The Unforgiven in their 1980s heyday. (Contributed Image)
The Unforgiven was from the Inland Empire, merging Spaghetti Westerns with arena rock. And I’ve had the band’s music stuck in my head for days.
They reunited (sadly, without the great Johnny Hickman) at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. They were fantastic there.
The Unforgiven performs at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)
Here’s a story I did on the band before that Stagecoach return. I couldn’t find the link since we’ve changed the website around, so here’s what originally ran on April 27, 2012, by yours truly. I’m sprinkling in the videos, too.
The Unforgiven rides again
BY VANESSA FRANKO
STAFF WRITER
The Unforgiven’s story is the epitome of the parable of the music business, with a plot line as strong as the Spaghetti Westerns that inspired the image of the Inland Empire-based roots rock band.
The legend of The Unforgiven starts nearly 30 years ago, long before there was a Clint Eastwood film or a Metallica song by the same name.
The short version goes a little something like this: friends start a band after taking a film course, band builds huge buzz in the European press before ever playing a show, band is at the center of a bidding war among major labels in the heyday of big music in the U.S., band makes a video for MTV hit “I Hear the Call” that actually looks like a Spaghetti Western with a power pop soundtrack, band’s lone album flops, band gets wild, members quit and by 1988 The Unforgiven is no more.
“We were unmanageable at the time,” lead singer/songwriter Steve “John Henry” Jones said in a telephone interview last week.
But, on Sunday, under the blazing sun and amid the dusty winds of Indio, the scene is set for The Unforgiven’s next act at the sold-out Stagecoach Country Music Festival, a reunion spearheaded by Paul Tollett, head of festival producer Goldenvoice.
Tollett, who was a student at Cal Poly Pomona the same time as Jones in the 1980s, had booked the band in its early years and approached drummer Alan Waddington in 2010 about reuniting the band for the 2011 festival.
“I didn’t see it happening,” Jones said. “I’m in my third career as a TV producer.”
Jones found a second career was in the business side of music and now Jones is the producer of the reality show “Turbine Cowboys” on The Weather Channel.
Likewise, the band’s other members were working on various things. Waddington teaches at Citrus College, bassist Mike Finn and guitarist Mike Jones are teachers with the Los Angeles Unified School District and guitarist Jay Lansford lives in Hanover, Germany, where he works in the music business as an A&R man and still plays in the punk scene.
Growing up, Steve Jones, Mike Jones and Finn were all lifeguards together in Corona, and Steve Jones and Lansford were in seminal Inland punk band The Stepmothers together.
Additionally, original Unforgiven member and Redlands native Johnny Hickman, who won’t be out for the reunion show, is a member of the band Cracker.
Another former member is in poor health and one couldn’t be found.
When the band split up, there was some bad blood among the members, but after the initial reunion proposal, Waddington continued to work on getting everyone back together.
Mike Jones, Finn and Waddington have played throughout the Inland region in the band The Hickmen as well as at the annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout.
Waddington’s persistence is what made the reunion happen.
“Alan kept at it. He is the great Gandhi in this group,” Jones said.
One of Jones’ concerns was that he hadn’t played live and wasn’t up for it and there was a lot of healing that needed to be done.
“For me, the moment was when I got back in the room with the guys,” he said.
“I was a very tough guy to be in a band with,” Jones admitted.
The legacy and the music of the band has lived on, influencing others and still talked about and remembered in the Inland music scene. The Unforgiven inspired racks at Hollywood vintage stores filled with bolo ties, long leather jackets and wide-brimmed hats.
“We went out and forged our own way,” Lansford said.
The Unforgiven performs at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)
Fans who catch the band Sunday can look forward to the old songs off the lone album, as well as a few surprises.
“We have been writing new songs and we will be playing a couple of new things,” Jones said.
Visit www.roverpack.com for more on the band.
Here are a few other links about the band’s Stagecoach performance from the show itself:
STAGECOACH 2012: The Unforgiven reunites in rock
STAGECOACH 2012: The Unforgiven’s star treatment