Grammy winner Soul Asylum to play acoustic show in Meiners Oaks

For Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, memories of the group’s 1993 performance on “MTV Unplugged” are still fresh.

Their hit “Runaway Train,” which later won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1994, kicked off the performance and helped their 1992 album “Grave Dancers Union” reach multi-platinum status.

“We pulled it off,” Pirner said Wednesday about the television performance 30 years ago. “It’s good. I don’t know a lot of people that can pull that off.”

On Saturday, Pirner and fellow Soul Asylum guitarist Ryan Smith will perform an 8 p.m. acoustic show at the Ojai Deer Lodge, 2261 Maricopa Highway in Meiners Oaks.

The show will follow the release Friday night of the full MTV performance on streaming platforms.

"It was really good timing for us because we had just been experimenting with playing acoustically," Pirner said of the 1993 acoustic show. "I had written most of the record 'Grave Dancers Union' on acoustic guitar and that was the first time I had ever done that. By the time they asked us to do (‘MTV Unplugged’), we were already familiar and comfortable in that scenario."

Pirner had a chance to watch a recording of the show before it aired and was impressed at how it turned out.

"I was surprised...how good it was without doctoring or any kind of fixing or anything to that effect," Pirner, 59, said. "It was the heyday of MTV, so the production and everything was really well done and professional and all the gear worked really well. We had New York string players; it was really great. It all kind of went without a hitch."

The acoustic sound live is a more vulnerable one, he said, adding the true test of a song is if it can stand on its own in both electric and acoustic formats.

Soul Asylum, which formed in Minneapolis, has used elements of alternative rock, country rock, grunge and even punk since the 1980s.

Since February, the band has been on tour performing electric sets with the full band and acoustic shows as a duo. The acoustic set list changes constantly, playing what “works best for acoustic guitars,” Pirner said.

“It embraces the entirety of my songwriting,” he said.

His writing process has remained the same throughout his career. but he has changed from using a pencil or pen to writing on his phone. He isn't a fan of changing or reinterpreting his music live and tries to play it the same way.

"I like the simple kind of folk element of just playing the damn song,” he said. “I have no desire to turn a simple three-minute song into a seven-minute jazz odyssey.”

The group's last album was 2020's "Hurry Up and Wait."

After the tour, Soul Asylum plans on releasing an album that has been recorded but needs to be mixed, he said. The producer is Steve Jordan, who produced their album “The Horse They Rode In On,” released in 1990. Jordan is the current drummer of The Rolling Stones, replacing Charlie Watts, who died in 2021.

“It was a thrill,” he said about recording the new album with Jordan. “It’s very organic and very raw and honest.”

For more information on Saturday's show, visit www.soulasylum.com or www.deerlodgeojai.com.

Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at wesley.woodsii@vcstar.com, 805-437-0262 or @JournoWes.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Grammy winner Soul Asylum to play acoustic show in Meiners Oaks