The name Plowed Under comes from a poem and picture by Charles Russell, a famous cowboy artist. It was his style and the look of the early West, in general, that inspired the members of the laid back honky-tonk band Plowed Under.
"It's like that sound that came out of Bakersfield, Calif., in the 1970s," says singer Rodd Mas, an ASU business alumnus, referencing the simple California country sound that developed — a contrast to Nashville's breed of country dominated by strings and background noise. Mas compares the band's sound to that of Buck Owens.
Like Owens or Merle Haggard, Plowed Under writes humor into their songs. While the old joke about country music — What do you get when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your house back and your truck back — may be true of many Western songs that leave you crying in your beer, Plowed Under tries to make songs about sad subjects turn out funny.
For example, is the band's take on prison blues, "Puked on Myself." The upbeat song — which singer Rodd Mas calls "autobiofictional" — describes getting thrown in Tent City, with a chorus that begins "Damn that Joe Arpaio and damn that Tent City jail."
In the song "Paycheck to Paycheck," the band laments every college student's woes of being broke and eating baloney. In a line that most college students can relate to, the band claims, "They say the best things in life are free. They need to get back to reality."
Mas says the band members — which include drummer Ryan Rice, an ASU broadcast journalism alumnus, and new guitar player Dave Eras — have known each other for years, with the exception of Eras, who recently replaced Ben Cox. Plowed Under has been playing shows around the Valley at places like The Yucca Tap Room since 2003, plus shows in Prescott and other out-of-town locations.
Despite the band's rockabilly sound, Plowed Under gets billed with a variety of other groups, says bassist Mike Myers, a journalism graduate student. "We've been booked with all kinds of different bands: from rockabilly to punk," he says.
The distinct carefree attitude that shines through in the band's songs just shows that the members are having fun, Mas says. "The cool thing about us is we're playing music we like," he says.
