The Nelsons Push to Grow Beyond Idol Moments : Nelsons Push to Grow Beyond Idol Moments

When Matthew and Gunnar Nelson became teen-pop sensations in 1990, they were tracing the footsteps of their father, the original rock ‘n’ roll pop teen idol.

But, pointedly, the twins were not taking their cues from Rick Nelson’s music.

“Nobody does Rick Nelson better than Rick Nelson,” Gunnar said in a 1991 interview with The Times. “The man is dead; let him lie. If [people] want heritage, they go out and buy my dad’s records.”

Nelson, as they called their band, dealt in upbeat pop-metal rooted in such ‘70s arena-rock warhorses as Bad Company, Boston and Aerosmith. It had nothing to do with the seminal ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll that their father made popular from his family perch on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” TV series, or with the pioneering country-rock blend that later forced a reevaluation by folks who wanted to dismiss Rick Nelson as strictly a creature of black-and-white TV and ‘50s teen culture.

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At their peak, when they were headlining amphitheaters on their way to selling more than 2 million copies of their first album, “After the Rain,” Matthew and Gunnar would dedicate a missing-you ballad, “Love Me Today,” to their father every night (they were 18 when his touring plane crashed in Texas on Dec. 31, 1985). But they wouldn’t go near anything that sounded like rockabilly or country-rock.

Today, everything has changed. Or, rather, everything is the same.

Like their father 30 years ago, Matthew and Gunnar are desperately trying to raise the curtain on a second act to their career, their teen idol phase having passed even more swiftly than such inherently ephemeral runs usually do (Nelson was the last pop-metal band to hit it big before Nirvana and the alterna-rock onslaught obliterated that preening genre).

They have taken the same musical turn their father did--toward a country-rock blend of pleasant melodies, sweet harmonies and twangy guitars. The Nelson brothers will play their new country songs--and some of their father’s oldies--Sunday at the Crazy Horse Steak House, on a songwriters showcase with Victoria Shaw and Steve McClintock, veteran songsmiths who have served as mentors and songwriting partners as the Nelsons make their way in Nashville.

“Reinvention is an exhilarating process,” Matthew Nelson said from a Pasadena studio where he and his brother were editing a promotional videotape to plug their new efforts. “Our dad did it. We became musically conscious [while] watching him go through his renaissance. And now we’re trying to do the same thing.”

The Nelsons say this isn’t a sudden about-face, and that the link in all they’ve done, pop-metal and country alike, is the melodic and vocal influence they absorbed growing up in the ‘70s and early ‘80s around Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band.

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Starting in 1968, the elder Nelson and his band joined Gram Parsons and Poco as key innovators shaping the country-rock movement that subsequently spawned the Eagles, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, not to mention most of today’s country hit-makers, who have transplanted the sound from Southern California to Nashville.

The Nelsons’ path to Nashville was roundabout. The brothers, who have houses about a mile apart in Studio City, were on a songwriters’ retreat in Indonesia early in 1995, joining other American performers in woodshedding with Indonesian musicians. Members of a Nashville contingent, including Shaw, writer of a guitar-case full of country hits for Garth Brooks, John Michael Montgomery and others, encouraged them to try their luck in Music City.

The Nelsons quickly took up the invitation and began spending about half their time in Nashville, developing contacts and playing showcases as would any new arrivals.

Shaw said the twins have been able to charm away biases that the Nashville music community had against former pop idols horning in on new turf.

“They get a real bad rap because people want to brand them before they meet them: ‘They’re rock ‘n’ roll idols; they must be stuck up.’ Until they meet them, and [then] everything melts away,” Shaw said. “They didn’t come thinking, ‘We’re stars; we should be treated like that; give me a deal real quick.’ They went about it in the right way, which made everybody embrace them instead of putting up walls.”

One of those won over by the Nelsons was Paige Levy, senior vice president for Artists and Repertoire at Warner Bros. Records’ Nashville division.

“As soon as people met them, they knew Matthew and Gunnar were sincere,” Levy said. “They didn’t come to Nashville expecting to get a deal overnight and bump off Garth Brooks. They came here to write in the Nashville writing community, and it has evolved.”

The Nelsons say they’ve gone to school by working with an A-list of country songwriting pros that includes Shaw, McClintock, Gary Burr and Gary Nicholson.

“We’ve learned how to turn a lyric, because Nashville is more of a lyric town,” Gunnar said. “In L.A., your publisher hears you have a new song and says, ‘What does it sound like?’ In Nashville, they ask, ‘What’s it about?’ ”

A 10-song demo of the Nelsons’ country material includes such familiar themes as lusting in a bar (“She’s Way Too Cute”), devout pledges of love (“Forever Isn’t Long Enough”) and lovelorn regrets on a grand scale (“You Call That a Mountain”).

Still, the Nelsons also have personal stories to tell: “Just Once More” voices lingering sorrow over losing their father (“Every day in every way I try to make you proud/But I wish I could tell you face-to-face. . . .”) and “Start Livin’ My Life” is a capsule account of their musical path: “I knew it all at 17/By 22 I’d lived my dreams/But deep inside I wasn’t satisfied. . . .”

Some of the stuff is polished and buffed, like most mainstream country radio fodder. But there also is a strong streak of traditionalism, leaning on both the family bloodlines and an Everly Brothers harmony influence. “One of the Things About You” sounds as if it could be a faithful remake of a Rick Nelson number, but it’s a newly minted original.

“I don’t mind tipping a hat to the past, as long as it sounds modern,” Matthew Nelson said. “Something that sounds like it’s got heritage to it hits people in the heart a lot quicker.”

Unlike in their pop-metal days, the Nelsons now see keeping alive their father’s music as part of their mission; they regularly perform Rick Nelson nuggets such as “Hello Mary Lou,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Lonesome Town” and “Garden Party.”

“We realized the hard way that the only way the music is going to stay around is if we keep it out there,” Matthew said. “It’s our responsibility. Nobody else is going to do it, and the music is fantastic.”

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Family consciousness is behind another new development: The Nelsons say they have just signed with the Fox network for a TV series that also features their older sister, actress Tracy Nelson.

Though not exactly a sequel to “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” which from 1952 to 1966 blended fiction and reality with a weekly glimpse at the Nelson household, the planned show will feature a new Nelson generation going for laughs while playing themselves interacting as a family.

Gunnar said the series, tentatively titled “Coming Home,” will be “a show within a show, like ‘Larry Sanders’ meets ‘Full House,’ with an edge to it.

“We’re going to be able to laugh at ourselves and let people laugh at us too,” he added. And, perhaps, use the program--as their dad did--as a prime-time vehicle for their music.

“I think they’re a marketing dream,” said Levy, the Warner Bros. executive. “I think it’s a great opportunity for somebody to develop their music and tie it in with all the other things going on with them.”

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To her regret, it appears that Curb Records, not Warner’s, will get to exploit those opportunities. High-level shifts in the management structure at Warner Bros. made the Nelson brothers leery of signing with that label; they say Mike Curb caught their act at the Bluebird Cafe, the top Nashville showcase for aspiring country talent, and immediately offered them a contract that is in “final negotiations.”

Nobody knows better than the Nelsons the value of a second chance in the music business. And of being around to seize it.

Last month, that lesson was driven home again when Gunnar began to hemorrhage--a complication of nasal surgery to correct an injury incurred while kick-boxing. Matthew was there and rushed him to the hospital, where Gunnar felt he might be dying.

“I was starting to slip away. I panicked, and what came to me was, ‘I’m very far from being done with what I have to say.’ ”

With Gunnar fit (and, he says, singing more comfortably and less nasally through his repaired sinuses), the brothers are ready to step up to the bar at their Second Chance Saloon.

“I don’t want to look back on myself as a teen idol,” Matthew said. “That’s not my identity. I want to be looked on as an artist, somebody who grew through his music.”

* The Nelson Brothers, Victoria Shaw, Steve McClintock and Karen Staley perform in a Nashville Songwriters Acoustic Evening, Sunday at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. 3 and 8 p.m. $29-$36. (714) 549-1512.