Posted by John J. Moser at 01:30:00 AM on September 30, 2010

In its 35-year history, seminal New Jersey rockers Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes has always channeled its audiences’ emotions in its songs — typically in boozy, bluesy tunes such as “I Don’t Want to Go Home” or Sam Cooke’s “Having a Party.” But that’s not the case with the band’s newest disc, “Pills and Ammo,” a collection of series songs set to swampy rock on which front man Johnny Lyon sings with a bluesy voice on tunes that wouldn’t sound out of place on Bob Dylan’s watermark late ‘80s disc “Oh Mercy.”

Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes formed around the same time and place as Bruce Springsteen’s E Street band and cross-pollinated with the group so much that E Street members Max Weinberg, Patti Scialfa and Steven Van Zandt all were Jukes at one point. But while others found huge success, Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes never had a chart-topping hit or platinum album. Its late 1970s releases marked its commercial high point, though 1991’s “Better Days,” also produced by Van Zandt and with contributions from Springsteen and fellow Jerseyite Jon Bon Jovi, was a critics’ favorite. (…)

In a recent telephone interview from New Jersey, where he still lives, Lyon talked about the new disc, his history with Springsteen and life as a Juke at 60.

Read the interview at the Lehigh Valley Music Blog