A Turn Toward Country: Social Distortion, "Prison Bound"

Social Distortion, Prison Bound CD (Time Bomb, 1988)

By the time this record first came out on Restless Records, Social Distortion had firmly emerged as one of the better-known Southern California punk bands. The band’s reputation depended on very little recorded output—several singles (including two on Posh Boy), the excellent 1983 album Mommy’s Little Monster, and an appearance in the documentary Another State of Mind, which captured the band’s challenging 1982 tour with Youth Brigade.

With that little documentation (even though not every band gets a documentary film), a quiet spell of five years—including rehab and recovery—could easily spell the end of many a band. But over the course of those five years, a combination of Mike Ness’s turn toward sobriety, persistent radio cheerleading from local DJs such as Rodney Bingenheimer, and a savvy—but not seismic—shift away from the initial Orange County punk rock of the band’s initial recordings helped open a new path to the future of Social Distortion.

That shift can be primarily attributed to the addition of two new band members, bassist John Maurer and drummer Christopher Reece, who helped provide increased personnel stability well into the mid-1990s and the turn of the century; and Ness and Dennis Danell fine tuning their songwriting skills to incorporate elements of country, blues, and other American roots music. Not only does Social Distortion energetically cover the Rolling Stones’ “Back Street Girl” on the album (as “Backstreet Girl”), there’s another Stones reference in the lyrics to “On My Nerves” and a reference to Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” in the title track.

Before Prison Bound, the band had had four different bassists (Danell switched to rhythm guitar in the early 1980s) and four different drummers, including Orange County punk rock stalwart Rikk Agnew, who went on to play with the Adolescents, Christian Death, and D.I. Even with the turn toward country inflections and what some have termed “cowpunk,” the band stayed true to its Orange County punk roots, and Prison Bound was recorded at Casbah Studio in Fullerton, Calif., which also recorded material by the Adolescents, Agent Orange, the Cadillac Tramps, and the Vandals. When the studio closed briefly in the early 1990s after cofounder Charles “Chaz” Ramirez’s accidental death, Social Distortion rented the space and continued to use it as a rehearsal and recording space. Casbah has since reopened as a recording studio in downtown Fullerton, operated by cofounder Jon St. James.

In terms of songwriting, Ness contributed five of the album’s 10 tracks, with Danell cowriting an additional four. (The Stones’ cover rounds out the album.) The opening track, “It’s the Law,” opens with a delicious bit of squelch before the countrified chords kick in. And it is Ness’s vocals and the dual guitars that drive the sound throughout. “Like an Outlaw (for You)” and “No Pain No Gain” ably incorporate Frankie Laine- and Ennio Morricone-like country and western elements to showcase the change in tonality, and the band stops shy of leaning too far towards the rockabilly revival active elsewhere in the Los Angeles area at the time. Lyrics focus on addiction, crime and punishment, expectations, and pain and irritation.

Prison Bound is a worthwhile listen, impressive as a whole as well as individual songs—though Social Distortion didn’t return to releasing singles until it reached a major label. Despite a couple of songs that briefly look backward (“On My Nerves” and “I Want What I Want” are slightly more punk than the other tracks’ forceful roots-oriented stylings.), the record firmly asserted what would become the band’s hallmark sound, strongly led by Ness’s vocals. Not that his vocals matter more than anything else, but in a way, they do. That man can sing, and I am glad that he saved—and secured the legacy of—his voice. Ness had indeed been prison bound.