Big Shoes to Fill

It’s always tough being the new guy. Especially when the old guy made such a definitive mark before you. Even though Jonny “Two Bags” Wickersham, Social Distortion’s new guitarist, has been traveling in the same circles as frontman Mike Ness and company for over 20 years, he’s still a little hesitant in his new role. In 2000, Social D co-founder Dennis Danell died from a brain aneurysm, leaving uncertainty as to the band’s future. However, when Ness decided to forge ahead, Jonny was there, willing and able to carry on the legacy of his friend and insure Social Distortion’s future. When the Synthesis spoke with Jonny Two Bags, we asked him to elucidate how difficult it was filling Danell’s shoes, the relevance of punk rock in the TRL age, and The OC.

How did you come to be a member of Social Distortion?
I grew up going to see the band play. I used to see the band play when I was 14, 15 years old, and I became friends with Mike and Dennis. I just kinda always knew them and stuff. I played in other local bands down there — I guess I was always around, lurking. In ‘97, Dennis flew home from the White Light tour to be home for the birth of his son, and they flew me out there to fill in for him for a few weeks. After Dennis passed away, Mike wasn’t sure if he was going to keep the band going for a while. But when he made that decision to keep Social D going, he just called and asked if I wanted to play guitar.

That’s a really sad circumstance to joining Social Distortion. What was it like filling in for Dennis?
It was really weird at first. This is Dennis’ spot still. I’m in the band now playing guitar, but as far as I’m concerned I’m still just filling in for Dennis. Dennis was in the band for over 20 years. He started the band with Mike. As far as I was concerned, back in the day Dennis was the other half of Social D. I know later on the band kinda became more about Mike and everything, but back in the day when they were playing backyard parties still and little punk shows around OC and Hollywood, it was Mike and Dennis together. They were notorious, they were always out getting in trouble. I’ll never actually feel like I’ve taken Dennis’ place in Social D. And I’m fine with that. All the respect to Dennis, he was my friend, too.

In Love, Sex & Rock ‘N’ Roll, I hear a lot of renewed hope. Do you feel that this record is more optimistic than earlier Social D stuff?
Absolutely. The lyrical premises of the songs definitely take a whole different direction. A lot of the old Social D stuff was on the dark side, or angry, or focusing on loss and hard times, and I think that this record is more about re-evaluating and seeing what you have left and really making the best of the things you have in life now, especially friendships and personal relations with people and family. That’s something that I don’t think people realize until, unfortunately, through loss and through maturing as well. There’s still all kinds of things to rail against, and we can do another record that’s like that, but I think that Mike really wanted to do a record that had this kind of a vibe. I mean, losing Dennis was a big thing.

Do you think rebellion through punk rock has become too safe?
I mean, stylistically punk rock is safe, yeah. It’s not scaring anybody anymore, right? But rebellion through what you write songs about can still be completely relevant. When punk first hit, it shocked everybody. Even when I cut my hair short in 1980 when I was 13 years old and put on a pair of Converse high tops, that was enough to freak people out at school and freak out my relatives a little bit. And that was nothing! I had a little tail thing, short hair with a little tail, [laughs] you know… It’s been done and done again over and over. That’s just what happens. You see it enough and it becomes okay.

Just through punk rock kicking around for years, it’s become accepted. Do you think punk music is still relevant?
It has relevance, to a degree. I look at punk as a genre the same way I look at blues as a genre. It’s like, people been playing the blues for years and years and years and they’re basically doing the same thing over and over, but out of thousands of thousands of bands doing it, every once and a while a band comes along that really nails it and does it well. I think the same thing can be said about punk rock now.

I wanted to ask you about Orange County. Do you ever watch The OC?
I watched it once, and I was just like, ‘Oh my God man, this is brutal.’

How different is the public perception of Orange County from the television show versus your experience growing up there?
They just make it seem like it’s all a bunch of rich kids. And it is. There are some wealthy people there, and I grew up right next door to them, but my experience wasn’t that. I grew up in a lower middle class home, we lived in apartments all my life. I did go to school for a minute where there were a lot of really rich kids and it was kinda weird.

It’s just such a weird juxtaposition, thinking of the television show The OC and the Orange County hardcore sound.
Well the Orange County sound really comes from Fullerton, in my opinion. I grew up in Costa Mesa, which is a bit closer to the beach, and there was a lot of great bands that came from Huntington Beach and everything. But I think the Adolescents and Social Distortion, and the Mechanics that came around before them, that sound came from those bands. Rikk and Frank Agnew, Steve Soto, that’s the sound that bands like the Offspring were citing as an influence…as much as they were TSOL I guess, but they were from Long Beach… The style of playing a melody with octaves in a fast punk song, that just comes straight from OC. They weren’t the first people to do it, obviously, it’s kind of a jazz thing I think [laughs].

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