Features
Mike Watt Trades Oars For Wings
Watt is a persistent face on the touring scene. On one of his outings last year, he played a mere 50 shows in 52 days with Tom Watson and Jerry Trebotic, collectively known as The Jom & Terry Show.
About halfway through this tour, Secondman Mazich will drop off the bill and be replaced by Watson, thus reuniting The Jom & Terry Show once again.
Along with his steady gigging, Watt has also been busy in the studio. For this particular tour, he’ll be playing songs from his next album, The Secondman’s Middle Stand, which is expected to hit shelves in the fall. Watt said that the album is a “story of the sickness that almost took me two years back and left an intense impression on my body and mind. It loosely parallels Dante’s The Divine Comedy.”
Watt told POLLSTAR that he plans to record the new album this summer with the Secondmen.
The legendary bass player first made a name for himself as co-founder of one of the West Coast’s most influential punk bands, the Minutemen. Formed in the early ‘80s, the group’s rise to fame was cut short by the tragic death of lead singer D. Boon, who was killed in an auto accident in 1985.
After debating retirement from music, Watt and fellow Minuteman George Hurley decided to pick up the pieces and continue on as fIREHOSE. That band split up in 1994.
A year later, Watt reintroduced himself to touring. He played alongside Primus for half of the year and was supported by then-newbies Foo Fighters for the other half.
Both tours were highly successful, selling out most shows, and helped Watt widen his fanbase to include kids who may have never heard of his earlier bands.
Throughout the course of his solo career, Watt has toured with a number of projects, recorded a couple of well-received albums and has become known as Uncle Punk Rock to two decades-worth of fans and admirers.