On stage, Social Distortion frontman Mike Ness is stoic, ferociously playing guitar and belting out true-to-life lyrics while betraying little in the way of emotion.
The Godfather of Orange County’s punk scene, Ness is the epitome of cool from a certain era, with slicked back-hair, full sleeves of tattoos and un-bowed confidence as he soaks up the energy of another sold-out crowd.
Nails; that’s been Ness for decades.
But away from the spotlight he’s evolving. The now 53-year-old musician recently has taken time to learn about himself and confront some old demons. The reflection has come as he writes an autobiography and prepped to hit the road in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Social Distortion’s self-titled third album.
That record, the group’s first on a major label, helped launch Social Distortion into the mainstream with the success of singles like “Ball and Chain,” “Story of My Life” and a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”
It also changed Ness from working man to working musician.
“Sitting down to write the book, it brought up stuff that I ran from for 40 years,” Ness said, leaning forward in a plush chair and speaking carefully during a chat at his rehearsal space.
“So, to go back, to face it and walk through it all again … it’s been gnarly, but necessary.”
At the risk of losing his book deal, he set that project aside and took a year off to spend time with his wife at their home in Orange. He hung with his two sons – now 23 and 19 – wrenched cars, went antiquing and focused on his physical health by surfing more and diving deeper into his obsession with boxing.
The issues he faced down, he said, stem from a rough childhood, which Ness still describes in only vague terms. But the basics include getting kicked out of his Fullerton home in his early teens, multiple run-ins with law enforcement and a battle with substance abuse.
“When you grow up the way I did, you develop survival skills. Those skills are great, at the time. They keep you alive, they keep you going.
“But as you get older… they become deficits. And I was just starting to identify those with writing the book,” Ness said.
“I had avoided therapy, even though I’ve been in 12-step programs for 30 years now,” he added. “It all would be fine if I was the single musician, the eclectic like ‘Oh, he’s crazy, that’s just who he is.’ But I’m a husband and a father now, and I just wasn’t going to play that card.”
As Ness stepped back from the mic during one of the last shows at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, which last month closed its doors for good, he relished the moment. With sweat dripping into his eyes, he even cracked a sly but sincere grin, letting the loyal devotees watching the show roar out the simple lyric he inked more than 25 years ago:
Story of my life!
It was the kick-off evening to the band’s 25th anniversary tour, which returns to the area Saturday at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, followed by three nights – Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday – at the Observatory in Santa Ana. Social D also just announced that it will serve as the opening act for Neil Young and Promise of The Real at the Forum in Inglewood on Oct. 14.
During this outing Ness and his players – including Jonny “2 Bags” Wickersham on rhythm guitar, Brent Harding on bass and David Hidalgo, Jr. on drums – perform the eponymous record from start to finish.
Ness says revisiting the old content, some of which he hadn’t even thought of for at least two decades, has been cathartic.
When the album first came out Ness was in his late 20s and relatively fresh out of rehab. He was a musician who painted houses in north Orange County to make ends meet. He’d been in several punk bands before forming Social Distortion in 1978, and between the group’s 1983 debut “Mommy’s Little Monster” and 1988’s “Prison Bound,” Ness had cleaned up his personal life and recovered from drug addiction.
Both of Social D’s first releases were only mildly successful and this third attempt needed to pan out. He was nervous about the new record, and was catching flack for distancing himself a bit from punk. He was exploring the blues and, in his previous album, the band had dabbled in Americana.
For Ness, the experiments weren’t a stretch.
He’d grown up watching punk staples like X play the Hong Kong Cafe in Los Angeles, and he’d caught sets by the Blasters. That band played everything from punk to country to Americana, and shared stages with everyone from punk acts like Fear to rockabilly popsters Stray Cats and the British rockabilly group, Levi and the Rockats.
That world spoke to Ness.
“There was an individuality to it,” Ness said. “Yet it was still a very unified front, in a kind of underground music scene.
“Americana was a big part of that,” he added. “The ’50s greaser look, the folk singer … the American gangster sort of style. It was important for me to establish that image, and to really dig into the roots of that music.
“It was a big risk, writing songs like ‘Sick Boy,’ ‘Story of My Life,’ and ‘Ball and Chain.’ They weren’t typical punk rock songs, but in my eyes they were just rock ’n’ roll,” Ness said.
“I went with my gut and it paid off. (It) gave me the confidence to go out and tour and write the next record.”
All of this reflection has Ness eager to finish writing the follow-up to the band’s 2011 album “Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes,” which was put out on punk indie label Epitaph Records.
A year from now, he hopes to be “waist deep” in recording. He credits really sitting down and analyzing his work from 25 years ago as the catalyst for his next phase.
“It was a chance to go back and say ‘Hey young Mike, how have you been?,’” he said.
“I thought about stuff I was doing, or stuff I had stopped doing at that time. I’ve just learned so much since then and I’ve taken that and expanded on it.
“It’s a great template to have and to be able to revisit.”
Back in the day, Ness merely hoped for a success, not so much in the form of monetary compensation, but instead in a lengthy, meaningful career as an artist that can look upon with pride. He calls his band, in which he is currently the only original member, a “strange phenomenon” and adds that most things happened purely by accident as a group of “idiot savants” attempted to carve out their own path.
It’s been a difficult road both personally and professionally, but hardships fade as he strums the first few notes of some of his biggest hits and the lets the fans take the lead during a live performance.
“It’s insane and you can’t help but be moved by that,” he said with smile. “It’s like ‘Whoa, man, I just hit a home run!’ It’s a grand slam and you run the bases during that moment and you slide into home and … Hell yeah! I did it!”
Contact the writer: 714-796-3570 or kfadroski@ocregister.com
