Georgia Satellites extend orbit to city

By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
December 1, 1986

Four Southern rockers called the Georgia Satellites have been lost in space during their current concert tour.

“The crowds haven’t been what they should be, especially for having two good rock ‘n’ roll bands out together,” said guitarist Dan Baird in a phone interview from an Elektra Records office in Los Angeles.

The Georgia Satellites will open for Jason and the Scorchers at 8 p.m. Friday at the Park West, 322 W. Armitage. Tickets are $11.50 at Ticketmaster outlets (559-1212).

“Things will pick up as the tour progresses,” Baird said. “Since Jason (Ringenberg of Jason and the Scorchers) is from Illinois, we’ll probably have a good-size crowd in Chicago.”

“The Georgia Satellites,” the debut album by the Atlanta-based band, is a guitar-oriented, raucous, rock ‘n’ roll record. Baird and guitarist Rick Richards contribute the lead vocals.

“I think it’s better that way because then you don’t get a band that sounds too monotonous,” Baird said. “I think Rick is just a natural singer. It comes out so easily for him. I have to work at it more. I’m not a gifted singer, but I like singing.”

Baird, who writes most of the material, hooked up with Richards six years ago.

“At the time, I listened to a lot of Johnny Burnette, Carl Perkins and NRBQ,” said Baird, 33. “Our music was a little bit more leaning to that swing-drum type of music, although we played a lot of straight-ahead stuff, too. The band went through about a million configurations before we settled on our current lineup. With each change, the music got a little different.”

Currently, the band also consists of bassist Rick Price and drummer Mauro Magellan.

Baird got his first taste of recording in 1983 when the Satellites made a demo tape. After six days, the demo tape evolved into an extended-play record called “Keep the Faith.” Baird said he liked the way it turned out because it captured the basic “yee-hah” attitude of the band.

“I think when you’ve got a guitar-based band, it’s hard to go wrong,” Baird said. “You have to try awfully hard to make a couple of guitars sound bad. It seems that bands like the Human League try to sound too `today.’ After one year, they sound outdated. I hope that you can pick up our album three years down the road and still enjoy it without thinking, `Oh, that’s a distinct 1986 sound.’

“Our band is more influenced by people like the Replacements and the Faces. We’re from the South, so we couldn’t escape black music or corn-punk. So it just all filtered into our music.”

Bands such as R.E.M. and the B-52’s have made the South a hotbed of cutting-edge music, but Baird said the South always was a rich source of talented artists.

“The South has always been kind of in vogue,” he said. “If you think about it, we gave you Otis Redding, Little Richard, James Brown, the Allman Brothers, Tina Turner. . . . Georgia is just a part of the South, and the South is where rock ‘n’ roll came from. That’s where every American music form came from.

“But I think for a long time, we were afraid to like anything that was homegrown. That’s one of the reasons why teenagers liked — they still do — British bands so much more than American ones. And in the same vein, that’s why rockabilly was so popular in England and Japan when Americans didn’t want to touch it.”

Baird’s future goals are simple: He wants to stay alive. He said he has given up the carousing ways of his youth.

“I’m glad I wasn’t even this successful when I was 22 or 23, ’cause I’d probably be dead now,” he said. “It really is true what they say. Good things do come to those who wait. And I think my time has come.”