RJ JUKES

By Jody Shackelford – Touring with the Georgia Satellites, Joan Jett and Jimmy Paige – Greg Larson is a seasoned rocker. While playing with greats like Led Zepplin, Axel Rose, and Joan Jett – Spring River native Greg Lawson has been around the world in the name of music, with several names. With so much life under his belt and drumming in his soul, he owes it all to the encouragement he found in the rocky hillls of north east Arkansas.
Traveling the world was a part of Greg’s life before his alter ego Ringo Jukes took breath. Before the hot lights and screaming throngs of fans. After traveling with his Air Force family from country to country, Greg finally found roots in a little town east of Mammoth Spring.
“My father retired and came to Wirth, Arkansas after living in Okinawa, Japan. So, my first experience with this area was Wirth; living in a log cabin with my sister and no running water – really, no anything. I was about 11-years-old and I went to school in Ravenden Springs. We had three grades in one single room, I thought, ‘My Goodness.’ It was different.”
The largest strike of inspiration came when Greg was overseas with his father, a small event that would fuel his future.
“I always wanted to play music. I got a drum set when I was five. It was a beauty. It had the Monkeys on it, today people on Ebay would go nuts over it. I remember setting in this NCO’s club in Kanata Air Force base and the drummer played wipe out. I really though that was cool, so I went home and practiced.”
By the time he learned to play our Beach Boys favorite, drumming was in his veins.
“It never got real professional until I was about 12-years-old or so,” he said, perhaps not realizing the words professional and 12-year-old are rarely paired.
“I started playing with a guy named Dusty Rhodes. He was a Tennessee State fiddle champion like 15 years in a row and I was blessed that he lived in this area. I was 14-years old and he hired me to play on Friday and Saturday nights down in Hardy where Mike and Debbi Grey’s Creekside Loft Dinner Theater is now. We used to have car lines up around the corner. They would sell chicken dinners and we would do two shows. He taught me how to really be professional,” Greg said.
At fifteen Greg went on to play with Jerry Lawson, a performer who toured the regional club scene. Greg dug deep into music, playing three nights a week. After he graduated from Mammoth Springs High School in 1980, it was clear – music was going to be his life. With an education in music on many fronts, Greg looked westward and set his sights on Hollywood. All the while, carrying a combustible mix of talent and determination.
“At that time we had Van Halen and Motley Crew about to break. I thought, ‘I can grow my hair long, I’ll do that crap,’ the funny thing was I already had an afro. I was the only guy walking around Hardy with an afro in 1977,” Greg laughed.
“I actually went out there to go to PIT, the Percussion Institute of Technology, I got out of one college and found another. Education is so important to success in music,” Greg said.
“I went out to Los Angeles and had a record deal in about six months with Geffen Records.”
The band was called Rock City Angels, a 6.5 million dollar signing, with an unexpected lead guitarist – Actor Johnny Depp and another modern celeb in the background.
The Geffen Record Deal was the moment that changed everything. With purple garb, tons of hairspray and more money he had ever seen, Greg Larson was officially an 80s big-hair-lord-of-the-drums.
“All the sudden I was a kid with a million bucks, on paper. I came back to Hardy with leather pants, it was hilarious. All my friends where like, ‘what in the hell?’ I am one of these guys that are proud of stupid moments; I will never forget walking into Palace Drug Store in Mammoth Springs and picking up Hip Parader Magazine and opening it to some of my school mates and going, ‘check this out, looking at the story about our band.’ To me that was making it,” Greg said. “I just remember thinking and telling them, we can all do this. You just have to make it happen.”
The record deal lasted for nearly a full decade, but the L.A. lifestyle really didn’t suit Greg’s taste. So, he closed the distance between his band and his home.
“I milked that money brother,” Greg laughed. “As the musical director, I got the hell out of L.A and I moved the whole band to Memphis. Our money went much further. We could live in Memphis at that time in a nice house for $350 bucks. In L.A., $1250 for an apartment.”
“That reconnected me with the Memphis scene. Guys like ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Led Zepplin.”
While browsing the impressive list of musical pairings, the name Johnny Depp stood out as an oddity – and oddly enough, the Pirates of the Caribbean Actor, was the first lead guitarist for Rock City Angels. Greg said while they sat around smoking cigarettes, sharing beers and thinking up their next hit song, Depp’s career would take such a different twist.
“Its not like I have tea with the guy any more,” Greg laughed as he assured me there would be no future Johnny Depp interview.
“We signed our deal right when he started 21 Jump Street. Before, what a lot of people don’t know was his mother was very sick at the time and he needed the money. He was selling pencils man, we all were. Axel Rose was singing background in my band. It was a crazy time,” Greg remembered.
Rock City Angels was Greg’s big break and it set the tone for the rest of his life.
“We did a tour with Jimmy Page. We did a whole tour with Joan Jett. My favorite was the tour with Georgia Satellites, that was like getting back to my roots man,” he said.
While doing well with the Angels and drumming with other big name acts as a guest, Greg received an offer that was hard to refuse.
“At one time when they fired Steven Adler (Guns N Roses drummer), I got the call that morning, ‘Do you want to join Guns N Roses?’ I had to tell them that I was very loyal to my band.”
Greg laughed when he said that might have been a stupid move, but loyalty in any form is paying it forward.
“It was it was like, screw Guns in Roses. I am loyal to my boys.” Greg chuckled. “I think Guns N Roses are coming back though. Slash has to put out a few new records first and Axel has to get rid of those corn rolls.”
Greg chose the road less traveled, the road of loyalty and faithfulness to his band mates, but that isn’t the reason Greg has been featured on MTV Cribs.
“Sometimes when you want something you don’t know what it is until your there. When I got there, it just wasn’t what I wanted,” he said.
“When your living out in L.A. your living on a weird time schedule. On a label like that, there is a lot of downtime and you start to hang out with other people on that same schedule. I got to noticing a lot of those people just weren’t very happy. Then I thought wait a minute. These guys are supposed to have everything. I also noticed that a lot of successful industry, people that don’t get wacked out on drugs or go crazy, they lived out on farms. I have got this farm back in Arkansas, in Saddle. I just realized, I needed to get back to the south, take these leather pants off and get back to my roots. I needed to be driving a jeep around Spring River,” Greg said.
Slowly but surely Greg made his way home, looking to Memphis as his outlet for his talents.
“Memphis is my gateway. I can live here and still make a good living playing there. Heck, its only two hours away. This place is beautiful. I have lived in New York, L.A., London, this is where I want to be.”
The last twenty years have brought a lot of change to the music industry but Greg’s ability to play has only found new heights. Now playing weekly for crowds at various casinos in Tunica, Greg enjoys the money and experience, while his family enjoys the hotel stays and romps in the pool. He has rediscovered a simpler life, one packed with the perfect cord between rocker and family man. Teaching private music lessons on everything from the piano to the guitar, he is also focusing on extending his talents to those who wish to discover their own inner Ringo Jukes.
An eight year journey with many twists and turns, Greg received his degree in Music from University of Memphis.
“I got a degree in performance. It took me eight years. I would start college and I would always get offers. It paid better to play then to go to school at that time,” he remembered. “Education is so important. It put you ahead of all the million other naturals.”
With his teaching and performances are keeping him busy, he said we haven’t seen the last of Rock City Angels. “Those records we cut are actually being re-released. We’re having a release party in Nashville on July 24th. We recorded like seven records,” Greg said. “This ought to be fun.”