Flipside, The Southern
January 2008
by Brent Stewart

Shakespeares Riot
Jason and the Scorchers may have cultivated the modern "alt-country" movement, but it was Shakespeare's Riot that sowed the seeds.

Jason Ringenberg's new "Best Tracks and Side Tracks 1979-2007," contains a track from the legendary area bar band that was recorded at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Over the years, the band had many different incarnations, the two mainstays being Jason Ringenberg and drummer Tom Miller. This recording also features guitarist Dave Mueller and bassist Gary Gibula.

Miller, now a physical therapist in Carbondale, said that it might have been the diversity of the group that was responsible for their unique sound.
"We all came from different backgrounds," he said. "It all sort of slammed together, plus we didn't really know what we were doing."

Though the other members of the band were Chicago suburbanites, Ringenberg came from rural Sheffield, Ill.

"I had never met anyone who was into country music," Miller said. "I came from a blues and jazz background."

However, in the late 1970s, they were all listening to the new wave of punk, the Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, and Elvis Costello.

"Jason came in and said "let's play a Bob Dylan song like that," Miller said.
And that's how it all began.
"At that time we were just college kids," Ringenberg said. "It was just basically a college cover band. We didn't have any sort of pretention of changing the world with what we were doing.

"It was something we were doing for fun."

Both Miller and Ringenberg recall that acceptance for the band came very quickly. Audiences in Carbondale were very accepting of their playing familiar songs in an unfamiliar way.

It's wasn't quite what the Scorchers would become, but it was a start.
"There were moments," Ringenberg said. "There were times when we would do Hank Williams songs and Johnny Cash songs and that certainly set the stage for what would come later."

"On paper we were pretty close but we really couldn't play like them," Miller said. "We took some stabs at it. Those guys were more authentic."

During this period, Jason also began to refine his wild showmanship by hanging from chandeliers, stage diving and walking across the bar.

"He was a danger to himself and others, there's no doubt about it," Miller said.
Miller's first experience actually seeing what was happening onstage, as opposed to his normal seat behind the drum kit, was on the first date with his now-wife, Kirsten.

As Ringenberg performed a couple of songs with another local band, Miller said to his date, "wow, this guy is awesome."

"I never had the chance to understand the energy until I stood in front," he said.
It wasn't much later, in the spring of 1981 that Ringenberg headed for Nashville and a future in Rock and Roll history.

"We had someone who, was in retrospect, a visionary." Miller said of his bandmate. "I think he had that stuff in his head back then."