SOCIAL DISTORTION As real as ever

By John Benson

When Social Distortion guitarist Jonny “2Bags” Wickersham thinks about the history of the punk rock band he joined in 2000, memories of being a Southern California teenager come rushing back.

“Social D may be a rock ’n’ roll band now, but to me it will always be a punk rock band,” said Wickersham, calling from a tour stop in Omaha, Neb. “Just the fact that I was there growing up watching the band play when I was 13 years old. I saw a lot of those early shows and those memories are permanently engrained in my mind. I understand we’re a rock band now, but we’re still a punk rock band just for the fact that Social D was there doing that in the beginning.

“They were laying the groundwork for what punk rock was becoming at that time and what it became after that. So no matter what kind of maturity level a band takes on after that, if a band can even survive it, there’s no denying that early stuff.”

Among the early stuff that the Mike Ness-led band created during the seminal early ’80s punk rock movement was the Orange County group’s genre-defining debut effort, 1983’s “Mommy’s Little Monster.” Later in the ’90s the band would score a few commercial hits, including “Ball and Chain,” “Story of My Life” and “I Was Wrong.”

In the new millennium the outfit has taken on an elder statesmen vibe, with old school fans still aboard while Warped Tour minions discover the genre’s heritage.

Now comes word that Ness and company are ready to record the follow-up to 2004’s “Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll.” In fact, Wickersham said the band has been road-testing new material currently slated for its next effort, which is tentatively due out in 2010.

Fans attending Social Distortion’s return to the Wedge in Austintown Friday can expect to hear country tinged song “Bakersfield” and the rocker “Can’t Take It With You.”

“We’re definitely not going to repeat ‘Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll,’” Wickersham said. “I know that much. Mike is definitely always very interested in moving forward and expanding on the sound while of course maintaining that integral Social D sound. It’s not going to take off in some new direction. But you know it’s important we don’t repeat the same thing.

“We’re just keeping it real, keeping it who we are and just writing from the perspective of the people we are now and our experiences now. Because how you become a nostalgic act is pretending you are what you were 10, 15 years ago. So hopefully this one is going to be in a different direction.”

This leads to one question: why does Social D continue to draw audiences three decades after getting its start?

“I would hope it’s because we’re still relevant in their minds,” Wickersham said.

“And I hope that what we’re doing still seems truthful and real to them, because it is to us.”