The Supersuckers have made a career out of not being serious. How else to explain a body of work that includes songs like “Pretty Fucked Up,” “Born With a Tail” and “I’m a Fucking Genius”? In their 34 years as a band, the heavy-metal-meets-outlaw-country group started by bassist/vocalist Eddie Spaghetti has, in some ways, come a long way, and in others, stayed just the same.

From the band’s late ’80s beginning in Tucson—even before they were known as the Supersuckers—the group always played original material.

“Pretty much ever since I was able to play three chords on the guitar, I’ve been making up songs,” says Spaghetti. He laughs as he admits that his skill set hasn’t progressed much past that point in the three and half decades since. “I just learned what I needed to.”

The Supersuckers’ output—a dozen albums of original recordings, four compilations and five live releases—has showcased consistent quality. But when it comes to musical style, few would describe the band as consistent. On record, the Supersuckers have veered from hard rock to hardcore country and back again…and again. The thread that runs through all of their—on record and onstage—is its spirit.

Eddie Spaghetti describes the band’s enduring philosophy:

“Just come up with something that’s catchy and preferably fun,” he explains, “and then play it as fast as it ought to be played.” The band, he says, lives in the spirit of Motörhead, AC/DC, and the Ramones. “Throw in some Replacements, and you’ve kind of got the vibe of what we’re going for.”

All of the original members of the Supersuckers grew up in Tucson, but felt hemmed in by their hometown. 

“We formed the band thinking that it would be our ticket out of town,” Spaghetti says. The band took an irreverent approach to the prospect of relocating, though. “We decided based on a coin toss,” Spaghetti says. “We narrowed it down to either New Orleans or Seattle.”

Seattle won the coin toss. Spaghetti recalls thinking, “There’s nothing going on up there; there’s no [music] scene. We’ll go up there, we’ll be the greatest band that anybody’s ever seen!” 

When they arrived in the Pacific Northwest, reality hit them hard. 

“Nirvana was already going,” Spaghetti laughs. 

The band eventually inked a deal with taste-making indie label Sub Pop, and would go on to release four albums on the imprint.

In 1995, the group scored a major break when Willie Nelson invited them to play at Farm Aid. 

“That really helped us a lot to get solidified in that whole outlaw country world,” Spaghetti says. “It’s acceptable to be an old fart in a cowboy hat up there singing songs,” he says with a chuckle.

It looked like another big leap forward was in the cards when Interscope Records picked up the band, but abrupt changes at the label left the band high and dry with an unreleased album in the can—where it remains to this day. 

“We made a real cool record with Tom Werman, who had produced Cheap Trick and Mötley Crüe,” he says. “But nobody’s ever heard it.”

The Interscope debacle paled in comparison to another challenge the band would face. Diagnosed with cancer, Spaghetti wasn’t sure if he—much less the band—would survive. But he earned a clean bill of health in 2015. The record that eventually came out of the experience, 2018’s Suck It, is equal parts dark and humorous, and it ranks among Spaghetti’s favorite Supersuckers albums. Their most recent record, Play That Rock -N- Roll, featuring the trio lineup that’s been in place for nearly a decade—Spaghetti on bass, plus guitarist “Metal” Marty Chandler and drummer Chris “Chango” von Streicher—was released in 2020.

Now, after being sidelined by the pandemic, the band is back on the road. 

“We’re going out into this vast, messy, germ-filled world, to try to tour,” he says. “There are upsides: maybe I won’t have to be giving hugs to strangers!”

Asked where he sees the Supersuckers five years from now, Eddie Spaghetti has a ready answer. 

“Doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the last 30-plus years,” he says. “Just making killer rock music.

The Supersuckers
Thur, 8pm, $15
The Ritz, San Jose

With a well-deserved reputation as one of the hardest working bands in rock & roll, the Supersuckers have been on the road for nearly three decades now, blazing a path across stages around the world. But that all came to an abrupt halt in June of last year, when singer and bassist Eddie Spaghetti was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer. The unwelcome news forced the band to cancel a European tour. Meanwhile, Spaghetti was faced with an uncertain future, both personally and professionally.

“It was just all these unknowns before I knew exactly where the cancer started and what kind of cancer it was,” he says. “That was the scariest time of course, because you don’t know and your mind races—‘Is it in my brain, is it in my ass, where’s this cancer starting?’”

When the news was ultimately shared with the public, there was an outpouring of support from fans and friends, with a “Fly The Middle Finger at Cancer” campaign that raised funds for the eventual surgery and radiation treatments that he would undergo. The amount of emotional encouragement and financial aid was a bit humbling for the singer, who was used to providing for himself and his family on his own.

“The silver lining to all this was the support I got from strangers and people I know alike,” he says. “It fortifies your faith in humanity a little bit, which is something everybody could use.”

Though the healing process was an arduous one, Spaghetti—who is now cancer-free—likes to highlight the positive aspects that the forced break brought into his life, both on and off the stage. “I got to spend more time with my family and that’s something that I really appreciate now,” said Spaghetti.

He also thinks that his voice may have improved as a result of the ordeal. “I had never taken that much time off from singing or talking,” he says. “I feel like my range is a little bit better, and I’m able to belt it out just like I used to.”

The Supersuckers are currently flaunting their renewed spirit and showcasing songs from their latest album, Holdin’ The Bag, a country-tinged collection that was recorded just before the cancer diagnosis. Spaghetti says he is glad to be back on the road and appreciates all the support from his fans. “It’s super cool to see people coming out to the shows, we’ve been doing this a long time and it’s nice to see that people still care.”

Supersuckers
Oct 21, 8pm, $15-$18                                
The Ritz, San Jose

Even if the Supersuckers aren’t the greatest rock & roll band ever—a claim they made with their 1999 greatest-hits collection—they shouldn’t be docked just for indulging in some overheated hype. The “greatest hits” album, covering the band’s years on SubPop, from 1988 to 1999, is funny considering that the Supersuckers didn’t really produce any hits during that period.

The record, however, does a good job of demonstrating the band’s simple, no-frills approach and its incredible range. They’ve released punk-rock tracks, rock & roll, cow punk and plain old country songs.

Their early albums were loud and sat comfortably alongside the work of other guitar-heavy, angst-filled Sub Pop bands like Mudhoney, whose teenage fanbase hated country music. Yet the group’s 1997 album, Must’ve Been High, would pass for alternative country these days. Even though it was an oddity, it just seemed to make sense and was surprisingly well received. Their follow-up, The Sacrilicious Sounds of the Supersuckers, hit the opposite end of the spectrum with loud ballsy rock.

It’s been almost 10 years since the Supersuckers released a proper studio album, but they have issued their fair share of compilations and live recordings on their own label. They are working on a new album, which is projected to come out in 2013. The only question is, will it be country, rock & roll, or something entirely different?

Talky Tina and Bibles & Handgrenades fill out the bill.

The Blank Club
Friday, Dec. 14;
9pm; $12/$15

God, I’ve missed Eddie Spaghetti. As leader of the Supersuckers, the guy put out one of the top ten rock records of the ’90s with 1999’s The Evil Powers of Rock ‘N’ Roll. His anthems, from “Born With a Tail” to “Rock Your Ass” and everything in between, gave country-punk the AC/DC-sized kick in the ass it always needed. Well into the 2000s, he was killing it every night live.

But forget all that for a minute.

I miss him almost as much for his balls-out super-rocker persona and razor-sharp wit, which has allowed him to bill the Supersuckers throughout their career as “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world” and write tongue-in-cheek self-tributes like “I Want the Drugs” and “I’m A Fucking Genius” without ever turning the Supersuckers into a Tenacious D-type comedy band. Plus the guy writes the only fan-update emails I can’t wait to read, they’re hilarious and strange and all too honest.

Of course, neither myself nor any other Supersuckers fan has gotten one since Februrary of last year, which is indicative of how the wheels seem to have been falling off the band for years. The Supersuckers always seemed to me like a model for 21st century indie bands—they put out records on their own label and released absolutely every inch of live tape they could, not to mention that they were masters of merchandising. They connected to their fanbase in the way that we were told every band would thanks to the Internet. Except it turned out to be a hell of a lot of work, 24/7, so most bands quickly gave up trying, other than the occasional Facebook update, tweet, and requisite dead MySpace page. Not this band though—they were incredible at using every digital and analog tool at their disposal to create a little Republic of Supersuckers, making the most out of their cult stardom and always seeming like they might break big at any time.