Members of Mic Harrison and the High Score pictured from left are Vance Hillard, Brad Henderson, Robbie Trosper, and Mic Harrison at The Birdhouse in the Fourth & Gill Neighborhood on Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009.

Comments

There are no comments yet. Click here to start the conversation!

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Printer friendly

More Music News

• Bledsoe: Tom Waits' live 'Glitter' is pure bliss
• Jennifer Lopez, Adam Lambert ready for AMA stage
• Big Country's Empty Bottle ready to kick into gear

Share and Enjoy

If any band ever lived up the title of "road dogs" it is Mic Harrison and the High Score. The group could turn the swankiest club into the grittiest honky tonk in the matter of a few beer-soaked seconds. The odometer on the band's 1995 Ford Econoline is on the edge of turning over 400,000 miles and the group has played 42 shows so far in 2009.

"That's a lot of shows for people who work normal jobs, too," says High Score guitarist/vocalist Robbie Trosper. "And, we have (weekly) practices."

The group is a combination of former V-Roys-, Faults-, late-era Superdrag-member Mic Harrison and the High Score (Trosper, bassist Vance Hillard and drummer Brad Henderson). The High Score initially signed on as touring group for Harrison a few years ago. While Harrison sometimes performs solo and the High Score sometimes perform shows without Harrison at the helm, the mix of the two is so potent that it's hard to separate them.

Assembled on a back porch in Powell, with manager Jason Knight and an ever-present cooler, the band recounts one of its busiest years since joining forces.

The largest crowds had to have occurred in June when the band was one of the opening acts at Bonnaroo, backing up Roger Alan Wade, and then had to immediately hightail it for Chattanooga where the group, again with Wade, performed for a crowd of 10,000 at the Riverbend Festival.

"We played Bonnaroo and Riverbend with Roger with only two practices," says Henderson.

"Two 45-minute practices," adds Trosper. "Then when we played Roger sang in a different key!"

Then there was the show in Boston opening for the reunited original lineup of Superdrag.

"We'd never been in Boston when they won a hockey tournament," says Hillard, marveling at the atmosphere of the city.

"And Superdrag fans could not have been expecting eight boots to come on stage and yell, 'Hey Boston! How 'bout ch'ya?'" says Henderson.

"You'd think up North they wouldn't like us as much," says Harrison. "But they like us as much if not better up there."

"One old guy came up to me and said, 'You guys are better than Bon Jovi!' " says Trosper with a laugh.

Hillard says the only glitch was when one fan kept "yelling for us to play songs by Pearl Jam.

"I just said, 'If you like that, you'll love this!' And I think we played the (High Score song) 'Let the Stupidness Begin.' "

Doug Gillard, of Guided By Voices, told the group that bands in New York try to make the style of music that Mic Harrison and the High Score make, but there's no soul in it. One thing this band has in spades is authenticity. Harrison is a native of Bradford, a tiny town in West Tennessee, and Trosper, Hillard and Henderson are all proud natives of Sevier County. All were raised on rock 'n' roll and hardcore country.

And, the members enjoy touring so much that they have to force themselves to take time off to write and record. The group's show on Friday, Oct. 30, may be the band's last gig of the year, so that they can work on a new album.

The time off might make up for those few gigs that go awry, like a recent last-minute date in Memphis.

"In the first few minutes on stage we heard about five gunshots," says Trosper.

"Somebody was just getting shot at outside," says Harrison.

"It was the only place I could get," says manager Knight. "Everything else was booked."

"Still, we still got to get some good barbecue," says Henderson.

"Yeah, we had a good time," says Harrison.

"But we have a good time wherever we play," says Trosper.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
Want to use this article? Click here for options!