Story of a Life

Doing this show is very important to me. It's funny—I ran into Dennis and his wife when I was leaving on a Mike Ness tour one day, and they were really relieved they didn't have to go jump on a tour bus and drive for eight hours. They said something like, "Mike Ness, still carrying the torch." That's what I feel like right now. I don't think Dennis would want anything to change. Dennis would be pissed-off if we changed anything. I think he wants me to take this thing as far as I can. That's what I plan to do. Although it's uncertain what the future of Social Distortion is, I don't feel like quitting. I really feel that Dennis would want me to keep carrying this torch. I feel we at least need to do this next record—it's halfway written—in honor of Dennis. He's gone, but he's not going to be forgotten. So to go onstage and say goodbye, to turn the volume up to 10 in front of a bunch of people and just say that he helped make this happen, to me, that's a religious experience, a spiritual experience.