Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 8, 1999

The Adventures of Matthew & Gunnar Lisa Ferguson Friday, Jan. 8, 1999 | 9:54 a.m. "... You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." -- Rick Nelson If ever Matthew and Gunnar Nelson learned a lesson from their father, late rock 'n' roll legend Rick Nelson, the lyric from his 1972 hit song "Garden Party" embodies it. A short-lived pop music career in the early '90s -- waist-length hair, flashy videos and the one-word band name, Nelson -- yielded the brothers a No. 1 hit song, "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection." But the blond-haired, blue-eyed identical twins -- who perform tonight at the Stardust hotel-casino, opening for '60s rockers Three Dog Night -- have since shortened their locks and gone country. Or, rather, "American," as the pair, who bill themselves simply as the Nelson Brothers, have dubbed their musical style. "We were just calling it 'Nelson music,' but that was too broad," Gunnar quips. "Basically it's something that has a really good heritage to it," with country and rockabilly influences. "The same kind of heritage we grew up with." In their new format, the brothers take turns on lead vocals. Gunnar also plays drums, and Matt handles guitar duties. They're backed by a bass player and another guitarist. Why the change in musical genres? Following the success of their 1990 pop disc "After The Rain," which birthed three singles including the title track, "We had consciously decided to go a different direction anyways, just because ... grunge (music) was really huge at the time," Matthew says, explaining how he and Gunnar were more interested in "organic instrumentation" and melody. Their second offering, 1995's "Because They Can," reflected that. "It was really a transitional record ... and it really kind of set us in that (country rock) direction," Matthew says. It was, however, totally off-course with the brothers' teenage fans. "We made the right record for the wrong audience," Matthew says. The twins -- who are also the grandchildren of television sitcom pioneers Ozzie and Harriet Nelson of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" -- left their native Los Angeles bound for Nashville, where they spent four years writing songs and meeting with industry executives. An album is in the works. Meanwhile, they have been performing mostly in small clubs, casinos, and at benefit shows. Michael McCall, a music columnist for the weekly publication Nashville Scene, has seen the Nelson Brothers perform in Music City, and says he prefers their new sound to their previous pop tunes. "I think this is better than what they were doing then," McCall says, "maybe because it's a little more mature. They've obviously grown up a little bit, too." While he shies away from calling their sound "rockabilly," he says that "it has a sound that kind of comes from the late '50s, early '60s, but it's not slavishly so ... there's sort of an influence in it." Besides their own songs, the 31-year-old brothers' repertoire also features more than a few of their father's famous tunes. (Their half-hour performance tonight is billed as a tribute to Rick Nelson, who, along with his bandmates and fiancee, was killed in a 1985 plane crash.) Rick Nelson's musical break came in 1957 on an episode of "Ozzie and Harriet," which ran on ABC from 1952-66. He went on to score dozens of hit songs in the '50s and early '60s, including "Travelin' Man," "Hello Marylou" and "Poor Little Fool." "We were major fans of our dad, too," Gunnar says. "No one can do Ricky Nelson better than Ricky Nelson; we're not gonna try. But we do it our own way." They cover the 1958 hit "Poor Little Fool," for example, in a "real malt-shop" fashion, as well as "a soft, more acoustic-based, almost torch ballad." Matthew adds: "We're doing them in such a way that it bridges that whole ... country-rock transition we made later on, but it has the vibe and the energy of (their father's) real early stuff, which was real cutting-edge rockabilly stuff." But don't accuse them of riding their late father's coattails. "We're not a nostalgia act; we're doing new stuff," Matthew insists. "We have to pay homage to where we come from in order to move forward. So this is just a really natural balancing thing that we do." Nevertheless, The Nelson Brothers' shift in musical focus is eerily reminiscent of one their father made during his career. In the late '60s, with the Stone Canyon Band, Rick Nelson wrote, recorded and performed covers and original country rock such as "Garden Party," written after he was booed by an audience at Madison Square Garden for his long hair and music selection. "It's kind of weird," Matthew says. "We have to go now where the music is happening, which is, at this point, Nashville, and bring it out to the rest of the world from there, where our pop just kind of dug his heels in and stayed in California and did it that way. "I see a major similarity in that it takes a certain amount of courage to go away from what made you successful in the first place and take a different turn in your musical style." Recalling his father's "musical renaissance" with the Stone Canyon Band, Gunnar explains how he and Matthew have incorporated elements of his music into their own. "You throw in the attitude and the exuberance and the innocence of that '50s stuff, and you put in the subtle textures of the two of us singing harmony together ... and the songwriting (experience) from Nashville and also the energy and the power of the stuff we were doing in the early '90s, and it's something you don't hear outside of America," he says. "But it is something that is uniquely distinct to us." But more of the world is hearing it: The Nelson Brothers tour frequently in Europe and Asia, where they have scored a handful of hit songs in recent years. They are also scheduled to play larger venues in the states later this year when they open for the band America. They're also gearing up to launch into the other side of the family business -- acting. The brothers will team with their actress-sister Tracy Nelson ("Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "Father Dowling Mysteries") in March to begin filming a sitcom (to potentially air on the Fox Network) in which they portray -- who else? -- themselves, just as their relatives did on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." Don't expect, however, similar storylines about a simple American family. While the brothers remain tight-lipped about the show's specifics, Gunnar says: Take everything you would expect about a whitewashed TV show ... and realize this is going to be on Fox, so it (will have) edge." "I think as far as acting," Matthew says, "it's all part of entertainment, and it's all part of where we come from. It's just a natural extension of what we do musically. We want to spread out and grow." The entire Nelson family was the subject of a profile on the Arts and Entertainment channel's wildly popular "Biography" program last year. The brothers gave the show favorable reviews. "What was remarkable about it ... was that it was as honest as any sort of Nelson family portrayal has ever been. It wasn't whitewashed at all," Matthew says. "(He and Gunnar) sat down before we did this thing with everybody. ... We said, 'We're really honest people and I think what people would appreciate right now more than ever is a real story, just 'Hey, it's OK. We're a real family in a lot of ways,' and just tell it like it is.' " Despite their famous family tree, growing up Nelson wasn't always easy. At 18, Matthew and Gunnar found themselves living practically hand-to-mouth while the estate of their father, with whom they had been living when he died, was tied up in probate. "We did whatever we could to scrape by," Matthew recalls, "and for a while there, we just threw our suitcases in the one car that (he and Gunnar) shared and went back and forth to people's houses. "I guess if you look back on it now, it was absolutely horrible, but it's easier looking back on it 15 years later and saying, 'Wow, if I can live through that, I can live through anything.' " (The title of "After the Rain," which was dedicated to their father, referred to the tumultuous time.) Gunnar says: "It's also a testament, too, to how important attitude is, because what I remember from those times ... is that it didn't matter how dark it got, we always found the pinhole of light someplace." Maybe they inherited that persevering spirit from their father. Gunnar recalls him as "a man of few words," especially when it came to commenting on his sons' music. "We'd play him a song and he'd go, 'Yeah, that's really good. Believe in what you're doing and keep doing it.' No, no, no. What about the bridge? Tell me about the lyrics. He wouldn't get too specific," Gunnar says. "He also said something which I think comes down to where we are right now. He said, 'Be true to yourself, because if you're not, you'll lie to yourself one day, and you'll keep lying to yourself, and then you're not gonna wind up where you want to be.' "We've been true to ourselves and we've made decisions based on our hearts and not on desperation or what everybody else is doing," Gunnar says. "We're playing and doing and feeling exactly what we want to feel."