06.15.06 Rocktown Harrisonburg, VA DOING THE BEST HE CAN Singer-songwriter Stephen Simmons uses music to reconcile his demons Stephen Simmons was standing in a Nashville club when he felt a foot. “It was like someone kicked me in the [butt] and I was just like ‘What the hell am I doing,’” he said. “I couldn’t get out of there fast enough and try to get together a band.” For Simmons, who’s been writing songs since his teenage years, something about seeing guys his age play their own songs at a small club made him want to quit his job and start scheduling shows. It’s a typical story, in a way. But Simmons, who plays Dave’s Taverna on June 15, was 25 years old before that pain in the posterior. Even growing up an hour from Nashville, he says it had never occurred to him that he could make his living playing country songs. “You’d think by college I would have been exposed to it,” he said. But he wasn’t. As a youngster, his family belonged to the conservative Church of Christ. As a college student at Middle Tennessee State University, he worked nights at a factory, which didn’t leave much time for bourbon-fueled nights on the town. He was out of school, working as a supervisor at an electric co-op, making good money and starting to settle down when he got his calling. When he quit his job, his family thought he was crazy. Now 32, Simmons is a full-time singer-songwriter who supplements his earnings by substitute teaching and doing odd jobs. Religion is the dominant theme in his latest album, “Drink Ring Jesus.” For example, the title track is about seeing the image of Christ in a drink ring, “The Devil’s Work Is Never Done,” a conversation with Satan, a la C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters.” They’re subjects Simmons says he struggles with, trying to reconcile his conservative Christian upbringing (his Church of Christ congregation even prohibits musical instruments in the church) with his life and music. So far, it seems like the key is to take it easier on himself, he says. When he was young, he was a good Christian boy. Then again, “You don’t really have many temptations when you’re 12 or 13,” he said. As he got older, he started sinning, and that led him to give up for a while, Simmons says. “There’s this tendency to think that once you’re gone, you’re gone,” he said. Once feeling gone, now he’s writing songs like “Next Stop Redemption.” “We’re all human, we’ve all got our flaws,” he said. “We’re just trying to do the best we can.”   – Martin Cizmar