Country sons let the bad blood flow.

Byline: Serena Markstrom The Register-Guard

CONCERT PREVIEWS

Hank Williams III and His Damn Band

With: Assjack, Bob Wayne & the Outlaw Carnies What: Country and hellbilly When: 9 p.m. Saturday Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave. Tickets: $16

Shooter Jennings

With: I Can Lick Any SOB in the House What: Country-rock When: 8 p.m. Tuesday Where: WOW Hall Tickets: $13 in advance and $15 at the door

Shooter Jennings and Hank Williams III should be kindred spirits.

These tattooed rebels are both descendents of country legends trying to make it on their own artistic merits. They are nearly the same age. Both started out playing drums in non-country bands, both have relative creative freedom for being signed to major record labels, and they've both been characterized as outlaws in the media.

This week, they both have WOW Hall gigs.

Williams is no stranger to Eugene, having made frequent stops for several years; Jennings said he isn't sure if he's played here before.

They are not kindred spirits, or "brothers" as Hank III said he offered to be with Jennings two years ago. They barely know each other.

But Hank III, born Shelton Hank Williams, basically hates Shooter, born Waylon Albright Jennings. Shooter isn't quite sure why, and he is ready to make up as soon as Hank III will allow it.

"I did not start it," Jennings said during an interview when told Williams said he initiated the feud. "I've never dissed him. I met him once, for two seconds."

Williams has been openly derisive of Jennings for at least a year. He often uses his live shows to rally fans into obscene chants against his perceived rival.

For Williams, it's about dues

Williams' main beef is that Jennings hasn't paid his dues as an artist on the road. He said during a recent interview that Jennings waited for his famous father to die and cashed in on his name by going country for the first time with the release of "Put the O Back in Country" in 2005, when he finally starting to tour.

Jennings, who'd played in his rock band Stargunn for six years in Los Angeles, maintains his progression to country was gradual and natural, and not directly related to his father's 2002 death from diabetes.

For all of Williams' passionate diatribes against Jennings, objective comparison and a little math might have helped him see more similarities between the two legacies.

If Jennings, now 27, was cashing in on his father's name with "Put the O Back in Country," which he released at age 25, Williams did the same thing with his debut in 1996.

"Three Hanks: Men With Broken Hearts" features all three generations using vocal tracks from the deceased Hank Sr. It came out when Williams, 33, was 23, before which he had been content to play in punk bands for $50 a night. Williams openly discounted his solo debut, 1999's "Rising Outlaw," and insulted the record company for putting it out.

Williams' excuse for the name-exploiting first album and the forced release of the second is that he only signed the record deal with Curb after a woman (whom he says he hooked up with at "a drug party") came after him for back child support.

He's described his relationship with Curb and being a slave to the road as waiting out a prison sentence. And he has been open about how displeased he was with his first few Curb releases.

He regained creative control on "Lovesick Broke & Driftin' ' and "Straight to Hell," his latest. But he's still looking forward to the day he can be free of the label and said he doesn't get much support in terms of publicity from the company.

By contrast, Jennings dissolved his rock band after he grew weary of the Los Angeles party scene and felt he was trying to be someone else. He now has a peaceful and productive professional relationship with Universal South.

Both performers have had to grow up in the shadows of larger-than-life country stars, and they share a distaste for what mainstream country music has become.

So why can't they just get along?

"I gave him a chance to be a rival or a brother, back before he had a beard," Williams said while taking a break from working an upcoming Reverend Horton Heat tribute album at his home studio in Nashville, Tenn.

Jennings said Williams is full of, well, bull about that phone call.

"I've tried to make up with him," Jennings said. "They have a radio show on Sirius and I played a bunch of his songs and said I wanted to end this thing because I thought it was stupid. There's no reason that we should be fighting.

`But he continued to rail me after that so I just said, 'Aw (expletive) it'. ... I try not to make any enemies. I'm just so laid back, drama doesn't flow in my world."

But Williams isn't budging from his stance, insisting in an expletive-studded rant that the younger artist stole an idea from one of his songs.

" ... And then you've got his band; his band is his band, but where he stands at musically and what he has done is bull. ...

"For people to say 'Hank III and Shooter Jennings the new outlaws of country music,' well guess what? Shooter ain't worth a (expletive) and in 10 years I will guarantee you that and stick by that. And I've told him, I'll talk to you in 10 years, and in the (expletive) meantime if I see you, well man, I can't wait to beat your (expletive) ass into the ground.

`That's where it is."

'I've never robbed any banks'

Jennings said he doesn't consider himself an outlaw, and that tag just comes if you break any of the rules of country music and when people don't know how to classify you.

"I always get annoyed when people use it all over the place," he said. "I've never robbed any banks. I've never referred to myself as an outlaw. I want to be able to play all the kinds of music that I like. I grew into the country part."

More so than Williams, Jennings grew up on the road, spending summers touring with his dad's band after he started school. He was close with his father before he died and doesn't try to distance himself from the family name.

But Jennings does believe he has enough talent to make it as an independent artist.

"I have had a good life, but that does not discount me from any of the pain that anybody else experiences," he said. "I understand a lot of those emotions, that's why 'Aviators' (a song on his new album "Electric Rodeo') is funny to me. Buried in all of those ridiculous lines are really true feelings of being misunderstood."

Some media outlets have described the Shooter/Hank III rivalry as the country version of the East Coast/West Coast battle in hip-hop. Williams said he didn't think the drama is what draws in the fans.

"I think what fascinates people is that what I do is real," he said. "Why do I have my following? Because I've been out there on the road for 15 years, doin' it to it."

You can call Serena Markstrom at 338-2371 or e-mail her at [e-mail].