Members of the formerly disbanded band Slobberbone got back together for a tour that includes a stop Wednesday at Newby's. But the hard-drinking Texas alt-country quartet don't call it a reunion since they plan to end their collaboration next spring.
In their dozen years together, members of the Texas alt-country band Slobberbone were well known for their members’ affinity for drink. Their first show, after all, was in a Denton, Texas, liquor store, and their oeuvre of amped-up, twangy rockers — think Lucero crossed with the Drive-By Truckers — includes such titles as “Sober Song,” “Haze of Drink” and “Whiskey Glass Eye.”
Members of the formerly disbanded band Slobberbone got back together for a tour that includes a stop Wednesday at Newby's. But the hard-drinking Texas alt-country quartet don't call it a reunion since they plan to end their collaboration next spring.
So it’s only fitting that the quartet should plan their comeback after four years of hiatus while bellied up to the bar.
Taking their name from a dog’s chew toy, Slobberbone formed in Denton in 1992, and through more than a decade of hard touring and recordings like the 2000 classic Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today, earned a loyal cult following for their Southern-firedfried Replacements style. Author Stephen King, who name-checked the band in his novel “Black House,” and in his first column for Entertainment Weekly, he named their “Gimme Back My Dog” as one of his three favorite rock songs of all time.
Despite all the acclaim, Slobberbone broke up in 2004 when bassist Brian Lane moved to Florida.
“We had reached an agreement a long time ago that if one of us left, then we were not going to go on as Slobberbone,” says guitarist Jess Barr of the band’s unusual pact. “It was a no-brainer. We spent so much time on the road together, playing so many dates, that it really wouldn’t have felt like Slobberbone with anybody else.”
The remaining members of Slobberbone — Barr, frontman Brent Best and drummer Tony Harper — recruited new bassist Keith Killoren and keyboardist/vocalist Chad Stockslager to form the Drams, a group with a fuller, more rounded, some say poppier sound than the aggressive Slobberbone. The Drams released their debut album, Jubilee Drive, on New West records in 2006.
Slobberbone seemed to be a thing of the past, when Lane suddenly moved back to town earlier this year. The writing was on the cocktail napkin.
“It was actually just kind of a good timing thing,” says Barr. “Brian had just moved back from Florida, and we were just all hanging out at the bar one night and decided it would be fun.”
A few well-received shows last February in the Dallas area, where all the band members currently hang their hats, stoked their desire to revisit Slobberbone.
“I remember when we got together for some rehearsals to start doing the reunion shows, within 30 minutes it felt like we had never broken up,” Barr recalls. “Once we get in that Slobberbone mode, it just goes straight back into turning up the guitars and going for it.”
This winter Slobberbone planned a minitour, which includes a stop at Newby’s on Wednesday. The tour coincides with a Drams hiatus as Killoren and Stockslager concentrate on their old-school honky tonk band, the King Bucks.
But with the Drams tentatively planning to get back together in the spring, Barr warns against fans getting too excited about a full-on reunion of Slobberbone.
“It’s nice to know that after basically taking four years off, there’s still people out there who want to listen to the music and come out to shows,” he says. “I think our plan is to not really have a plan. We just figure as long as we’re having fun and it makes sense to do it and we have the time to do it, makes there’s no reason not too.”
Slobberbone
9 p.m. Wednesday at Newby’s, 539 S. Highland. Admission: $10 at the door. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. For more information, call (901) 452-8408, or visit http://newbysmemphis.com.
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