Interview with Southern Culture On The Skids: ‘We love 60’s music, it’s our biggest influence and take-off point’

North Carolina, US-based Southern Culture On The Skids, mash up Americana, surf, rockabilly and swamp garage rock in their latest album, At Home With Southern Culture On The Skids, ensuring that there really is a song for everyone. Next up, are two covers on the Spanish label, FOLC.

The two covers will be the Fred Neil song ‘Everybody’s Talking At Me’ and ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ by The Seeds, likely around September.

Southern Culture On The Skids has been consistently recording and touring around the world since 1983. The band comprises Rick Miller (guitar and vocals), Mary Huff (bass and vocals) and Dave Hartman (drums). Their musical journey has taken them from all-night North Carolina house parties to late night TV talk shows (Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show), from performing at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to rocking out for the inmates at North Carolina correctional facilities.

Miller formed the band back in 1983 when he was at university in North Carolina. Huff joined in 1987 and Hartman followed in 1988: ‘Mary was a cello music major but playing in punk and rockabilly bands,’ Miller said.  She went to high school with Dave. She has perfect pitch!’ Their name has a fun provenance: ‘We were just art students who liked bands like The Cramps (an American punk band), blues, R&B and rockabilly but everyone else was into bands like R.E.M.,’ Miller laughed. ‘It was weird, people were saying that was the new sound of the south and we said “If that’s the new south, it sure don’t rock ‘n’ roll like it used to, guess we liked the music better when Southern culture was on the skids” so that’s where our name comes from!’

Last month, they brought out their 16th album At Home With Southern Culture On The Skids, an 11 track album that they recorded over lockdown, which mashes up a broad range of influences from the 50’s, country, blues and garage rock and which also features two covers: ‘Normally, pre-COVID, we toured all the time, that’s how we make a living,’ Miller said. ‘We lost our livelihood when the pandemic hit, so we thought ‘Let’s make a record.’’

One of the tracks, ‘Sugar Town’, is a cover of a Nancy Sinatra song and has a lovely old school feel with Huff on lead vocals: ‘I loved Lee Hazlewood (an American country and pop singer) and singers like Nancy Sinatra, so I was going for something like that and it all fits in,’ Miller said. ‘Doing the record at my house gave the record a nice, laid back vibe.’

As the song kicks off: ‘I got some troubles, but they won’t last. I’m gonna lay right down here in the grass and pretty soon all my troubles will pass. ‘Cause I’m in shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town.’

‘That started out as a different song,’ he said. ‘It was called ‘Don’t Listen To Him’‘

My favourite track is ‘Run Baby Run’, a revved up fuzz fest which could be a Beach Boys or Standells song if they went full-on garage rock, with a pounding bass line, seriously hooky chorus and Huff on lead vocals: ‘That started out as a different song,’ Miller said. ‘It was called ‘Don’t Listen To Him’. I like playing with riffs and there’s that thing where Mary hits the high note in the chorus. We did it in a day or two. Arpeggios make up the main riff. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? ‘ I say it does and that when I first heard it I wondered if it was a cover. ‘It’s new, it’s real garage rock,’ he laughed. ‘We love 60’s music, it’s our biggest influence and take-off point.’

As the song goes: ‘I don’t wanna live in the past. Pull back the throttle and give it some gas, I wanna feel the wind at my back. I wanna run, run, run.’

‘Don’t Spill the Java’ is one of the tappiest songs on the album, complete with maracas and has more of a blues-jazz feel it. I ask if it’s actually inspired by someone spilling coffee and if the Java Joe character in the song exists: ‘It is! It’s about spilling coffee in our van on the road. We had to stop drinking cream in the van because if the humidity got too high, it would smell like sour milk! Java Joe doesn’t exist but we have a similar character in our song ‘House of Bamboo’, so they’re kinda linked.’

Another track, ‘Night Driver’, is a slinky surf noir number and is darker and jazzier and feels very cinematic. You can can imagine a character in a film noir driving around with this playing in the background: ‘I’m a HUGE fan of film noir and composers and producers like Henry Mancini and Billy Strange. It’s definitely a song for playing driving around late at night. It has bongos in it and is in an ominous key.’

‘I try to put in X hours a day when I’m not on the road to make songs’

I ask Miller what it’s like playing together for 30 years and how his songwriting has changed over the years: ‘I figure it’s my job, so I try to put in X hours a day when I’m not on the road to make songs,’ he said. ‘What slowed it down a bit is that we don’t make money from record sales, whereas it used to be a decent part of our income. In the past, we could take two-to-four months to make a record. Now it’s tour, tour, tour when you can.’

They’ve shared a stage with many musical luminaries including Patti Smith, Link Wray, Loretta Lynn and Hasil Adkins. Their music has been featured in movies and TV, parodied by Weird Al, and used to sell everything from diamonds to pork sausage. In 2014 the band was honored by the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with an exhibition featuring their music and cultural contributions. They say that their legendary live shows are a testament to ‘the therapeutic powers of foot-stomping, butt-shaking rock ‘n’ roll’ and what Rolling Stone dubbed ‘a hell raising rock and roll party’.

The band met Patti Smith a few years ago when they got inducted into the Hall of Fame in West Virginia: ‘It was to induct the late Hasil Adkins into the West Virginia Music Hall Of Fame and we played a couple of his songs with one of his neighbours from Boone Co. Patti Smith was there because they were inducting her then husband, who’s since passed away. It was very low key, she was very friendly,’ he said.

North Carolina has a strong bluegrass scene, according to Miller, and indie rock is also quite popular. Locally, he’s a big fan of late local guitarist and power chord maestro Link Wray: ‘The music’s so good, you just feel it. You’ll hear a lot of influences from the 60’s in his music.’ He also recommends local rockers like Dex Romweber and Fat Links. ‘As a working band, you never get to see new music, you’re too busy,’ he says somewhat wistfully.

If he could play with anyone, he picks Link Wray and American rock guitarist Dick Dale: ‘Too bad they’re dead,’ he quipped. ‘It was fun playing with The Fleshtones and The Wooly Bushmen and it would be fun to open for Nancy Sinatra. Actually, you know what? I’d LOVE to play with Canned Heat (an American blues and rock band from the 60’s). ‘We love the boogie and Canned Heat had the boogie going on!’