An Unexpected Progression: Blind Melon Guitarist Still Rocks, but Thrives on Small-Town Life
Nathan Towne, left, and Swarthmorean Rogers Stevens at waR3house3 in Swarthmore. Towne has played bass with Blind Melon since 2015. Stevens has been with the band since its inception in 1990. Photo: Robert L. Richardson
The very next day after I met Rogers Stevens, I was in the CVS south of Swarthmore on Route 320 when “No Rain” started playing on the overhead sound system. Stevens, an attorney and a guitarist, lives in town — it was probably just as likely that he’d have been in the CVS as that I was. “No Rain,” which topped the charts in the early nineties, is a song with an immediately recognizable jangly electric guitar intro, and it was Stevens who played it.
“No Rain” was the runaway hit single from the rock group Blind Melon’s eponymous 1993 debut album. Stevens seems like the kind of guy who’d get a kick out of hearing the song, almost 30 years later, in the local CVS.
“No Rain” is a notably catchy tune, and the band’s lead singer when it was released, Shannon Hoon, had a high-pitched, ragged voice that made Blind Melon’s sound immediately recognizable. The band toured with the big names of the day, like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Guns N’ Roses. They played to a sea of listeners at Woodstock ‘94, where the overall attendance was estimated upwards of 350,000. Then, touring in support of their second album in 1995, Hoon unexpectedly died. At a loss, the band foundered.
Support at Home
Jump ahead to 2006. That year the band regrouped with new vocalist, Travis Warren. Within two years, they released a new album and were touring again. Rogers had married by then and was living with his wife Joanna in New York City. Not long after their first child was born, he went on tour for ten months. “Joanna was in New York pushing a stroller around—that wasn’t so great,” he recalls.
Joanna was a Swarthmore native, and her parents still lived in town. “We decided to come down here where she’d have more support,” Stevens says. “But then I ended up stopping touring — and going to school.”
The band had hit another impasse, with vocalist Travis Warren dropping out of the band mid tour. (He would partner back up with the group in 2010.)
“The band sort of imploded in 2008,” Stevens says. “We had something like 30 sold-out shows booked. We’d rebuilt our careers to an extent and were playing theaters and drawing well. And . . . stuff happened. We ended up cancelling all those dates. And I just thought at the time, I’ve had it. It took the wind out of my sails and I made a hard left turn. A month later I was in class at [Delaware County Community College].”
Stevens hit upon the expedient, unusual for a rock musician, of getting a job in the real world. Like his father, he opted to become an attorney. But, having chosen rock over college after graduating high school in his Mississippi hometown, he was starting at zero from the point of view of getting the schooling done.
Lawyering Up
Stevens crammed four years of undergraduate work into two-and-a-half years, first at DCCC and then at Temple University. After that, he studied law at the University of Pennsylvania. These days, he’s an associate in labor law at Pepper Hamilton LLP.
But he’s also still active in the band. He and bandmate Nathan Towne recently stopped by waR3house3 in Swarthmore to talk about what Blind Melon is up to these days. Towne says he lives so far past the back of beyond in Northern Michigan that, asked for his impressions of Swarthmore, he says it’s a vacation in the big city.
Just before we met, Stevens and Towne had been mixing down a new song in the studio Stevens has built into his house. They decided to preview the recording on the sound system there in the shop. Bluetooth connections were established.
In their new songs, the band has a heavier, grittier vibe than it did back in the “No Rain” days. This particular song started with a lone feedback tone that broke into fairly bluesy guitars and heavily fill-laden rock drumming. A piano, mixed in from the night before, drifted into the song midway.
These days, Stevens says, “we’re just releasing singles. We released two singles in the last few months.” The songs, “Too Many to Count” and “Way Down and Far Below,” can be found on Spotify and other streaming services.
Out Walking
Life now? “I love Swarthmore. I have a steady job,” Stevens said. “I have two steady jobs,” he added, explaining that after a long day on the labor-law beat, he stays up late to record and mix music in his studio. “I was up till four in the morning last night.”
As for life in town: “It’s sort of an idyllic existence for young kids. It’s safe. I also like the fact that it’s a progressive community. There’s a lot of really smart people in this town. As far as small towns go, it’s tough to beat.”
Not that Stevens sees much of the place in daylight. He goes on a lot of walks, he says. “But I do it at one in the morning. I’ll make a mix, and I’ll just go out. I’ve got really good headphones.”
