The Supersuckers On Tour With Nashville Pussy…

THE SUPERSUCKERS are an American rock band, formed in 1988, whose music ranges from Alternative Rock to Country Rock to Cowpunk. Having had a long and colourful career with some Alt Hit singles along the way like Born With A Tail which received heavy airplay in Australia, THE SUPERSUCKERS return to Australia after their last tour had multiple sell out shows along the way. These legends of Cowpunk have a huge following here in Australia, and these shows are sure to pack out.

On occasion, The ‘suckers have even had some of their legendary mates, such as Willie Nelson and Eddie Vedder out the front singing – and who could blame Willie and Eddie for wanting to join in the ruckus! THE SUPERSUCKERS consist of the rockin’’ trio Eddie Spaghetti, Metal Marty Chandler and Christopher “Chango” von Streicher. We can’t wait to welcome them back to Australia in January 2025, for one hell of a hot ride with Nashville Pussy. Eddie Spaghetti does a quick interview with Hi Fi Way en route to Australia.

Does anything sort of prepare you for the very long flight to Australia?
No, not really. Just got to settle in, try to entertain yourself on a fifteen hour flight.

The partnership and friendship with Nashville Pussy is a solid one, it is an awesome combination isn’t it?
For this tour, yeah, we’re excited about it. We’re good friends with those guys and have known them since the nineteen hundreds and it’s going to be really good.

Does that make a big difference touring with people that you get along with really well and that you’re close friends?
It does, it’s always great to spend time with them, there’s very few people have this common experience that we have of being an awesome band, as good as any band there are, and just not being that popular! There’s not a whole lot of people that share that experience and it’s great to be around somebody who does.

Are you focusing on any particular album on this tour?
We just try to play a crowd pleasing mix of all the songs that we’ve done over three decades or so that we’ve been doing it. It’s a bigger challenge every year to come up with a set list set because there’s no shortage of material.

What is it about Australia that keeps you coming back?
There’s a vibe in Australia that gets what we do, a little bit more than a lot of other places. There’s an energy in Australia that we relate to. There’s a few places in the world that are really good for The Supersuckers, Australia’s one, Spain is one, Texas is one and Southern California is great. There’s just a few little pockets where the spirit of the people meet the spirit of the band and it’s good to be there.

Do you worry about the future of rock ‘n roll?
I don’t worry about it. It’s bleak though. It’s a bummer. Rock and roll is now going to be like jazz. It’s going to be music for a few old people who still like it and kids aren’t listening to rock and roll music like we used to. I don’t want to say it’s dying, but its popularity is certainly waned and it’s no longer the primary escape music of the youth anymore. In fact, what the kids listen to now I don’t even get, so I’ve aged out completely, which I guess is the natural order of things really.

It’s rough considering what is popular these days.
I agree, I don’t get it at all, but it’s not for me. They’re not making music for me. I hesitate to judge it too harshly because honestly, it just doesn’t even sound like music to me. Unless I can hear like an instrument that I’m familiar with in the first few seconds of a song, I don’t even listen to it. It doesn’t even register as music to me.

Is the focus still on albums for you?
I do see the validity in the business model, but nobody cares about the records anymore. Nobody’s got the time to listen to a full record anymore. But that’s what we do. I mean, each record has its own little personality, its own moment in time and that’s special to me. Again, that’s a part of the art form that is just not considered that important by many people anymore.

One of the favourite songs I have seen you do is You Am I’s Heavy Heart. What got you interested in covering that?
It is just one of those great songs and you don’t hear something like that all the time that moves you in such a way that you have to learn it first, and then you have to play it yourself, and then get your whole band to cover it. I remember when we did it, Tim came up to me and he was like I’m so glad you guys didn’t take the piss out of my song. He was afraid that we were going to do something awful to it. But we did a really straight sort of rocking version of it that stood the test of time.

Are there plans for new music this year?
Yeah, we have finished a new record. It’ll be out this year for sure. We tried to mix it up a little bit, but at the end of the day, we’re just The Supersuckers and it’s just going to sound like what we do. The recording process was a little bit different and it’s taking a lot longer for this record to get done than they normally do for us. There’s a lot of behind the scenes things that are different about this record, but I think at the end of the day, it’s just going to sound like another kickass Supersuckers record.

Is there one question you wish an interviewer would have asked but has not?
I wish they would ask me how it feels to have a number one single. Nobody ever asked that because it’s not a real question!

What’s next for The Supersuckers?
We have a full year. We booked this year assuming that our record would be out by now. So, we thought the record would probably be out around March. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, but we’re hoping for it to come out early summer and to make all our touring plans make sense. After Australia we come home and then I’m going to do a solo tour. Marty and I, our guitar player, are going to do a tour together and then The Supersuckers are going to hit the road again. We’re going to do a cruise and just start getting busy.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Nashville Pussy and The Supersuckers on the following dates, tickets from Hardline Media…