02.07.08 The Nashville Scene Off the Straight and Narrow Records from Stephen Simmons and Thad Cockrell both take artistic license with their spiritual backgrounds Something in Between Stephen Simmons (Americana Records) For singer-songwriters like Stephen Simmons and Thad Cockrell, a Southern evangelical Christian upbringing doesn’t necessitate sticking to a straight and narrow musical path. Over the course of several recordings each, they’ve brought a little imagination to the traditions they’ve inherited. This time Simmons’ guilt-laden souls aren’t wrestling with heaven and hell so much as romance, and Cockrell has released the spiritual uplift that’s been bubbling beneath the surface all along. Not that the two sound alike or even espouse the same beliefs, but they both make country-influenced music and have church-going in their blood—Simmons grew up in the Church of Christ denomination, and Cockrell is the son of a Southern Baptist minister. And both just released new recordings that explore new spiritual directions. God and the devil loom large on Simmons’ first two proper releases. A desperate dualism haunts Last Call, and most of the characters in the 16 songs poison their relationships with dirty hands and guilty consciences. Follow-up Drink Ring Jesus bores beneath the surface in duels between good and evil to compelling and insightful results—there’s even a song written from the devil’s perspective on reeling in a soul on “Devil’s Work Is Never Done.” On both albums, Simmons injects the urgency of the pulpit, mined from his experience growing up in Woodbury, Tenn., into storylines of down-and-out folks. “Half of the service was [the preacher] sweating and spitting out fire and brimstone,” Simmons says. “It would get so hard that people [were] moved to get up and go down front, and that meant everybody was going to be late for lunch, because somebody hadn’t been true and they would tell what they’d done. Maybe there’s something cathartic about going [to the altar]. Maybe everybody else is like, ‘OK, I feel much better now. We got that out of the way—let’s go eat.’ ” He got so used to that sort of fervency that he expected it most everywhere. “I remember moving and going to a really big church somewhere on West End and feeling kind of ripped off because nobody chewed me out,” he says. Simmons’ latest, Something In Between, isn’t about spiritual wrestling so much as sorting through the rubble of relationships. It’s as if, for the moment, he’s purged the thoughts of hellfire from his system. “You write a lot more songs about relationships—or most people do—than you do about demons and stuff like that,” he says. “For a long time, it was tied really closely to those themes. I don’t know if that’s just that phase I was going through. Anybody that absorbs all that stuff—I think you have to work it out somehow.” But not surprisingly, Simmons’ relationship songs have a soul-searching element too. “I think sometimes it’s the same theme of guilt and learning how to forgive yourself when you haven’t lived up,” he says. Take “Go Easy On Me,” a straight-ahead heartland rock song that beseeches whomever might be listening to “Go easy ’cause I’m trying / Can’t make up for the last time / Couldn’t fix it if I tried.” It may seem like Simmons has followed a direct route away from spiritual preoccupations, but the timeline’s not that simple. Never intending the demo-like Drink Ring Jesus to be a full-fledged album, Simmons ended up slipping it in between Last Call and the then-in-progress Something In Between. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I just went even one more step off that cliff on the religion thing with [Drink Ring Jesus], so when I do get this [new] one out it’s going to really seem like I completely swung back around,” he says. Even across different subject matter, Simmons’ songwriting has a ragged realism and human empathy from album to album. A lot of the scenes unfold in bars or bedrooms. His voice has a rubbed-raw quality and his melodies scrape the earth. “Even on the stuff that deals with spirituality—I definitely feel more comfortable with the word ‘spirituality’ than ‘religion’—there’s not anything that’s even slightly judgmental, because that’s what I kind of cringe [at] about mainstream religion—the judgmental aspect—having felt guilty and been made to feel guilty for a long time,” Simmons says. “But I’m a part of that too—you have to want to be made to feel guilty.” “Obviously [songs] still come out like that,” he says. “It’s not like you completely move away from it.” – Jewly Hight 01.01.08 The Nashville Scene STEPHEN SIMMONS / Nashville Scene Critics Pick Last we heard from Stephen Simmons, he had one thing on his mind (or two, really)—Jesus and the Devil. On 2006’s Drink Ring Jesus, he was wrestling with religion of the thorn-in-your-side, beer-in-your-hand variety, armed only with his coarse, raw-edged baritone—which bears a resemblance to Steve Earle’s in its texture and range—and acoustic guitar. Before that, Simmons worked a tug of war between carnality and spirituality on 2004’s Last Call, interspersing acoustic tracks with a country-rooted full-band sound. His brand new album Something In Between—released last year in Europe—represents a shift: It’s a different sort of heartache (the kind lovers inflict on each other) and a different sound (more firmly planted in heartland rock territory). But Simmons has his constants: The songs are still thoroughly down-to-earth and, as the opening track, "Don’t Mind Me," establishes, he’s still got a beer in hand. With the Wrights and Jason Eady. 9 p.m. at Mercy Lounge   – Jewly Hight 03.11.06 The Nashville Scene STEPHEN SIMMONS / Drink Ring Jesus Simmons’ second album strips away the clangy roots-rock of his attention-getting debut. This time out, he focuses primarily on solo acoustic guitar and his deep, resonant voice, which alternates between a dryly sardonic tone and the clear, unfettered directness of a midnight confessional. Drink Ring Jesus, the title of his new collection, sums up the yin-yang of his subject matter; his songs lay bare the struggle of moral men fighting with fever dreams and the pull of alcohol and other personal demons. He’s a first-rate storyteller whose experience seems beyond his young years, and he’s already building the kind of catalog that will carry him for the long haul. – Michael McCall 03.01.05 The Nashville Scene The friction between Simmons' humming intellect and the bedrock lessons about sin and salvation that linger from his Church of Christ upbringing in Woodbury, Tenn., throws off sparks on his full-length debut, Last Call. His forebears are unmistakable: Steve Earle, Chris Knight, Kris Kristofferson and any other country singer-songwriter who ever brought a jacked-up I.Q. to bear on the contradictions of spirituality. Simmons' natural grit and deliberation, as well as the searching sprawl of his 71-minute album, suggest he won't let go of his questions until the answers show themselves. – Chris Neal 10.06.04 The Nashville Scene - Best of Nashville 2004 Best Undiscovered Singer-Songwriter: Stephen Simmons Simmons writes moving, sharply detailed lyrics about small-town people who spend their lives sitting in church pews or on barstools—and often both. He uses these settings to evocatively portray individuals seeking transcendence or relief while caught in internal conflict, and to talk about the influence families, religion, temptation and just plain boredom can have on a soul. And, like the best songwriters, he can illustrate how one bad choice, or a series of them, can reverberate long after the person realizes his or her mistake. Working around an acoustic base, but with a rocker's swagger, Simmons will draw comparisons to Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen and Chris Knight and other master storytellers. If he keeps making albums as good as his recent Last Call, someday he'll be mentioned alongside them. – Michael McCall 08.04.04 The Nashville Scene Transcendental New album by local singer-songwriter plumbs lives of hard-pressed rural folk trying to get higher Stephen Simmons titled his new album Last Call (Locke Creek Records) because many of his characters have heard those words in two places: at closing time in nightclubs, when, as in the title track, a bartender calls out "last call for all you sinners"; and at the end of church, when the preacher makes the same plea. What Simmons does so well — with songs like "Baptism," "Sweet Salvation," "Dirty Side of Me" and "Forgive Me Father" — is portray individuals in search of transcendence but caught in internal conflict. He's also good at depicting how one bad choice, or a series of them, can bring down all the good that came before it. A native of Woodbury, Tenn., Simmons was raised in a Church of Christ family of factory workers and farmers, and he draws on that background to examine the moral conflicts of impoverished country folk torn between their religious upbringing and carnal impulses. Last Call balances gentle acoustic arrangments with rough-edged, guitar-driven roots rockers. Produced by Eric Fritsch, these songs are built around the sensitive rhythm section of bassist Dave Jacques and drummer (and Scene contributor) Paul Griffith, augmented by esteemed accompanists like steel player Paul Niehaus, guitarists Kenny Vaughn and Mike McAdam, and harmony singer Wendy Newcomer. These outstanding musicians prove their worth by how unobtrusively they add to Simmons' songs. Nevertheless, it's the stories that stick, such as the bored young pranksters who bedevil a farmer until violence changes all of their lives, and the state trooper who ignores some childhood friends who cook up crystal meth in an out-of-the-way trailer, only to find his teen son O.D.'d on their product. At his best, Simmons is as good as heartland songwriters like Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen, Chris Knight and R.B. Morris, all of whom he calls to mind at times, even though his voice and lyrics have a potent punch distinctly his own. – Michael McCall