It's A Homecoming Week For Homegrown Talent
Gary Graff
Detroit Free Press
August 20, 1993
It would make a great summer drive-in movie -- "Goober Goes to Canada." A block-long RV. A few moose. Probably a few Mooseheads.
In reality, it was a six-week tour of the Great White North for Goober & the Peas, the Detroit band that blends rock, country, Stetson hats, Grand Ole Opry suits and bales of hay into an off-beat musical presentation.
Detroiters get the joke; during the past four years, the group has become one of the area's top club draws. But how does it play when the Peas roll out to unfamiliar terrain?
"People seem to get it," says guitarist Tom (Junior) Hendrickson, 27. "When they see us on the street . . . they can't believe we dress like that. But once they hear the music and put it together with the way we look, it really seems to go over."
That doesn't mean some crowds aren't more challenging than others. During their time in Canada, the Peas appeared on "The Dini Petty Show," a talk program with an elderly studio audience -- not exactly the target crowd for a song like "Hot Women (Cold Beer)."
Still, the group's music and good humor seemed to win the day.
"We went in the audience and sat next to some senior citizens, and they said they liked us," says singer Dan (Goober) Miller.
There seem to be green pastures for the Peas on other fronts, however. The group's independently produced first album, "The Complete Works of Goober & the Peas," has sold 12,000 copies in the United States and is being distributed in Europe. And a cheeky video for "Hot Women (Cold Beer)" spent eight weeks on the influential College Music Journal (CMJ) video chart.
Miller and Hendrickson have also been writing new songs, which they describe as "moodier" than the material on "The Complete Works." "They'll still be powerful and have that humor in them," says Miller, 27, "but with a darker underbelly."
ON STAGE: Goober & the Peas, the Poster Children and Moist will perform an all-ages show at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the State Theatre, 2115 Woodward. Tickets are $7.50 in advance, $10 at the door. Call 961-5450.