With the release of its 22nd studio album “Dragnet” earlier this month, members of the band NRBQ can say that they’ve released at least one album in the last six decades, dating back to its self-titled debut in 1969.
At the center of it all, since the very beginning, is Terry Adams, 73, the eccentric piano player who has provided a driving center to the band’s music through several lineups and thousands of concerts. “Dragnet” serves as a brisk, half-hour reminder that whoever is behind the guitars, keys and drum set, the rollicking sound of NRBQ transcends until it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
Joined by Scott Ligon on guitar, John Perrin on drums and Casey McDonough on bass, NRBQ will perform at Phantom Power in Millersville on Sunday, Nov. 21.
Adams says that many of the songs on “Dragnet” took shape in the last four or five years, adding that conditions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the band from visiting the studio as often as they would have liked.
As songs piled up, the band had extra time to parse through what they had.
“We were working on the record, you know?” says Adams over the phone. “Because we had listening to do, I asked someone to give us everything that we had done. Some things were way better than we thought. Like, the song ‘Dragnet’ wasn’t even being considered, it was just something that we did that we didn’t really think of much. But when we heard that one again, it wound up being the name of the album.”
“Dragnet” features instant earworms such as “I Like Her So Much” and “The Moon and Other Things.” Adams says his personal favorite is opener “Where’s My Pebble,” which, as with the ‘60s theme song title track, also nods to a bygone television show.
“Part of becoming a master is when you can take the pebble from his hand, and then it’s time for you to leave when you get it,” Adams explains. “In season one of that old show ‘Kung Fu,’ it takes until he grows up to get the pebble from the master’s hand. But in our story, the kid is so fast that he takes it quicker than the guy can even say it, whoosh, it’s gone. So, the master’s pissed off, ‘You’re out of this monastery!’”
The album also contains at least one first for a band that many would think ran out of them years ago – a song written by a drummer.
“John wrote that ‘Memo Song’ and I just flipped out for it when I heard it,” Adams says. “I said, ‘We gotta do this one,’ and he was surprised. I guess you don’t expect it … I mean, maybe that could be the first time in our history where we did a song by the drummer. No offense to drummers, I don’t know why it didn’t happen before, I know the other guys wrote. But this one is one of my favorites.”
After roughly a dozen dates to close out the year, NRBQ enters 2022 in a big way, opening for longtime pal Bonnie Raitt. The band and singer teamed up earlier this year for an updated take on the band’s “Green Light” for the compilation “Party for Joey,” a fundraiser to raise money for former NRBQ singer and bassist Joey Spampinato’s cancer treatments.
Adams’ brother Donn, who for many years was an integral part of NRBQ’s horn section, the Whole Wheat Horns, is not featured on the album, but Adams says he has not yet retired — he simply lives farther away than the rest of the band.
“It’s funny, just yesterday I was on the phone with Donn and he said, ‘I really love the ‘Dragnet’ album,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but there’s something really wrong with it,’ and he said, ‘What?’ and I said ‘You’re not on it!’ It’s just because he was in Louisville,” Adams says. “There’s always some part for him, and he’s an important part of the band’s history and philosophy.”
Consider a band with a similar amount of history – a Rolling Stones, perhaps – and it seems like every scrap of material is available for consumption on the internet.
Not so much with NRBQ.
One of the more famous profiles of the band, a 12-minute Connie Chung profile from 1989 that is readily available on YouTube, showcases that version of the band shooting a music video for the then-recent single “If I Don’t Have You” off of the album “Wild Weekend.” The video finds Adams, Spampinato, then drummer Tom Ardolino and then guitarist Al Anderson frolicking with a group of puppies.
When asked why the video doesn’t appear to exist on the internet in any form, Adams laughs over the phone and gives an answer that, in many ways, could also serve as a statement on the beloved cult band that he has helmed for nearly a half-century.
“I’m surprised it’s not out there. It did come out,” Adams says. “It just hasn’t showed up in the bottomless pit of internet information. But actually, whenever something escapes that, I sort of applaud it. It hasn’t fallen into the pit yet. It’s still pure, existing in its own way.”
