Music Preview: The Tex Pistols find the groove
The Tex Pistols trade in an unusual mutant strain of country music, one that’s informed by its members’ wildly diverse backgrounds. Guitarist Ed Berghoff fueled Nashville’s early-’90s Big Hats boom, writing songs for the likes of Garth Brooks, Wynonna and Billy Ray Cyrus, while singer Teddy Spanke came up alongside the old school Bakersfield hot-rod-honky-tonk crew, and bassist Brent Harding’s day job has him punching the clock for long-running punk rock outfit Social Distortion.
When they storm the stage at Joe’s Great American Bar and Grill on Friday, Aug. 19, the band will throw down a chewy, sweet and salty mixture of roaring country rock topped off with deftly wrought vocal harmonies, but, as Spanke said, “It’s not anything you hear on the radio. We are not a Top-40 band. We do some things by Vince Gill, Bluegrass Revival, Pure Prairie League, Bob Wills and we do some of Ed’s songs.”
“I’ve been writing since the ‘70s,” Berghoff said. “First, for my band Hot Lips & Finger Tips in Santa Monica, but then I hooked up with some friends in Nashville — I was writing with Larry Bastian, and Garth Brooks was our demo singer. This was before anyone had ever heard of him and when he got his deal he put one our songs, ‘Cowboy Bill,’ on the record. Then, after Wynonna recorded another song of mine, I moved down there. There were a lot of California people around Nashville in the ‘90s, but, boy, Music Row has really changed a lot. And so has the music.”
While Berghoff’s career as a writer pretty much fell into his lap, Spanke was practically born into it. His sister was married to Bobby Durham, one of Bakersfield’s classic mid-’60s artists (the first singer to record a Merle Haggard original, “My Past is Present,” for Capitol in 1965), and as a youth, Spanke learned some stinging licks from the city’s legendary hot-rod picker Gene Moles.
“My older brother Roger, he started in music when he was 15,” Spanke said. “He was touring at 17, and he kind of pushed me into it. My dad didn’t want any of us in music — he always said ‘that’s not a trade.’ He wanted us working in his shop. But I was out playing with Bobby Durham, and Gene Moles taught me guitar; his son Eugene was really a mentor to me. Bobby had a hit song on the radio the day I was born, and he also had all those great connections, so I got the chance to play with Rose and Fred Maddox, Billy Mize, all those great old-school artists.”
“This band started with some of the guys from Big House,” Spanke said. “They kept after me to do something and so now we’ve been at it about seven years. And our drummer Tanner Byrom, he’s been my friend since the second grade.”
After a few personnel hiccups (“our first guitar player left to become a permanent Buckaroo, he couldn’t turn that job down,” Spanke said), Berghoff brought in Social Distortion’s Harding (the pair play together in Ventura-based Hot Roux blues band) and the Tex Pistols have become a popular draw along the Central Coast and Bakersfield club circuit.
“It’s country, everything from old school to country rock, even a little classic rock,” Berghoff said. “We focus a lot on vocal harmonies. You’ve got to be present, really listen and try to find the sweet spot to make it happen. Those nights when the band is really in sync — that’s the best for the audience and the band.”
“The Tex Pistols are about groove,” Spanke said. “We do really listen to each other and when it sounds good and we’re having fun, it doesn’t even really matter what the song is, when we are doing it as well as we can, it just feels so good. It’s the best.”
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Who: The Tex Pistols
Where: Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill, 4311 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank
When: Friday, Aug. 19, 9 p.m.
Cost: Free
More info: (818) 729-0805, joesgreatbar.com
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JONNY WHITESIDE is a veteran music journalist based in Burbank and author of “Ramblin’ Rose: the Life & Career of Rose Maddox” and “Cry: the Johnnie Ray Story.”