Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner has a way with words; and not only on hits like “Runaway Train” and “Black Gold.” He’s also a deft conversationalist who weaves words into vivid pictures.
“I’ve been in and out of Tucson many times, but I think my fondest memory is the first time we ever played Tucson in 80-something,’” he said.
“The marquee of the steakhouse said, ‘T-bone steak, $4.99, Soul Asylum tonight.’ We just thought that was hilarious and we decided we were going to play until everyone left.”
Soul Asylum plowed through the “worst covers” they could conjure to scare diners away. Punk was a much-maligned genre, and the acts had just as much hostility toward the situations they ended up in. That punk attitude has faded over the years, but not the show’s back end.
“There was this crazy anger thing, but we managed to turn it into a huge joke,” he said. “We’re as kookie as ever, planet of energy.”
Pirner called from a date on “The Jubilee Tour” with Stone Temple Pilots and Live.
Soul Asylum’s 13th studio album, “Slowly but Shirley”, was released on Sept. 27. The band will perform tracks from the album, as well as a slew of hits, on Oct. 13 at the Rialto Theatre. The Juliana Hatfield Three opens.
“We’re stressing our new record,” Pirner said. “We’re going to play new songs and songs that everybody knows.”
The tour has gone well, except for a misstep with one of the new songs. Pirner skipped the new song’s chorus. His bandmates called it the “radio edit.”
“We’re working out some of the kinks,” he said with a laugh.
For “Slowly but Shirley,” Soul Asylum collaborated again with producer Steve Jordan (Rolling Stones, John Mayer, Robert Cray, Keith Richards), who worked on its 1990 album “And the Horse They Rode In On.”
Soul Asylum’s early indie success led to the band entering the major-label mainstream with 1988’s “Hang Time” and the aforementioned “Horse” from 1990 before achieving a platinum-level commercial breakthrough with 1992’s “Grave Dancers Union” (certified three-times platinum) and 1995’s “Let Your Dim Light Shine.”
“Grave Dancers Union” featured the international hits “Runaway Train,” which won a 1994 Grammy for Best Rock Song, and “Black Gold,” while “Let Your Dim Light Shine” (platinum) spawned the hit “Misery.”
After 1998’s “Candy from a Stranger,” Soul Asylum returned to action in 2006 with “The Silver Lining,” followed by “Delayed Reaction” six years later, and most recently with 2016’s ‘Change of Fortune.” In April 2020, they released a new studio album, “Hurry Up and Wait,” landing the band their highest Billboard Chart position since “Dim Light.” That same year, Pirner also published “Loud Fast Words,” a book of his lyrics accompanied by commentary and essays about each Soul Asylum album and song.
For Pirner, it’s been easy to stay passionate about his craft.
“Just the very nature of it keeps me passionate and the universal language of it,” he said.
He has lived in New Orleans for 25 years, he said. “There’s no place like that for music. I felt I really wanted to soak it up and live in it and that’s very possible.
“It’s a very musical environment. There’s something to it that has drawn in since my first memory. I feel pretty lucky that I can be around it all the time. It never gets boring to me.”
Soul Asylum w/The Juliana Hatfield Three
WHEN: 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13
WHERE: Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress Street, Tucson
COST: Tickets start at $35
INFO: rialtotheatre.com
