The TSOL tour

Filed: July 8, 1999

By CHRIS PAGE
Special to The Californian
e-mail: chrispy@netxn.com

In its heyday, the Orange County punk band TSOL sold out the 3,000-seat Hollywood Palladium on a regular basis, generally causing a riot or two on each occasion.

TSOL was arguably the biggest underground act in Los Angeles, drawing crowds of hardened punks and normal-looking fans alike to hear its goth-punk dirges. Lead singer Jack Grisham, decked out in white face makeup and black lipstick, turned the band's haunting backdrops into ghoulish punk mantras.

TSOL enjoyed a steady rise to success from its start in 1979, but the group fizzled out in 1983, and Grisham and drummer Todd Barnes left to clean up from drug and alcohol addiction and what Grisham calls "the things that go along with ‘bigness.'"

"The cool thing about this band is that we were destined to destruct," Grisham said in a recent phone interview.

"We were self-destructive people, and were meant to end up alcoholics, drug addicts or in a mental institution."

The group's first album, originally released in 1981 on the Frontier label, has been re-released this year by the mega indie-punk label Epitaph Records.

And the band itself has decided to re-form and tour in support of the album as part of this summer's Social Chaos tour. Along the way, TSOL will be making a side-stop in Bakersfield to perform at Jerry's Pizza on Saturday night.

Even after Grisham and Barnes jumped ship in ‘83, the members who remained - guitarist Ron Emory and bassist Mike Roche - continued on under the TSOL name, bringing on new members and evolving into a heavy metal act. Emory and Roche soon left the group as well - and the group with no original members kept playing. Still hungry to play music, Grisham went on to form another band, Tender Fury.

In 1989, the four original members got back together and toured briefly. "It was a nightmare," Grisham said. "The whole insanity came back: sold-out shows, rioting, fist fights."

The group documented the reunion in the form of a live album on Triple X Records.

However, the heavy metal version of TSOL officially owned the name, so the foursome of original members had to release their live album as "Jack Grisham, Mike Roche, Ron Emory and Todd Barnes" - not TSOL.

On the day of the original lineup's live recording, the heavy metal TSOL was performing the same night in L.A. The heavy metal TSOL eventually broke up, and Grisham continued to play in other bands, including The Joykiller and his most recent effort, Gentleman Jack, a group that includes Epitaph Records owner and former Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz and ex-Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew. That group is scheduled to release its first album in the fall.

But when asked to tour this summer - and get together for the first time in more than a decade - Grisham, Emory and Roche couldn't pass up the chance.

Drummer Barnes is currently in rehab, but plans to work with the group later; handling drums with the group on this tour is friend Danny Westman.

"We figured, ‘Let's play while we're all straight and clean,'" Grisham laughed. "This might be the last time it'll ever happen."

Playing together again has proven to be fun for Grisham and company. They haven't heard or played some of those old songs in 10 years.

At the group's gig at Jerry's Pizza - as well as at every gig the band plays once it starts the Social Chaos tour next week - you're sure to hear one song: "Code Blue," a dementedly funny ode to, of all things, necrophilia.

Although Grisham claims that too many people take the tune seriously, it has ostensibly become the band's anthem.

"That song is our ‘Stairway to Heaven.' We always end on that one," Grisham said.

Getting back into the touring life will be tough for Grisham, who has gone from being the king of the nighttime creeps to a self-admitted "morning person."

When he's not on tour, Grisham leads a quiet life, waking up at 5 a.m. to "join some old guys for coffee."

He also spends time with his wife and his 11-year-old daughter (another child is on the way).

Oddly enough, Grisham notes, his daughter would rather her daddy not be a punk rock icon.

"She just wants her daddy to wear a suit and tie," Grisham said. "Guys from bands like Pennywise and The Offspring drop by the house, and it's no big deal to her. She sees them on TV and just thinks of them as ‘that guy who slept on the couch last night.'"

After the tour, Grisham hopes that TSOL will release an album of new songs, giving old and new fans more from this legendary punk band.

"It's like we're people you wouldn't expect to even see alive," Grisham laughed.

"I have people come up to me every day and say, ‘Man, I'm so stoked that you're still alive. I'd heard you were dead!' "