Are The Supersuckers quite possibly the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World? They seem to think so themselves, along with many of longtime fans including myself. It’s their mission statement, after all! In the fall of 1992, The Suckers released their seminal Sub Pop statement, The Smoke of Hell. I was living in Southeast Portland Oregon at the time, fresh in town, finding new friends at various shows as well as the local record stores, particularly Roundhouse Records. The owner, Peter, grew up in Toronto, was a Northwest transplant like myself, and loved everything punk, garage, and underground. His shelves were stocked with the obscure, the new, the hip, the uncool, the fierce, the heavy, alongside the local favorites. We became close and immediately started a punkabilly band called Iceberg Slim. He always had something to turn you onto, old or new; PDX musicians hung out there frequently to shop and soak up the energy. I was actually in his store on the very Tuesday morning that The Smoke of Hell arrived, it being prominently placed on the turntable first. Peter was already hip to their first singles compilation, The Songs All Sound The Same, and was hyping them hard while spinning the new album. However, something about it grabbed both of us and shook us harder than expected. Every song was a fucking rock and roll ANTHEM! “This is way better than the first record”, he kept saying song after song. It pulsed alive and kicking, driving headlong into a furious relentless hard rock maelstrom of hooks and melody. It was like AC/DC and Black Flag and Motörhead and Stooges all combined into this fierce display of modern rock and roll power. We played the album over and over that day, determined to eventually bring a little of that sound into our own fledgling band. It was the album of the year for both of us, and was constantly in rotation in the store or at home.

The Suckers played in Portland a lot during this era, mostly at Satyricon or Pine Street Theater, the rechristened La Luna. I saw them blow quite a few prominent touring bands OFF THE STAGE, most notably New Bomb Turks as well as Bad Religion. In 1993, I think I both saw them at least 5 or 6 times all within a few miles of my house. That’s how it worked with the Northwest scene: if you lived in Washington or Oregon, you toured around the area a lot, to build a fanbase. I even became friendly with Eddie Spaghetti and Danny Siegel later that year after discovering that they were mutual friends with my old band, Toadies. In the meantime, my little band Iceberg Slim was playing and rehearsing less frequently, mostly due to our leader Todd finishing his Masters at Lewis and Clark. That is when Peter hatched a plan for the two of us to start a cover band, mostly to bide our time between Iceberg happenings. But you have to remember that in the early 90’s, being in a “cover band” was artistic suicide in any respectable music scene. That was old-hat; originality in rock was completely in vogue. However around the same time, a bunch of Portland musical stalwarts (Elliot Smith, Sean Crogan, Sam Coomes, and Chris Slusarenko) formed a Devo cover band called Spudboys. They were fantastic! So covering a good band was essential, especially someone contemporary. The Replacements had broken up a couple of years before, so we both considered a Placemats band. That’s when Peter heard from someone connected at Sub Pop that The Supersuckers were recording a new album at Conrad Uno’s place, Egg Studio, to be released in early ’94. We had also heard that the Sub Pop reps underhandedly called the band THE STUPIDFUCKERS, either out of spite or the fact that they were really transplants from Phoenix? It was the perfect band name! And a crazy idea: cover a modern popular local band. Should we? Would it work?

Peter knew every musician in the Northwest it seemed. Steve from Mudhoney was a store regular, he was great pals with Art from Everclear and Elliot Smith, bands regularly stopped in to shop with him. So forming a good cover band with great locals was easy. The Stupidfuckers quickly germinated around us within a month. Thirty years later though, for the life of me though, I cannot remember who else was in the band! Sheridan? A singer named Mark? Sorry guys. Everyone was connected in the underground PDX punk scene, that I remember. I also remember that we sounded a lot like the Supersuckers eventually! But it took a lot of work, the process teaching us exactly what was so special about their amazing songs. They had tricky changes, odd choices of chord sequences, sections that didn’t have the typical usual amount of 8 or 16 bars, dynamics that were hard to nail down; it took some serious listening and rehearsal work to get close to their patented sound. We rehearsed three times a week in the backroom of Roundhouse Records, learned 12 songs from the first two records, and received very early encouragement from Brandt from Heatmiser. Everyone studied their counterparts down to gear, styles, tones, and feel. Though we couldn’t afford Les Paul Gold Tops, we forged their guitar sound as best we could, soon congealing into a fantastic live unit. During that time, The Suckers released the amazing La Mano Cornuda album much to our delight. Our first coverband show was at a new club called EJ’s off Sandy Boulevard. That night, a newly solo Elliott Smith opened for us, him mentioning to me that it was only his third acoustic gig alone! We next played a couple of popular Wednesday night $1 Pint nights there, getting tighter while adding new songs from their latest. At some point, we recorded a rehearsal tape, singling out our best five Sucker Covers to get more gigs. The Suckers came into town soon after for their record release, with Peter and I on hand to witness. They were managed by the legendary Danny Bland at the time, easily one of the most approachable yet intimidating guys in the business during the Grunge era. If you were full of shit, he’d sense it and suss you out. But if you were real and sincere, he was gregarious and welcoming. I was drunk enough to slip him our demo early in the evening, Peter egging me on. He was cordial, if a little taken aback. “Wait: you guys are in a coverband? Of The Supersuckers? Is this a joke?” I assured him that it wasn’t and all we wanted was to do was let the band know that we existed and that we didn’t suck! Bland told me he would give the band our tape, and that was what we thought was the end of that. About halfway through The Suckers set though, he comes up to me at the back bar and taps me on the shoulder to chat. “The band heard the tape before they went on and they love it! They want to meet you after the gig”, he said handing me two backstage passes. “Come back after their set, kid”, he winked. I handed Peter the pass and we both flipped out. They really liked us?

Backstage at La Luna meeting the entire band for the first time was quite the enlightening experience. Every musician in the Northwest smoked that sweet sticky Northwest Sativa which was prevalent everywhere you went back then. The Suckers had a new song called “High Yeah” , and also had recorded a virtual endorsement of their heady consumption of leafy greens on The Smoke Of Hell. Walking backstage to meet the band, Peter and I were instantly hit with a wall of skunky aroma. The band and Bland were seated around a large round table passing bowls of smoke circularly while laughing about the show, drinking the rider beers. Eddie was the first to acknowledge us and ask us to sit in on the after show session. He was quite amused with us forming a Supersucker cover band right in the middle of the band’s rising success, calling it “the ultimate ego stroke”. The members were introduced to us one by one as we passed around the pipe. Peter had a Canadian habit of over drinking at the time, this being no exception with him shyly sitting back in the corner in awe barely speaking, not partaking. He kept saying over and over, “We’re not supposed to be here…this is not real.” Everyone seemed quite happy that we sounded decent enough to cover them, also quite flattered. I rattled off our setlist: Alright, Poor, Junk, Luck, Caliente, Coattail Rider, Tasty Greens, Hot Rod Rally, Mighty Joe Young, Sweet & Sour Jesus, Jackalope, Seventeen Poles. Eddie loved the fact that we had to have a dedicated lead singer because playing bass and singing his songs was too damn hard. Heathman told us that they didn’t even play a lot of the early stuff that we were covering anymore. Dancing Eagle was really interested in seeing us do this live. The only one who was kind of smart-ass about the whole thing was Dan Bolton, who kept asking why we would do it, saying that we had to have some intention other than flattery and fandom. Which was odd in itself when Danny Bland asked for our contact information. “These guys should open a show the next time the band is in town! Play songs that you guys don’t play! It’d be hilarious to have a fake Supersuckers followed by the real thing, all different songs, no repeats. We’ll be in touch.” Wait. WHAT? You want us to open for you? We though it was the pipe and the Henry Weinhard’s taking and dismissed it the next day continuing on with our lives.

So we continued rehearsing both Stupidfuckers and Iceberg Slim at Roundhouse, living the 90’s Portland dream a block away from the Barley Mill Pub on Hawthorne, our second home. That next Fall, Peter got a surprise phone call at the shop from a booking agency in Seattle regarding a gig at La Luna opening for…The fucking Supersuckers! It was unreal (as Peter kept saying), and we hit rehearsals HARD. We never spoke to anyone connected to the band about the setlist and what we should or shouldn’t play; I guess Danny Bland figured the setlist we rattled off at our last meeting was fine. Weeks before the gig, we were literally as tight as we could have ever been, our guitarists learning to raise their axes high during solo sections and endings just like the band. We even donned cowboy hats! I think it was an article in The Rocket around that time when we learned of Heathman stepping back from the band to go through rehab, him being replaced by Didjit Rick Sims. Of course, we were soon to realize that one member change didn’t screw with the sound dynamic at all, as Rick delivered. By showtime, we were primed, stoned, slightly drunk, and ready to rip. We played an excellent well received set, all of our songs rocked out and were well crafted. And the band was blow away! We partied with them backstage again after the show, got to meet weird Rick Sims and his non-stop smile, and were praised thoroughly like rock stars in the 2nd Greatest Rock and Roll band in the World. The band themselves only repeated two songs from our set, now pushing newer songs. It was an cathartic night all around. And that was THAT. We never played another Stupidfuckers gig. We’d done the impossible. I don’t even remember it being an option to continue the band! The Supersuckers were easily one of the biggest bands in the region by then, were touring internationally, and were very well know in the music world. Being in their cover band now seemed kinda’ lame after opening for them! However, they were for that little moment in time my friends.

A few months later, one of the more bizarre moments in my musical life occurred: The Supersuckers opened for my old band Toadies, with Butthole Surfers and Reverend Horton Heat in tow at Champoeg Park. I knew everyone in one capacity or another; Eddie and the boys were shocked to see me backstage, making the connection with their new friends, Todd and Lisa, my old bandmates. I knew King from the Surfers back in High School when he was ran the Throbbing Cattle fanzine, and regularly used to run into Jim Heath all around the DFW Metroplex before he was famous. At this time, even though I was an ex-member, I was always assured a Backstage Pass at every Northwest Toadies show, so this was no surprise to be on the All Access list. It was a magical afternoon. It rained all through Jim Heath’s set but cleared up for The Suckers, who ripped it as per their usual. My girlfriend gave The Rev a Mary’s Strip Club shirt. King and I chatted about the early DFW punk days for about an hour.Toadies played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen them play up to that point, me the proud ex member on the side stage singing along with every song. Smoked weed with Spaghetti and Reznicek and Churilla and Leary in a backstage trailer. Drank from the bands coolers. The sun even came out around early evening for the Butthole Surfers set, which we all joked about (“they put the Texas Sun on their rider”). I still have that backstage pass stuck to one of my gear cases. It was such a fun day, and the last time I was their coattail rider hanging backstage.

I’ve said hello to Eddie a few times at their gigs in the ensuing decades, never really striking up a conversation or anything more than a “Hey Man.” I doubt he’d probably remember me with all those road-years obscuring the past. But I still have such HIGH regard for their music, their work ethic, as well as their influence. Rontrose Heathman passed away about a year ago sadly. I can still see his smiling face in that FOGhat that he loved to wear everywhere. The Supersuckers are obviously Eddie’s ship now, but we kinda’ all knew that he was the Captain of the vessel even from the beginning, right? They still sound pretty much the same although with a more matured sheen, they still kick major ass live, and they still put out amazing new music. They really are THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD. Thanks for including me in your World for a little while, guys. I’ll never forget it!

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