Mother truckers

Thrasher Magazine, August, 2003 by Eben Sterling

AT THE FOOT OF MARIN'S MYTHIC MOUNT TAMALPAIS and just down the street from the 7-11 stands the home of Josh Zee and Teal Collins. There's power in the mountains over there that-inspired Jack Kerouac, but currently fuels the fire that is the Mother Truckers. The band is a trove of talent from guitar virtuosity to male-female vocal harmonies that give Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris a solid run for their money. Their style mixes Blue Ridge reverence with Wild West rebellion and a- strong dose of Texas tenacity. Basically, what we're talking about is country music for people that don't listen to country--the type of stuff that can teach you a little about life, but-is best served--in joints where more beer is spilled than actually swallowed.

What's New- Jacks and a Jill?

Teal Collins: It's Four Jacks and a Jill.

Josh Zee: That's just our side band. Me, Teal, and our other friend. We get together and play all the songs that we know collectively without rehearsing. We'll play a little Dio, Beatles, KISS.

Beatles and Dio in one set?

TC: Yeah, actually.

That must make for a hell of a Bar Mitzvah. How does that go over?

JZ: Well, it's mostly our friends who attend:

Josh, you're a big AC/DC guy, right?

JZ: Yeah. I love them.

Are you a Bon Scott or a Brian Johnson man?

JZ: I do like Brian Johnson, but obviously I'm a die-hard Bon Scott fan.

You guys are called the Mother Truckers. Why don't you sing about trucking?

JZ: That'd be bullshit. I have a '77 Ford F-100, but I ain't no trucker. What do I know about trucking? I've certainly tried enough meth and I drive a Ford, but I ain't no trucker.

Good answer.

TC: To confuse people is our only goal.

So you're not planning to cover any CB McCall songs on your next record?

JZ: No. We covered Electric Eye by Judas Priest. Most of the songs we cover are old metal songs done in a pretend country style. We do "TNT" by AC/DC, 'Ace of Spades" by Motorhead. We get the biggest kick out of that for some reason.

Is there a place on the pop charts next to Nelly and System of a Down for a hand playing hot-rodded country music?

JZ: We played with a band the other night, the Drive-By Truckers, at Slim's in SF and they're on Lost Highway I believe. That's the kind of career I'd like to have. They're from Athens, Georgia, and they come out to San Francisco and they play. Slim's and they fill the place up. They're not - situated between Nelly and System of a Down. They're not on MTV. They don't have much money behind them, but just through touring and word of mouth--my goal would be to go to Athens, Georgia, and play a Slim's-size venue and fill the place. -I would be totally satlsfied with that. We do pretty good in San Francisco, but I would love to just go to some random state and know that I could fill a club. I'don't need or even want to be on MTV, or on modem radio.

Would you consider yourselves an "alternative country" band?

JZ: It seems to me that the country stuff that I hear now that falls under the category of alternative country is either really straight, straight-up country, but kind of low budget. So it's not slick-Nashville, but it's really authentic. Or it's sort of irreverent but not real country-sounding. It's more rootsy and Americana -based I see us sort of in the middle, because our music is pretty country but our attitude and our lyrics aren't.

TC: They're a little edgy.

Josh, do you ever think, "If it were 30 years ago I could have been a guitar god?" Ever wish you had a time machine so you could go back to a time when guitar solos were cool?

JZ: Well, I'll tell you What happened. I was in a rock band and we got signed in the mid-'90s and about a year after we got signed guitar solos started to really go out of fashion. So I don't really have to go back 30 years. If I could just go back like five years...I'll just say this, it was hard for me in the mid-'90s with my previous band Protein. We got two records out on Sony's Work Groove label and it was really guitar-oriented right when that window was closing. It just couldn't have been sadder. But also I would like to take a trip back to the late '60s or early '70s when you could really stretch out on guitar and just.

TC: Jam?

JZ: Yeah, jam dude! like how on The Song Remains the Same, the live Led Zeppelin album; The whole side was just "Dazed and Confused." Back when there was vinyl.

Being from Marin, are you down with Tupac?

TC: He's down a little lower than us.

JZ: Six feet lower than us. www.themothertruckers.com