What: Supersuckers, Man Made Lake, and Ball Gag n’ Chain Gang
When: Friday, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7)
Where: Upstairs Cabaret, 15 Bastion Sq.
Tickets: $22 at Lyle’s Place, 770 Yates St., and Ticketweb.ca
There is no sick leave when you’re a self-employed musician. The arrangement is simple: You don’t work, you don’t get paid.
No one has to explain that to Supersuckers singer-bassist Eddie Spaghetti. The native of Tucson, Arizona, has been paying his bills through music since 1989, so when he was ordered by doctors to take time off last year, he did so with trepidation — for several reasons.
For starters, the diagnosis was cancer. Spaghetti learned in June he was suffering from oropharyngeal cancer, for which he underwent surgery and radiation treatments. There were longer-term concerns from the diagnosis, too. “There is no one else that can come in and fill in for me and do the job.” Spaghetti said this week from his home in Los Angeles.
“It was a big reality check. But I never really thought it was going to be the death of me. My main concern was how I was going to work and provide for my family. That was an obstacle that had to be dealt with.”
Crisis averted, Spaghetti is now cancer-free. “We had to take the time off. Everybody made the best of it, and everything worked out as good as it could have.”
Their return was a welcome one. The fast-talking frontman and his band of rabble-rousers are unique figures in the annals of Pacific Northwest music. Since the dawn of the ’90s, the group has mixed rock ’n’ roll with comedy and country in a way that made it a popular draw with tourmates and collaborators such as Pearl Jam and Steve Earle. A pair of back-to-back classics on the Sub Pop label, 1994’s La Mano Cornuda and 1995’s The Sacrilicious Sounds of The Supersuckers, expanded their reputation beyond their Seattle home base. Ever since, the Supersuckers have referred to themselves as “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World.”
Spaghetti endangered that reputation in 1997, with the release of Must’ve Been High, the band’s first full-fledged country endeavour. The reception was so poor, Spaghetti said, that he would not reconsider another unabashed country outing until last year, when he was given a clean bill of health from his doctor.
“We were pretty well rocked out,” he said. “We were on the tour for [2014 album] Get the Hell for a year and a half or so, and while we were on that tour, we were making up a bunch of songs that all had an acoustic feel to them. We started thinking maybe we should pursue [another country record], and try to follow up Must’ve Been High all these years later. In true Supersuckers fashion, we waited way longer than we should have to do it.”
A lot changed during the 18-year break between country records. Less than a year after its release, Holdin’ the Bag is now among the best-selling records in the band’s catalogue, Spaghetti said.
“Now, country is way more accepted. Back then, it was a nightmare, actually. To try and tour Must’ve Been High, the fans were not responding to it at all. It was really poorly received, at least at the live shows. When we tried to do a combination of the rock show and the country set, everybody would leave as soon as we started doing the country music. They would boo us until we started doing the rock stuff. It was a rough go. We showed that it was the right thing to do eventually, because it’s a much easier sell this time around, for sure. But at first, it was rough.”
Spaghetti, guitarist Marty Chandler and drummer Chris Von Streicher will be in Victoria on Friday for one of two Canadian dates on the tour to support Holdin’ the Bag. It will be a country show, Spaghetti promised, but delivered with the same zeal fans expect from the Supersuckers.
“We’re the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world, but we’re not the greatest country band in the world. We’re working on it.”
Work is something Spaghetti no longer takes for granted. Surviving a cancer scare does put things in perspective, he admitted. “I was grateful that I had something I really wanted to get back to. I didn’t have a desk job I was dreading to go back to. It was something I really enjoyed, so it was super-cool to get back to it.”
