ROCK IN DETROIT’S

JANUARY 2026

ARTIST OF THE MONTH:

 

JEREMY PORTER

 

They’ve opened for everyone from Soul Asylum to Cracker to Supersuckers to Sponge. They’ve toured the US and Canada multiple times – playing festivals, theaters, clubs, corner bars, and coffee shops from Boston to Houston, Colorado to Montrèal, Minneapolis to Jacksonville, and all points between. In 2018 they toured the UK, performing nine shows in nine nights, including two nights in London and a showcase at the Swansea (Wales) Fringe Festival. Yet despite their success, you may be unfamiliar with them. That’s why Rock in Detroit sat down with none other than Jeremy Porter of Jeremy Porter and the Tucos.

 

ROCK IN DETROIT: Let’s get started with a few of the basics—real name, where did you grow up, favorite band as a 15-year-old?

JEREMY: Yea I grew up in Northern Michigan. I was born in and lived in Alpena early on, but my formative years were in Marquette. When I was 15 my favorites would have been Ozzy Osbourne with Iron Maiden right behind. The first two Mötley Crüe records were in heavy rotation. I hadn’t discovered punk yet, that was a few months off.

ROCK IN DETROIT: For how long have you been playing music?

JEREMY: I started playing when I was young, like 10, taking guitar lessons at the Alpena Girls Club where my mom worked. I gave up on it for a couple years, then got busted vandalizing the vice-principal’s house and picked it up again while I was grounded for the summer. Haven’t put it down since. I was introduced to punk when I was 16 and everything suddenly became obtainable – the ability to play and write, the freedom to do and say whatever you wanted, and people to do it all with.

ROCK IN DETROIT: You started off as a regular punk rocker. Tell us about that.

JEREMY: Assume you’re talking about The Regulars? That was my first band, early `86, up in Marquette. I met this cat John Burke, we formed this band together with his friends Fritz and Tim, because I was new to the area and didn’t know anyone. We played punk and garage covers mostly: Clash, DKs, Replacements, Monkees, Who. They tolerated my occasional insistence that we do “Paranoid” or “Christeen Sixteen.” We all went our own ways after high school, but we remain close brothers, and we’ve had a few reunion shows that have been pretty special.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Any originals from the period worth mentioning?

JEREMY: We were writing songs in the last year or so, before heading our separate ways. They weren’t great, if I’m being honest, but that’s where you start. I understood, even at 16/17, that covers aren’t where it’s at. My songwriting journey started there, but picked up steam quickly in the couple years that followed.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What’s a Tuco? More importantly, who are the Tucos and how did that all happen?

JEREMY: I was in a band in the 2000s called The OffRamps, then that kinda fizzled and I stared doing some solo shows and formed Fidrych with OffRamps’ bassist Jason and a couple of our pals from Porchsleeper, who weren’t doing much at the time. The Tucos formed in December 2010 when Fidrych had sort of flatlined and I was tired of playing solo shows. Jason stayed with me and we got Gabriel, a dude from Dearborn who was in The Hotwalls, to play drums, we recorded a Christmas song, learned a bunch more, and hit the road.

Naming a band is a bitch. Tuco was the Eli Wallach character in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The name was available and we were out of time. Seems to have served us ok so far, except when we see “Jeremy Porter and the Tacos” on the marquee. But I like tacos, so even that’s not so bad.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Do you consider the music you made with them good, bad or ugly?

JEREMY: Well, we’re still together and making music, but it’s been pretty quiet for the last couple years while I toured my solo album, Dynamite Alley. We’re finishing up a new record and plan to hit the pavement again in 2026. Weird question though, but a nice transition, ha! I’ll leave that to you and the listeners I guess. I suppose a bit of each at times.

ROCK IN DETROIT: So what type of music do you guys make? Can you give of an example of a representative song or songs that have links for our readers?

JEREMY: Good question! We have a bit of an identity crisis with our genre identification. For the pop side, I’d probably say “Dead Ringer.” For the rock side, “Put You on Hold.” For the alt-country/Americana side probably “Zipper Merge.” People seem to like “Bottled Regrets” a lot, which kind of encompasses them all, I guess?

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/dead-ringer-2

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/put-you-on-hold

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/zipper-merge

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/bottled-regrets

As far as the solo stuff, let’s go with “I Didn’t Want to Break Your Heart” and “Lucy.”

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/i-didnt-want-to-break-your-heart

          https://jeremyporter.bandcamp.com/track/lucy

ROCK IN DETROIT: Besides Jeremy Porter and the Tucos, there is also Jeremy Porter. How does your solo career relate to your and-the-Tucos career?

JEREMY: For the last 16 months or so, I’ve been out promoting my solo album Dynamite Alley (GTG Records, 2024) and The Tucos haven’t done much outside of a couple shows and the mixing of our next record. The two entities can co-exist, but it’s difficult to toggle back and forth, so one tends to take focus while the other slows down. So when The Tucos are cookin’ I may do the odd solo show, and vice-versa, but it depends on where things are at. With this new record coming, focus will be back on the band for sure.

But I do enjoy both. I always say “Touring and playing solo is way easier, but touring and playing with the band is way more fun.” It’s nice to have less gear, fewer dudes to split the money with, less people in the motel room . . . but there’s nothing like seeing the country with your mates and plugging in the amps and raising some hell.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Over the last fifteen years, you’ve released five full albums, going on six. You have almost a dozen singles and have appeared on at least fifteen complication albums. You’ve toured through a good chunk of the United States. There are not a lot of Detroit bands/rock-artists who can match your record. Where do you see yourself in the Detroit scene?

JEREMY: Thanks for noticing! My good friend Jim, who goes way back in the scene, knows everyone, and has been seeing me play since the late 80s, told me recently that I was always on “the fringe” of the Detroit scene. I’m not sure exactly what he meant, but I think he’s right in that I’ve never been like A-list here, never the go-to when the “big” local bands needed support, passed over on festivals more often than not, all that, and all while it seemed to me like we were working as hard as or harder than anyone. At the same time, there’ve been moments where it felt like it was happening a bit; some amazing support slots for national acts, some great headlining shows at a couple of the smaller joints around town, the occasional festival slot, a bit of press . . . but yeah, I’ve had to scrap for every last bit of it, and was never really embraced on a big scale here in town.

Since the 90s, and certainly the last 15 years, my focus has been the road, which doesn’t help my scene-cred locally either, as I’m not able to get out there and rub shoulders and support my friends as much as I’d like. I always wondered if that was a big part of it.

I don’t think there’s a lot of sense in worrying about it. I just try to forge ahead, doing what I want with as much as I have in me. If you don’t leave anything on the table, there’s nothing to regret, even when expectations fall short. I am really happy when a few people show up and notice, but I will, and have, played to no one too.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Would you say you’ve “made it” in music? If not, what would you consider “making it” to be?

JEREMY: Look, what does “made it” even mean anymore? When I was 14, I wanted to be in the Scorpions and play arenas and fly in private jets and have hot chicks in my videos. Just a year or two later I was reading the “Scene Reports” in MaximumRockAndRoll and I remember one said that Hüsker Dü had just done a three-night run from Minneapolis to Saint Louis and Chicago. I remember sitting in my bedroom thinking “. . . Man, if I could just get to that point where I am doing a weekend like that. Can you imagine?”

My face isn’t exactly on the cover of Circus Magazine with a pointy, tiger-print guitar, but I’m doing what I love as much as I want to do it, at this crazy old age. The songs seem to connect with people, we’re traveling all over the place sharing them, and here we are, having this fun conversation about it all, so I’m good! I’ve given music everything I had, and, maybe most important of all, I ain’t done yet. To me, that’s making it I guess.

ROCK IN DETROIT: I think a lot of people have at least a vague understanding of how The Scorpions and Husker Du “made it.” Touring, getting signed and selling records were critical parts of that model even if the precise relation of these parts was unclear. The relevance of that model is questionable today and many local bands, I feel, are unsure of the path forward. But you’ve risen higher than a lot of bands/artists. Do you feel you have better view of the music world? What is the next rung and how does a band reach it?

JEREMY: That’s an interesting question. I don’t feel like I have a “better” view, but maybe a different view than most. I’ve got the miles in, that’s for sure, but there’s a lot of things I’ve never done that my friends and peers have. I’m at peace with it, but I’m not blind to the fact that it’s pretty small-time in the end.

I’m a firm believer that success is different for everyone and a self-awareness of what that it is for YOU is really the important part. You also have to accept that it can be a moving target. The path forward is dictated by not only by your desires, but your environment. Do you have kids at home? Is your family healthy? Is your spouse/partner amenable to you doing what it takes to meet those goals? Do you have a full-time job with little vacation time? These questions have to be addressed before you buy a van and leave town for a month.

I don’t even know what the next wrung for me personally would be, but I’m always trying to get higher visibility – more ears on my music. I’d like to see The Tucos’ next record get more attention than the last one. I want to play new places and maybe make a little headway in Detroit… I’m always looking to collaborate more on writing with other songwriters. I ventured into producing other bands a couple years ago and I’d love to do more of that.

ROCK IN DETROIT: What, if anything, can we learn from The Detroit Cobras? My impression is that they were not part of the local music scene in the sense that the music they were playing–retro garage–was not being done by many others. And yet, even if not The White Stripes, they had some national exposure, and if not for the untimely death of their singer, Rachel Nagy, could have become “big.”

JEREMY: I suppose, but they were certainly loved and embraced by this city as well as beyond. They were a great band and are missed. While they most definitely had their own thing going, they were riding the Detroit wave that the White Stripes started, or at least are perceived as starting, for sure. We all are, or trying at least, whether someone wants to admit it or not. It’s not a bad thing, but there’s a cool factor to being from Detroit now that wasn’t there 30 years ago.

What can we learn? Well, first of all, that life is precious and there’s no time to waste. Get out there and do it. Write that song, book that tour, take that gig. They certainly did that. Don’t leave anything on the table.

ROCK IN DETROIT: Do you (Jeremy Porter with or without the Tucos) have any gigs coming up our readers should know about?

JEREMY: Nothing on the books at this moment. I always need to take a step back and breathe for a few weeks once the Fall touring schedule wraps up. I’ll be back at it and staring down the map and the calendar in the coming weeks!