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Saddle up, city folk, and listen here: Seattle's punk rock 'n' rollers The Supersuckers done took a bold two-step back in the hay-days of '97. Breakin' the laws outlaw-style, they downright crossed county lines. Even the tumbleweed was all up in a flurry. The townspeople was all wound up, scramblin' from one creakin' wooden porch to the next, spreadin' word like wildfire: The Suckers done got the plague, they got the cowboy blues, and now they're makin' music 'bout it!
The stunned and baffled northwestern folk had only one excuse for such rock-gone-country blasphemy: "They must've been high!" Sho' as the desert sun does set, The Suckers knew you best not bicker with the whiskey-downin' townspeople. So after roundin' up a set of acoustic country-Western songs, they knew they could only call the album one thing: Must've Been High. And when they got lucky enough to catch the same songs — this time with the undeniable energy of live music — on tape at a hootin' and hollerin' show in Texas last year, they could only hail it as one thing: Must've Been Live.
It's been 'bout five years since the five hillbilly outlaws — now frequently labeled cow-punks — broke the rules of purist punkers. And now, not only have the townspeople piped down and warded off their fear of change, but they've finally realized the magic of The Suckers' country songs. Many even go so far as to call the Must've Been High record the best out of the four full-length rock records released by the band so far.
Influenced by the old and new bad boys of country — Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Steve Earle, etc. — Suckers' country songs capture perfectly, with wit and soul, the essence of the Old West. Each track rolls along its own rocky trail, tickling the ears of its listener while evading any chance of becoming interchangeable with another song on the album. Must've Been High is, no question, an incredible album.
The 19-song CD features Amy Nelson (Willie Nelson's daughter) singing on "Hungover Together," Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed playing on a cover of Conway Twitty's "Image of Me" and harmonica player Mickey Rafael (from Willie's Nelson's band) contributing intermittently throughout. Other covers include the Suckers' take on Elvis Presley's "Peace in the Valley," Ernest Tubb's "Driving Nails in My Coffin," Buck Owens' "Alabama, Louisiana and Maybe Tennessee" and Gene Autry's "Cowpoke."
The album has the roughed-up live feel, and shares the tale of a band whose immersion into country, like a lame horse, first spawned dismay. But in the end, as the cowboy gallops off into the reddish-orange fiery horizon, Suckers fans everywhere know that these outlaws are, in fact, heroes.
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