The non-Violent side of Gordon Gano

Femmes frontman has reissue, solo album out

Gano (left): "I don't take much pleasure reflecting on 20 years ago."

(CNN) -- Gordon Gano doesn't really want to talk about the past. After all, it was a long time ago.

Still, along with his new solo album, "Hitting the Ground" (Instinct), there's a deluxe reissue of the influential first Violent Femmes album, "Violent Femmes" (Rhino), complete with demos, B-sides and a second disc of live tracks.

It was his Femmes bandmates, Victor DeLorenzo and Brian Ritchie, who were responsible for adding the archival material, he adds. DeLorenzo pushed the project, and he and Ritchie went through the old tapes. Gano is proud of the record and the impact it's had, but he'd just as soon focus on the new.

"It was sent to me and it was good," Gano, 39, says in a phone interview from New York. "And I think it's still good. [But] if it were up to me, this wouldn't exist. It would just be the first record without the demos."

He pauses. "I don't take much pleasure reflecting on 20 years ago."

Stuck in a world

RESOURCES EW.COM REPORT: Violent Femme assembles all-star lineup for disc    AUDIO 'Blister In The Sun' 646 K / 30 sec WAV sound 'Add It Up' 650 K / 30 sec WAV sound

Maybe not. But that first Femmes record influenced countless bands, from Green Day to Limp Bizkit, with its evocation of teen anger and angst. A fringe item when it first appeared on the Los Angeles punk label Slash Records, it's now sold almost 2 million copies.

"They made music for misfit teenagers in its purest form because they themselves didn't fit into any mold," writes Rhino's Marc Salata in his producer's note. "There is a new busload of misfits every year, and this album still speaks to them."

Gano himself remembers being influenced by Lou Reed, doyen of the disaffected, but also by AM radio -- and its tightening boundaries.

"I remember sometimes getting frustrated by radio," he says. "Time was when I really enjoyed radio -- when Al Green was having all his hits. ... [But] I remember hearing radio, and feeling ... 'This is no good.' "

By then, the New York-born Gano had picked up a guitar and moved with his family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was there, in 1981, he met bassist Ritchie and drummer DeLorenzo. The three had a distinctive sound -- Gano's acoustic guitar, Ritchie's oversized acoustic bass, and DeLorenzo's stripped-down drum kit -- supporting Gano's songs about ticked-off teenagers stuck in a world they wanted to understand but couldn't really stand.

From left to right: Brian Ritchie, Gordon Gano and Victor DeLorenzo

The three busked on the city's streets until one day, the famous story goes, they were seen by Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, who was in town for a show. He invited the rest of his band to watch, and Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde invited the Femmes to open.

"Violent Femmes" came out in 1983. A number of songs -- "Blister in the Sun," "Kiss Off," "Add It Up" -- picked up airplay on college radio, but the band was like a secret in the early days. Ensuing albums -- "Hallowed Ground," "The Blind Leading the Naked," "3," "Why Do Birds Sing?" -- established them as alternative godfathers but didn't get them anywhere on commercial radio.

'The frustration's really still there'

But teens always understood where the band was coming from. And you never really leave that part of your personality behind, says Gano.

"When someone's no longer a teenager, the frustration's really still there," he says. "It's a myth that you hit a certain age and suddenly become an adult."

Gano's new album, which came out Tuesday, finds him negotiating those pitfalls of adulthood with the help of several notable friends, including PJ Harvey, They Might Be Giants, John Cale, and Lou Reed. (Reed and Cale, the Velvet Underground co-founders, have a prickly relationship and did not play on the same song.)

He goes through a number of musical styles, from a basic punk sound to straight-ahead gospel. Faith-rooted music has been a longtime staple of his songwriting -- Gano was raised a devout Christian -- but has met with differing responses, he says.

"Some people say, 'I can't listen to Christian music, but I can listen to your songs.' But other people don't like it," he said.

Gano plans to tour in the fall, doing some solo shows and some with the reunited Femmes. No doubt he'll run into some fans and magicians who were influenced by the blunt lyrics and straightforward chord structures of that first Femmes record.

"It's been inspiring to musicians. People tell me, 'I'm a musician because of you,' " he says. "That's good. People see me play and say, 'I can do that.' "

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