You know, all style and no melody." Now, he says, he's just trying to follow in the "great singer-songwriter tradition" of Leadbelly, Arlo Guthrie, Hank Williams, "and even that Springsteen fella.The images abound in stock video footage accompanying stories on evangelicals, the religious right, megachurches and the culture wars-the obligatory shots of middle-class worshipers, usually white, in corporate-looking auditoriums or sanctuaries, swaying to the electrified music of “praise bands,” their eyes closed, their enraptured faces tilted heavenward, a hand (or hands) raised to the sky. Nixon admitted he didn't have a great voice when he started performing, so he "decided to sing like Dylan. Not just a do-nothing sidekick, Roper wrote and performed two songs on Bo- Day-Shus!!!: The Polka Polka, a polka about polkas and the weirdly beautiful Lincoln Logs, a metaphorical tale about losing toys while growing up. Roper played blues guitar and Ventures-like surf instrumentals in various San Diego clubs. Nixon played in several bands before teaming with Roper and, at one time or another, played everything from punk and country to soul and rockabilly. The backwoods mystery and the hillbilly ravings almost hide the duo's musicianship. We had conjugal visits and the road to superstardom came right after that." "We decided to tunnel underneath Graceland, underneath the Mississippi River, and we came up into a women's prison in Heleno, Ark., run by Howlin' Wolf's granddaughter. We didn't have the big white suits, we weren't doing enough Percodan, not enough rhinestones, not enough jelly doughnuts. Me and Skid were both Elvis impersonators in Vegas and we were kidnapped by the Memphis Mafia because we weren't being Vegas-y enough. "We were being held prisoner under Graceland. When asked if he and Roper became a team in 1983 while playing for various bands in San Diego, Nixon bellows, "That's a lie!" and provided this honest- to-Elvis true account of the early days:
While there, he organized work crews for Volunteers in Service to America, "showin' winos how to get more wine."Īs part of their own larger-than-life legend, Nixon and Roper find new ways to remember their past with each interview. Nixon, 31, wandered the country during the '70s, ending up in Colorado, he says, "because that's where Hunter S. Recent scandals among supposedly moral clergymen have been easy prey for Nixon, but as founder and musical director of the Screamin' Church of the Epileptic Jesus, he has a sympathetic heart for his brethren. Her brain was so small, that if you rammed it up a gnat. While hosting a segment of MTV's Spring Break shows from Daytona Beach earlier this year, Nixon said of Tipper Gore, "She's an evil twit. Tipper Gore, wife of Tennessee senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Albert Gore, has been the target of Nixon's wrath for her efforts to promote laws regulating music lyrics and videos. Many of his songs are topical and aim pointed commentary at larger-than-life figures who, in his estimation, need to be deflated a little I try to whip myself into a snot-slingin' frenzy!"īo-Day-Shus!!! is Nixon and Roper's most tame album to date. "I beat myself with baseball bats, run into walls, might consume some alcoholic libations. "It's a voice that relies on hollerin' and psychosis instead of melody to try to get some weird feelings goin' through me," Nixon says. Nixon doesn't sing a song as much as he rips it out of his body.