Singer is copier salesman by day, 'Sheriff' by night
HE'S A CHARACTER | Jim Mullen, 40, Roscoe Village
There are two sides to Marty Rogers. The charismatic copier salesman from Roscoe Village.
And the redneck rocker from Rattlecrack, Ark.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
It's a "split personality" that has evolved over time -- and Jack Daniels shots.
"Actually, it all started with a nasty hangover," Rogers says.
One Sunday morning, Rogers woke up on his couch with a pounding headache to Charlton Heston's voice on TV making his famous "Planet of the Apes" demand: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
"I immediately thought what a great name for a band, Damn Dirty Apes," Rogers says. "Like everybody else, I always wanted to be a rock star. But I had no discernable musical talent. Can't play an instrument. Never sang a note. But I figured: Why should that stop me?"
To make it happen, Rogers relied on his best talent -- selling. He cornered some of his musically inclined buddies and pitched the idea of buying gorilla suits and playing cover songs at local bars and summer festivals.
And like a middle-aged office manager faced with a Rogers copier sales pitch, the guys bought it.
So Rogers quickly taught himself to sing well enough to pass as a primate front man. The Damn Dirty Apes played exactly four shows and once were joined on stage by lead singer Scott Lucas of the popular band Local H. But the ape-shtick didn't last.
"I quickly realized that you sweat off 11 pounds every show in those costumes ... and then, because I couldn't see through the eye holes, I fell off the stage at Joe's on Weed Street and nearly broke my arm," Rogers says.
Rogers needed a new stage persona -- or at least a better costume -- to get his rock star fix.
He traded the furry suit for a black cowboy hat and black jeans -- the modest gear of his new alter-ego "The Sheriff," a foul-mouthed, Jack Daniels-swilling hillbilly crooner.
When his new band, Z28 (formerly Blazin' Saddles), plays at local venues, Rogers partakes in a daylong ritual to transform himself into The Sheriff. He gets his hat stretched at a Western gear store, gets his boots shined by a guy named Jimmy at the Hilton downtown, slips on a black cowboy shirt, squeezes into skinny jeans and talks with a twang.
"Once he puts on those Aviator sunglasses, it's all Sheriff, and there's no turning back," says Rogers bandmate Justin "El Guapo" Ripley. "It isn't always pleasant."
On stage -- when Rogers isn't belting out a country version of "Purple Rain" or a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune -- The Sheriff is crude and filthy and rude. And the audience eats it up, mostly.
He once got slapped by a women in her 70s after a show. But that was a special case.
"That was my mom. She smacked me across the face for talking dirty. Let's just say the people closest to me do not appreciate The Sheriff."
But at certain bars and Western gear stores around town, folks only know Rogers as his onstage persona. They buy him shots. They believe Rattlecrack is a real town. They're sold on the story that Rogers is a degenerate hillbilly renegade on the run who sings for his supper. And Rogers loves it.
"It's like being Spider-Man, without the tights," Rogers says. "Any room he's in at any time, The Sheriff is the boss. You know, I always wonder how The Sheriff would go about selling copiers."