Social D is back and better than ever with new album
By CHRIS HANSEN ORF
Get Out

When Mike Ness formed Social Distortion in the bland surroundings of Orange County, Calif., in 1979, he never dreamed that he’d still be fronting the seminal punk band 25 years later.

“I wasn’t supposed to live this long,” Ness laughs.

After an eight-year recording hiatus, Social Distortion is back with a brilliant new album and a raucous, sold-out tour that lands in the Valley Monday and Tuesday at the Celebrity Theatre.

It has been a bittersweet time for Ness, who lost Social Distortion co-founder and lifelong friend Dennis Danell to a brain aneurism in 2000.

“The hard part was the first couple of Social Distortion shows without him,” Ness says. “I don’t look at it so much as I lost a bandmate. It’s like, this has been my longest friend — he was the kind of guy who would drop what he was doing to help you out. It's an eerie feeling when part of your youth has been stripped away.”

The band brought in Jonny Wickersham, Danell’s guitar tech, to fill the role of second guitarist.

“Jonny was our first pick,” Ness explains. “He stood in for Dennis when Dennis’ first child was born. He was a huge fan of the band and was highly influenced by us. He brings a new dynamic to the band.

‘‘I mean, he's a better guitar player than I am and a lot of our records were pretty one-dimensional sounding. Jonny is kind of a whiz-kid and you can hear it on the new album — there's just so much more texture and enhancement. The songs really meet their potential.”

The new album, “Sex, Love and Rock ’n’ Roll,” stands as the best work Ness and company have ever done. The disc is full of optimism and meditations on love and being grown up, with such standout tracks as the carpe diem-
themed “Reach For The Sky” and “Don't Take Me For Granted,” written for Danell.

“The last studio album was very dark,” Ness says of 1996’s “White Light, White Heat, White Trash.” “I didn't really set out to write an optimistic record, but it seems like I’ve just figured out how to be inspired by positive things as well as being angry and hungry.”

Social Distortion has been playing Arizona since the first years of their career.

“We've been coming to Phoenix for about 24 years,” Ness recalls. “I remember back then they'd have punk shows in somebody's industrial warehouse and there would be, like, 500 people there.”