“But there’s also part of the song that is a salute to him-and the fact that every year I’ll be able to remember him on this holiday. So the song is partly about regret and guilt-feeling like I wasn’t a good enough friend. “I was sitting around one afternoon thinking about him and wishing I had been around at the time he made that decision. “The song was about a friend who climbed up a mountain on the Fourth of July and allowed himself to freeze to death,” Droge explains softly. (It’s) a good day to die They’ll celebrate each year Your independence from here
On the Fourth of July See the sparks in the sky. The bittersweet song, which also reflects some of the heartwarming conviction of John Prine, deals with the anguish of a friend’s suicide: Of the songs on Droge’s own debut album, “Fourth of July” comes closest to the evocativeness and mystery of Parsons’ most haunting works. “There was also these religious overtones to a lot of what he did, mixing gospel and rock ‘n’ roll elements about temptation and salvation in ways that left you wondering just where he stood. The songs too were very simple and pure-stories about the choices people have. “He wasn’t a great singer in a technical sense, but he sang with such urgency and immediacy. “I fell in love with the fragileness of his voice,” Droge says of Parsons. McCready, now a guitarist in Pearl Jam, introduced Droge to the music of the late Gram Parsons, whose work in the late ‘60s and ‘70s with the Flying Burrito Brothers forged a masterful blend of country emotion and hard-edged rock observation.
“I was intrigued by the idea of someone who is a sort of nomad and doesn’t have any ties, any normal lifestyle-someone who is constantly in search of new adventures, new experiences,” he says.ĭ roge, who started writing songs during his late teens, was fronting a band called Ramadillo by his early 20s and working day jobs as a dishwasher, busboy and pizza cook.Īt the pizza joint, he and co-worker Mike McCready spent their free time talking about music, sharing favorite tapes. He responded especially to the restlessness reflected in such songs as Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” and Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” Louis before settling in the late ‘70s in the Seattle area Droge lived there until moving to Portland, Ore., two years ago.Īfter an early infatuation with the music and costuming of cartoon rockers KISS, Droge began rummaging through his parents’ ‘60s-dominated record collection as he entered junior high school, and he discovered the music that eventually shaped his vision. His new mother was an elementary school teacher, and his father set up group homes for troubled juveniles.Īfter four years, the family, including an older brother, moved to South Dakota and then to St. He was born March 11, 1969, in Eugene, Ore., and was less than a month old when he was adopted by a Minneapolis couple. I didn’t so much think, ‘Hey, this could be big.’ I just thought, ‘Hey, this is good.’ ”ĭroge comes to the wanderlust troubadour tradition naturally. “Personally, his music reminded me of the music I’ve always liked over the years-a little bit of Neil Young, a little bit of Dylan, a little bit of Petty. “Pete might have been outside the, but all the musicians in town liked to listen to his band-from Jerry Cantrell to Eddie Vedder,” says Kelly Curtis, who manages Droge as well as Vedder’s band, Pearl Jam. His dates this spring with Petty went so well that Droge has been invited back for another leg of the tour. The young performer’s main exposure, however, has come from being the opening act on high-profile tours with such acts as Petty, Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow. One of Droge’s songs, the quirky and atypical “If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself),” also landed a spot in the hit “Dumb and Dumber” soundtrack. My thinking, I guess, was ‘There may not be any spot for me now, but there will be one someday.’ ”ĭroge was proved right when his debut album, “Necktie Second,” was released early last year by American Recordings and was well received by radio’s new adult album alternative format. “But I always felt there was a place for me because the artists I admired had made records and had enjoyed successful careers. “I was in a band, but it was much more traditional and rootsy, more country than the kind of things the record companies were looking for. “I was definitely doing something completely different,” the easygoing songwriter says, sitting on a chair in his West Hollywood hotel room. Not Droge, who writes about the longing and doubts of relationships with the softer, more customized edge found in the work of his singer-songwriter heroes, including Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Petty and Gram Parsons.