For nearly 16 years the Old 97’s have been closing their shows with the rollicking “Timebomb,” which is just as explosive as its title implies. As drummer Phillip Peeples lays down an impossibly fast train beat and guitarist Ken Bethea fires off a desperate riff, frontman Rhett Miller howls about having “a timebomb in my mind, Mom” and being in love with a girl who’s “like a Claymore… she’s waiting ‘round to get blown apart.”
“Timebomb” opened their 1997 album, Too Far to Care, which was not only the Old 97’s’ major-label debut but also remains the most popular release of their 20-year career. “Of all our records, that’s the one that probably gets the most play every night,” says Miller. “For a lot of people it was the first record they had by us, and so it holds a special place in the hearts of our fans. So we probably pay a little more attention to that one than we do to some of the later records.”
Too Far to Care was reissued last year via Omnivore Recordings, complete with remastered tracks, demos, live cuts, and alternate takes (it also marked the album’s first appearance on vinyl). What’s remarkable is just how well that album has aged. The Old 97’s were one of the best and most influential bands of the alt-country movement, but rather than sounding stuck in a particular moment in the 1990s, these songs retain their urgency, their wit, their exquisite heartbreak. It’s a landmark Texas rock album, albeit an outlier in that state’s rock history: Rather than embracing the redneck-hippie country-rock pioneered by artists like Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker, the Old 97s clung to their twerp-punk roots, with Miller (often outfitted in a buzzcut and oversized thick-frame glasses) playing the perpetual loser role, sacrificing dignity for women and alcohol. “Salome,” a Too Far standout, was actually inspired by “me laying on an inflatable mattress outside a girl’s door and realizing that she was actually at home with another boy.”