'TOUGHER THAN NAILS' Diffie goes back to basics in new disc

He's back to being a regular Joe, not a pinup boy.
By MARIO TARRADELL
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Country's regular Joe comes full circle.
With the release of "Tougher Than Nails," Oklahoma native Joe Diffie has returned to the meat-and-potatoes country of his debut album, 1990's "A Thousand Winding Roads." The new disc marks his debut for Nashville-based independent imprint Broken Bow Records after 11 years with conglomerate Sony Nashville. It also serves as his emancipation from the slick, manipulative confines of the major label, which once tried to pump him up and transform him into a pinup boy.
No more of that. Filled with barn-burning up-tempo numbers and crying-steel-guitar ballads, "Tougher" finds the singer doing what he does best: channeling legends George Jones and Lefty Frizzell in every note he croons.
A favorite
"I had a lot of people tell me, 'That first album was my favorite album you ever did,"' he says by phone from his home in Nashville. "I told Lonnie, my producer, I wanted to recapture the feeling of that first album, all the real basic kind of stuff. It was unencumbered. We accomplished some of that."
His swing back to basics comes as a benefit of signing with an artist-minded independent. He admits that he was skeptical at first, given the poor track record independents used to have at mainstream country radio. So he did a bit of research. He consulted his pals at radio, and the feedback was unanimous: If it's a good song, they'll play it.
And indeed, "Tougher Than Nails," the CD's kick-off single, is a Top 20 hit.
"A couple of guys kind of broke that stereotype-thing open, Kenny Rogers and David Ball," he says. Also, Curtis Morgan, a fellow Broken Bow artist, snagged a Top 10 hit. "They all had success. So there's not the stigma that was once attached to indie labels anymore. You get some people that are legitimate, established acts going to independents, and it makes it less of a risk."
Creative freedom
For the 45-year-old baritone, creative freedom was the selling point.
"The moment I walked out the door with Sony, this deal was offered to me. I didn't really look around anymore. I was just attracted to the promise of a lot of autonomy, to be able to do what I wanted to do. Not that I was ever shackled by any means, but that really appealed to me. I wanted to dig down and find me more."
He started to do that with his final Sony album, 2001's "In Another World," an overlooked gem that got next to no attention from the label.
"I still have a lot of friends at Sony," he says. "It was an amicable departure. But it was frustrating because it was a really good album, and it got zero attention. They barely put product out there. I thought that CD had some killer stuff on it. I listened to that the other day, and I played it for my new band members."
Ups and downs
Still, "In Another World" was too little, too late. Diffie's tenure at Sony was akin to a roller coaster ride: The highs were exhilarating while the lows were mind numbing. He enjoyed five No. 1 singles, a couple of million-selling discs (1993's "Honky Tonk Attitude" and 1994's "Third Rock From the Sun") and two that sold 500,000 copies each (1992's "Regular Joe" and 1996's "Life's So Funny").
But by the end of the '90s, the sales and the hits had all but dried up. And by then, Diffie had endured a dreaded "makeover" from the label and his management. He pumped up, donned tank tops and tight jeans and found his photos retouched for maximum pinup effect.
Being himself now
"That wasn't me," he says. "It was irritating to me the whole time. And it's not just the label, it's also the management. My management forced me into being the pretty boy. The label went along with it. But you can't fool people. You can do it some, but eventually it will catch up with you. I didn't believe it. And if I didn't believe it, I couldn't sell it. I like this better. This is just me. Nobody at my label says I need to lose weight. 'You do what you do, and we'll sell it,' they tell me."
He's back to being regular Joe.