

>> <name></name>: Well, she just, I don't know, she was a little bit shy about it, I think maybe was always kind of like saying, oh, I don't know if I like that song. I don't know if I can get behind that. Blah, blah, blah.

>> Darin: That doesn't make any sense because daddy was a preacher and nitty gritty.

>> <name></name>: Yeah, right.

>> Darin: Love a rama, they were all crowd pleasers. Mary gets behind the mic and everybody goes off their chain.

>> <name></name>: No, listen, you're talking to, you're talking to the choir. I mean, you're preaching to the choir here, you know, so I'm just happy she's, she's doing more and more, right?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Dave: What is your favorite little Debbie snack cake? Tell us now at irritable dad syndrome.com.

>> Darin: With so many songs, I mean, to 2023, however many hours you have, how do you pick a set list? I mean, how do you decide we're gonna do this semi song? Because you gotta please the old fans. You're trying to please the new people who are coming along.

>> Mike: Are you at a point where you don't care just doing it for you?

>> Darin: Because I think there are some artists who don't care. I remember Prince, you know, just stopped playing the hits because he was bored and didn't want to and didn't really care what the audience thought.

>> <name></name>: Well, some of those songs are some of the ones we'll do with audience participation.

>> <name></name>: Like the camel walk or eight piece box Santo, you know, things like that. So that throws another spin on and makes them all kind of fun and a little bit different each night. I Mean you feel that way sometimes about some of the songs, but you know, not, it doesn't bother me at all really to play some of those songs over cause I know the fans want to hear them.

>> Darin: Right.

>> <name></name>: But then we always try to find some. We'll do some deep cuts or something. Like one of my favorite songs to play live right now is put your shoes back on. I'm loving that. Right. And for this next round of touring in the fall, we'll probably pull a few no deep cuts out and relearn them or kind of revamp them.

>> <name></name>: And things like that. we were doing dance in Mississippi for a while because of liquored up and lacquered down the reissue of that.

>> Darin: Yep.

>> <name></name>: And fried, chicken and gasoline. I want to play that more often in live shows. And the man at wrestles the bear. Kind of like I was saying, where are we playing? Are we playing like dinner, theater tonight? Okay, let's do manna wrestles a bear and neighbor burns trash and my house has wheels and. You know what I mean?

>> Darin: Yeah. Well, anytime you open up with voodoo Cadillac, the crowd goes crazy.

>> <name></name>: Well, yeah, we always try to open with skull bucket in the voodoo Cadillac because one, it kind of sets us up. It says, okay, boom, we're here. And that big opening cord of skull bucket is a great way to start a show. Just a giant shraang, big chord, vibrato, reverb, nasty guitar. Boom. And then you just kind of, you kind of feel it on that one. It's always a good place to start for us. It's got a link ray vibe, you know, like if you had to say, what are you about? I'm, about link Ray guitar wise.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: And then in the voodoo Cadillac, where you got the Tony Joe White CCR thing, great groove. Everybody can start dancing. And then from there, wherever.

>> Darin: I took a buddy of mine to see you, this is years ago, and he had never seen you, didn't know anything about you, and you came out and you opened up with run chicken run, and his jaw dropped. Just literally dropped. And then it was just hell on wheels the rest of the show. You guys never slowed down, you never stopped. It was incredible.

>> <name></name>: Yeah, yeah, well, that's the one. You know, I love my old Dan electro guitar. I mean, that's a $100 guitar, but that thing will play all night long. You never have to change a guitar. you know, don't you hate, I mean, I don't necessarily hate it. Sometimes I like it. I don't like going to see a band and then the guy has to change guitars every two songs. Oh, yeah, it just kills the flow. Yeah, yeah, it kills the flow. Right. I'm always kind of proud that I can get that old Dan electro to stay in tune and sound good for, like, you know, 90 minutes, but it keeps the flow going too, you know?

>> Darin: Yeah. Can you tell me one more time what link Ray said when you did the COVID of his song?

>> <name></name>: He said, f me, that should have been a hit.

>> Darin: And then you told him that it was a hit.

>> <name></name>: Yeah. Well, first he said, rick, what was that last song you played? I love it. I love it. Is that one of yours? And I said, no, link, that's one of yours. And that's when he looked at me just like, befuddled and said, well, me. He said, that should have been a hit. And I said, you're right.

>> Darin: Do you have a lot of songs in the vault?

>> <name></name>: Well, yes, I always have, like a whole bunch of, I wouldn't say in the vault that are finished, but because we have a studio. And when I get off the road, I always go into the studio and try to. And work, you know, I've always tried to say, like, well, you know, when I'm not on the road, I'm going to work 40 hours a week just like a plumber, right. Or just like anybody else. And I'm going to work on my music and my playing and my writing and my, my studio licks, right. And just kind of like, that's what I do. So I've got a ton of half finished, three quarters finished, almost finished songs at any given time, right. So when we go to make a record, we'll just kind of start picking some of that stuff out. I'll start going through stuff and I'll say, oh, this, you know, here's this one, mary, but it needs a new bass line or it needs a bass line and maybe you could sing it, right. Here's the lyrics I was thinking of. So I get things rolling and started and then we'll get, you, know, Dave and Mary will have a couple group practices. We'll go through some stuff. Usually it starts with Mary and I, though, because we're the ones that have to sing them, right. And we'll decide, we'll say, well, we'd like it in this key or this tempo, but here's a great riff and here's a, here's a couple good lines I have. Let's fill it out now.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> <name></name>: You know, and stuff like that. So, you know, at any given. Yeah, we have tons of, tons of stuff.

>> Darin: Do you have a new album coming out?

>> <name></name>: Well, we were going to work on one this summer. I took the summer off from touring a whole lot, June or July and most of August, but Mary's mom, fell down and broke her pelvis.

>> Darin: Oh, no.

>> <name></name>: Yeah. So Mary has had to been, Mary's been spending a lot of time helping her up in Roanoke, Virginia. So that kind of, that set us back a little bit on that. But we'll, you know, we'll have some more time in this winter, so.

>> Darin: Well, awesome. Well, Rick, honestly, I couldn't thank you enough for being with us tonight. Again, I'm just, I've been a fan for so long and I can't thank you enough for your music. And it's just every time I go on a long road trip, I take four or five of your discs with me and, I do. I just, I can't leave the house unless I have some southern culture on the skids in the car.

>> <name></name>: Well, there's nothing like traveling to some good music, right? I mean, that makes me feel good.

>> Darin: And I want to tell everybody that if you guys want to check out southern culture on tour, you've got to. And you can go to scotts.com. that's scots.com. you can get merch from them, and, you check them out, and you will absolutely love them anytime. Mike, did you want to.

>> Mike: No, I just. I really appreciate you coming and, coming on the show. I mean, one thing I can say is that m. You know, right now, Darren edits the podcast 100% of the time, but we used to go back and forth with it, and I remember there was one time I had an opportunity to put, like a snippet of southern culture.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Like a cold open or something. I m was going to do it just to make Darren, you know, happy. And I just saw camel walk, and I'm like, let's see what this is.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And then I spent the rest of the night, like, what the what?

>> <name></name>: Holy crap.

>> Mike: So I appreciate that, you know, just, like, for that one night of little Debbie.

>> <name></name>: Little Debbie coming on hold.

>> Mike: I do appreciate your music, and like I said, I'm going to visit my, brother in law to. And he's flipping out that we're talking to you.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: so, yeah, it's been really cool. I appreciate you taking the time.

>> <name></name>: Well, tell him I said hella.

>> Mike: I will.

>> Darin: Tell Mary that we hope that her mom is okay. Tell Dave we said hi. And again, thanks for being here. I want to tell everybody out there that, if you go to irritable dadsyndrome.com, you can go and you can check out our merch, and you can become a patron. You can help us out, and you can do all this stuff. But thank you for joining us, and we hope to see you next week on irritable dad syndrome.

>> Dave: Irritable dad syndrome is a Mike Odell Darren Cox production.

>> <name></name>: Anyway, music's fun.