Tender Fury’s Bad-Boy Jack Grisham Yowls Songs of Sexual Rage

A few observations about Jack Grisham, singer of the Orange County/Long Beach band Tender Fury:

“He is as charismatic as a top ballet dancer. It’s a matter of whether he has the discipline to persevere and to come through on the chances that come his way.

--Robbie Fields, head of Posh Boy, the record label that recently released Tender Fury’s excellent debut album.

He has a real talent, a real flair. But I don’t think he’ll ever succeed, because he’s his own worst enemy. Doing business with Jack is like going to the zoo.

--Mike Roche, bass player of T.S.O.L. (True Sounds Of Liberty), the band Grisham fronted during the early ‘80s.

I’ve got a real bad split personality. Sometimes I’ll be real nice, a good guy to talk to. Half an hour later I’ll be drunk and throwing bottles at people and getting arrested.

--Jack Grisham

Sitting on the veranda of a beachfront restaurant in Huntington Beach recently, the good Jack was holding forth, avidly weaving the bad-boy image to which so many rockers aspire.

Grisham, 26, spun a few yarns about escapades, going back to his days as a teen-aged punk rocker with T.S.O.L., that led to scrapes with the law. When one record company asked for biographical material on him, Grisham said, “I was going to send ‘em a rap sheet as a joke, but Jerry (Tender Fury’s manager, Jerry Roach) said I couldn’t do it. Jerry’s like the baby-sitter. He makes sure I stay good.”

A bad-boy image has paid off handsomely for Guns ‘N Roses, the platinum-selling L.A. band that is the hottest new thing in hard rock. Could Tender Fury, which plays Friday at Night Moves in Huntington Beach, be following Guns ‘N Roses’ lead by playing up a dangerous, decadent side?

(To keep rock ‘n’ roll “danger” in perspective, no band can rival the real dangerous characters in Southern California who run in gangs and carry firearms rather than guitars. That’s reality. The rock image-making game is about spinning fantasies that might appeal to young, middle-class record buyers).

Grisham isn’t keen about comparisons between Tender Fury and Guns ‘N Roses, a band that has tried to use past bouts with drug abuse as capital for its image bank. In Tender Fury, he said, “We’re heavy anti-dope. None of us takes any drugs. Never do and never will. We don’t want to be the Hollywood junkie types.”

But, noting that his girlfriend is 16 years old (and that her parents are irate over the relationship), Grisham doesn’t mind comparing himself to Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, who both romanced underaged girls.

“I’m trying to follow in the tradition of real rock ‘n’ roll guys,” he said with a grin.

On their new album, at least, Grisham and the other members of Tender Fury--guitarist Daniel Root, bassist Robbie Allen and drummer Todd Barnes, who is also a T.S.O.L. alumnus--uphold the best tradition of raw, hard-hitting guitar rock.

Tender Fury combines the gritty raunch rock of bands such as the New York Dolls and Rolling Stones with heavier riffs drawn from sources including Steppenwolf, Led Zepellin and Aerosmith. The album’s dominant theme, as Grisham not-so-delicately puts it, is “girls screwing around on their boyfriends and getting paid back hard for it.”

It’s a theme that has characterized some of the most obnoxious, misogynistic sludge ever dredged up and sold by record companies. Then again, it’s the theme of such enduring works as “Othello” and the Robert Browning poem “My Last Duchess.” There can be a fine line between coarse, brainless misogyny and a disturbing but worthwhile exploration of sexual jealousy and rage. It all depends on how the story is told. Tender Fury manages to come down on the worthy side of the line.

Root’s lean, snarling guitar parts set the scene for emotionally charged confrontations that Grisham depicts in lyrical monologues told from the angry male’s point of view.

In “Kill Cindy,” he enters the mind of a man who coldly contemplates murdering his cheating girlfriend. The lyrics are impressively economical, avoid unnecessary sensationalism and offer vivid imagery: “They rode the wild dandelions” depicts the moment when the protagonist comes upon the illicit tryst. With the shooting done (Grisham leaves open the possibility that it’s all in the singer’s imagination), the band tacks on a coda of rat-tat-tat drum shots and descending chords that alludes to “Hey Joe,” the all-time garage-rock classic of violent retribution.

Other highlights are the humorous “Talk About Living,” in which Grisham, bitterly pleading as he addresses yet another wrong-doing woman, puts on a stagy voice that sounds like Al Jolson. “Let It Go,” with its memorable, ringing guitar riff and heavy beat, sounds like one of the better numbers by the popular British band the Cult. As a fitting summation, Tender Fury ends the album with David Bowie’s “Look Back in Anger.”

Grisham says the songs on “Tender Fury” stem from his own confusion and anger in past relationships. “I have real doubts about my own worth. I used to have a theory: Any girl who’d go out with me must be a scumbag, so she must be sleeping around behind my back.” Grisham says counseling has helped him work out his self-worth problems, and fronting a band helps him release whatever else is bothering him.

“Tender Fury is almost aerobic for me. Get out all that mindless anger, then when I get home, I feel good.”

In keeping with his “split personality,” Grisham recently joined former T.S.O.L. keyboardist Greg Kuehn in The Men’s Club, a duo that is almost the exact opposite of Tender Fury. In place of crashing guitars and yowled vocals, there is smooth, danceable synth-pop along the lines of Bryan Ferry and the Pet Shop Boys. In place of lyrics full of suspicions, recriminations and threats of violence, there are abject pleas for affection and romantic professions of undying love.

Grisham said he plans to divide his time between the two bands: Tender Fury for fun--a band where “I can be a jerk and talk about abusing women”--and The Men’s Club as his best bet for a breakthrough to big-time pop success.

The Men’s Club is a reunion for two musicians who had a falling out in 1983, when Kuehn left Cathedral of Tears, the band he and Grisham had formed after departing T.S.O.L. Kuehn says Grisham insisted then that he choose between Cathedral and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play with Bob Dylan (that opportunity didn’t pan out beyond the rehearsal stage). “We went through this thing where we had this jealousy,” Kuehn said. “Now he knows I do other things. We have a better understanding.”

Grisham remains an impulsive, not always fathomable personality who suddenly “will do something crazy,” Kuehn said. “He has some personality traits that are kind of odd, but I just accept that as part of what makes him good. If he weren’t a little bit off the wall in some ways, then he wouldn’t be as on as a writer, and he wouldn’t have the charisma on stage. I used to let it bother me. Now I accept it.”

Tender Fury, Doc Holiday and Chalmer’s Lounge Act will play at 9 p.m. Friday at Night Moves, 5902 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach. Tickets: $6. Information: (714) 840-0208.

HE WEARS IT WELL: Among the songs on Tender Fury’s album is “Big E’s Night-Move,” a satiric portrayal of a rock-’n’-roll nightclub owner inspired by Ezra Joseph, proprietor of Night Moves. “They’ve done it in the club before, I think it’s great,” Joseph said Tuesday. “They told me it was based on me at Night Moves, but it’s supposed to be about clubs in general.” Joseph acknowledged he hadn’t been able to make out the lyrics when he heard Tender Fury play it live. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it’s great, huh?”

Taking up Pop Beat’s offer to read the lyric sheet over the phone, Joseph listened to verses portraying a flashy, egotistical, high-rolling character who tries to impress women with riches and cocaine.

I flash lots of money , I wear a ton of gold , Ten pound medallion, don’t you know?

... I’ve got a big car , I’m a big man , I must be admired, yeah.

“I think it’s cute,” Joseph said, “except the part about the cocaine. I don’t get near drugs. Never have, never will. Other than that, I think it’s cute.” Joseph said he doesn’t quite fit the song’s image. “Flashy car? My car’s an ’83 Chrysler LeBaron, and I have a beat-up pickup truck. And I don’t wear big, gold medallions. I have a little skinny gold necklace. But you write a song, poetry, whatever--you have to add little things.”

CARDS IN THE HEARTLAND: After spending June touring clubs in Canada, the Wild Cards head back on the road tonight to start a five-week tour of the Southwest and Midwest, according to Maria Corvalan, one of the band’s managers.

The Orange County roots-rock band’s Canadian dates were “worthwhile, very valuable” as far as experience, “but it was not 100% what we set out to do” because many of the shows took place in clubs where audiences expect to hear versions of popular hits, rather than the original songs the Wild Cards play.

“With this Texas-through-Chicago tour we’ll get them really roadworthy. They’ll be really seasoned performers.” The Wild Cards’ debut album is due in stores on July 30, Corvalan said. The road gets longer after that. In December, she said, the Wild Cards will play a weeklong series of dates in Yugoslavia.