When Ernie Locke found out his Bay area trio with organist Mark Cunningham and drummer Aaron Fowler had been invited to play an official slot at this year's SXSW, he took the news in stride. The 47-year-old musician has performed at the esteemed Austin music fest several times with different bands over the years and isn't convinced that his own Nervous Turkey fits into the mold of those that get noticed — young acts with catchy hooks and marketable looks. "I'm really very, very honored that they even picked us. I'm not saying I'm not happy. I love going to Austin, I love SXSW. But I don't know if it's going to do us any good."
I caught up with Locke at Ella's Americana Folk Art Café, the folk art-themed restaurant and live music spot in Seminole Heights he co-owns with wife Melissa Deming. He's a wry-humored, straightforward hulk of a man who's comfortable in his own tattooed skin. He's also a realist. "I'm not a fucking young spring chicken anymore. It's not easy. I play music so that I don't kill people, I'll tell you that right now," he asserts and laughs robustly.
Regardless of his age and motivations, Locke's appeal is undeniable and his band's sound has become an essential flavor of the local music landscape.
Nervous Turkey formed in 2006, developed a catalog of high-caliber originals, self-released a well-produced debut, Fatboy Likes to Roll, in 2008, and amassed a loyal fanbase along the way with dynamic live performances. Locke is a practiced showman who knows how to use his charm and bring the full physicality of his presence into his performances. A typical Nervous Turkey show is like a roadhouse revival led by the wild stomp and swagger of Locke, who plays a gritty guitar, sings in a low and rumbling timbre that rises to a fierce howl or dips into a deep gravelly growl, and wields his harmonica like a born-again reed-blower, the wailing blasts adding greasy texture to Fowler and Cunningham's heavy rockin', funked-out soul-blues foundation. "We're not shooting for the brain, we're shooting for people to have good times."
Locke was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, moved across the river to Kansas City, Mo. at age 18, flunked out of college, and ended up working at various area restaurants until he landed at a used record store in the early '80s. He was mainly into punk rock until he discovered the blues on KCUR public radio, and he developed a deeper appreciation for the genre after seeing performances by the Wild Tchoupitoulas and Bo Diddly at an outdoor summer festival. "It really blew me away and got me enthralled with the blues."
Locke played clarinet and sax all through junior high and high school, but quit after he graduated. He picked up music again on a whim. "Christmas of '83, my dad got a harmonica in his stocking and he was like, 'I won't play this. Here you go.' So I just started playing it."
He made connections via the record store and was gigging around the KC music scene when he formed the Sin City Disciples, who would go on to appear at SXSW three times back in the fest's early years. He honed his punk and blues-informed style with the Disciples until 1991, when he moved on to Tenderloin.
Locke likens Tenderloin's intense, raucous brand of Midwestern rock to "Howlin' Wolf versus The Butthole Surfers." The foursome was picked up by Qwest (the Warner Brothers subsidiary run by Quincy Jones) in 1994. "Everyone was making a gallant effort to try and sell us to commercial radio. And we worked really hard at it." But despite recording two CDs for Qwest, touring incessantly throughout the '90s with acts like Soundgarden, the Supersuckers, Rev. Horton Heat and Social Distortion, the band couldn't quite make it, and released their third and last CD via Time Bomb before calling it quits in 1998.
Locke relocated to the Bay area in 2001, where he met and began playing with Fowler and Cunningham. "I liked it because it was just a three-piece. I'd never played in a three-piece before, so I thought it was challenging. It's a lot more responsibility put on you. And it also gives you the chance to make space … If you have just as much space as you do music, people pay attention to it a little bit more. Or at least that's the theory."
Locke is pretty happy with his current lineup, but touring isn't in the cards right now; Cunningham can't take the time off work and Locke's top priorities at this point are his family and his new folk art restaurant-cum-music venue.
Ella's is the result of several years of planning, and much scrimping and saving. Locke and his wife were able to build it from the ground up with some help from her parents' construction company, and without compromising their vision. "We were very lucky that we could do it exactly the way we wanted to do it." The couple opened Ella's last year and since then, have been busy serving area folks tasty fare and treating them to high-quality live music, most of it by locals.
"I love bands that are original down here 'cause they are so weird and quirky." Locke says he despises "the same 20-song lexicon" drawn on by the abundance of Bay area cover bands and has a rule for any band that plays Ella's: no covers of "Margaritaville," "Free Bird" or "Mustang Sally." Ever. Or else, Locke threatens, "I'll take their stuff and throw it out the door."
He's admittedly gotten more jaded over the years, but despite his cynicism, he says he plans on giving it his all at SXSW. "I'm gonna go up there and rock my ass off and give them a great show and smile and shake everybody's hand who wants to shake my hand and if something comes from it, great. If not, I'll come back here and be just as happy. I'm not looking for fame, I'm just looking to keep going."
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.
