Having a sincere appreciation for an art form doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be any good at making the art. But an abiding affinity for country music, the people who make it and the people who love it is the force that has driven Jeff Meltesen’s alter ego D. Striker, a yellow-suited self-proclaimed country star, for the past two decades. Each time the 13th of the month has fallen on a Friday since 1998, Striker has made an appearance — first in Athens, Ga., and then in Nashville after Meltesen moved here in 1999. He sings his own thoughtfully crafted, catchy and often devastatingly funny country and country-rock tunes, promotes the latest edition of his zine RR (also published each Friday the 13th), and engages in self-deprecating shenanigans that ring true because they paint a picture of an ordinary guy who wants to be larger than life.
“I don’t think that what I do musically is all that much parody,” Meltesen tells the Scene. “Parodies deliberately exaggerate it to be funny. And I know I’m over-the-top, but I’m not making fun of country music. I’m trying to have fun with it, just like Roger Miller was having fun when he sang ‘You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd.’ ”
When Meltesen was a youngster, country music was constantly on the radio in his household, and he grew to enjoy the storytelling of Merle Haggard and George Jones. The Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons got added to the mix when Meltesen was in college. The more live music he saw, the more he thought he’d like to give it a try, and so D. Striker was born. Since he moved to Nashville, Meltesen’s day jobs have have kept him close to country music — prior to his current gig at video production firm Taillight, he was in ad sales at Country Weekly — and being in contact with the business has helped him craft Striker’s rowdy but never malicious persona.
Meltesen frequently spins gold from his own life experiences, as in “(I’m Hungover in) The Walmart Breakroom,” a look back at his first job, and “You Look Pregnant, Like a Woman,” inspired by a neighbor’s commentary on his physique. He’s written his share of songs like “Not Funny Anymore,” where a dose of humor helps ease the pain of heartbreak. He also made a nuanced jab at the country music industry with 2014’s “Three Dudes in an Office,” prodding songwriters and artists to quit leaning on tired clichés. He’s released three albums and a handful of singles, backed by a rotating cast of accomplices that always includes members of longtime local indie alt-country group Ole Mossy Face.
But the D. Striker experience revolves around RR. Meltesen writes, designs and prints the zine himself (on yellow paper, naturally). Early issues focused on lyrics, but he rapidly expanded the scope to include wry observations on the world of country, from June 2003’s recap of a trip to Fan Fair to May 2011’s adventure in drumming up business for Layla’s Bluegrass Inn. The September 2013 edition included a heartfelt memorial for troubled country star Mindy McCready, who died in February of that year. She’d previously been the subject of Striker’s song “Oh, Mindy” as well as an entire RR issue in January 2006.
January 2012’s RR also lingered. Meltesen reckoned that a country star like D. Striker ought to have his own signature scent. So he and his father — who through his work as a flavors and fragrances chemist had built a library of ingredients for knockoff colognes — whipped up “D. Striker: The New Fragrance for Revelers.”
“He gave me a really concentrated bottle of it with the expectation that I would dilute it,” Meltesen says, “and I didn’t dilute it. And I started squirting it on those RR zines, and at the RR party, I started offering people a squirt from the fragrance bottle. The whole club smelled really bad. … Birdcloud and Richie shared the bill with us, along with Mystery Twins, and I doused all of the money that I paid them in the fragrance. I remember getting a message from Birdcloud weeks later that they were still spending their D. Striker-smelling money.”
Meltesen will play this Friday the 13th at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Madison, the first of two celebrations of RR’s 20th anniversary. (The other will be in July.) He says to expect a couple of new Striker tunes. You’ll have to come out to see what’s in the new zine, but we can tell you that support comes courtesy of rising local country champs Emily Nenni and Wade Sapp, as well as Meltesen’s longtime pal, ace Chattanooga singer and picker Lew Card.
