Jason Dietz has always been a chipper, positive dude, but nothing highlights his innate effervescence quite like the brace around his neck. The bassist and owner of Murfreesboro studio Twin Oak Productions has every right to be a sourpuss — three fractured vertebrae in the neck and a broken foot. That seems like a good excuse for a frown, and yet the only thing stopping his grin from stretching ear to ear is a plastic-and-neoprene contraption holding his head in place. A brush with death on the back of a motorcycle this fall has cranked this Nashville rock 'n' roll pioneer's joie d' vivre up to eleven, and his positivity remains unrestrained, even if his neck still is.
"Hopefully this thing will come off on the first of the year," Dietz tells the Scene. "It's my birthday and that would be the best present."
On Sept. 5, one of those steamy, sunny long-weekend Fridays that motorcycles were made for, Dietz found himself flattened out on the side of the highway, pulling his bike off the ground, pumping with adrenaline. He'd hit a patch of gravel, as he turned onto a Route 840 on-ramp. The gravel's origins are unknown, but it was there and it was dangerous, and in a split-second it sent Dietz sliding full speed from dude having fun to dude on a brush with death.
"Hitting gravel on a motorcycle is kind of like [hitting] ice," Dietz explains, "especially a large amount of gravel, and it was on a turn, so the only thing I could do was lay the bike down."
While making the maneuver, he collided with a road sign.
"It felt like time slowed down while it was happening," he continues. "The sign hit my windshield and I saw the pole coming for my face. I ducked the pole and my helmet took the blow instead. ... Really, really, really lucky."
Luck is a recurring theme in this conversation. Dietz luckily survived the crash, luckily avoided surgery and luckily has friends and family helping him get back on his feet.
Over nearly two decades, Dietz has been at the epicenter of Middle Tennessee's transformation from local-rock bubble to rock 'n' roll hot spot. He was in Murfreesboro during the Spongebath Records boom, playing with piano-poppers Fluid Ounces when that sleepy little college town got its first dose of national exposure. Later, he'd move over to Music City's heavier side, playing bass with '90s post-rock hometown heroes Serotonin and Aughts art-punks Forget Cassettes. As an engineer, he worked on classic local metal and math-rock releases by Keymaster, Evil Bebos and The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza. He's been one of Middle Tennessee's hardest working musicians for a long time, and sliding out from under his Honda VTX-1300 and smashing various sections of his skeleton wasn't going to slow him down, even if his friends have to prop him up.
"I had a show the next day with [Murfreesboro folk-rockers] The Hardin Draw at The Boro [Bar and Grill]," he recalls. "It was going to be a pretty big show, but I obviously couldn't play anymore. I was in a fucking wheelchair with a neck brace and a big boot on my foot. But I ended up playing electric bass instead of the upright on the day after the accident because I didn't want to sit at home when all my friends were at the show. I was like, 'Well, fuck, might as well give it a whirl, we'll just cut the set short if we have to.' So my band wheeled me up on stage and we played a show."
It's that same stubborn drive that made Dietz refuse an ambulance on the on-ramp and try to ride another 10 miles before ditching the damaged bike. It's the same stubborn push that made him shed the neck brace and mime his way through immense pain to appear in Hardin Draw's gorgeous "Southern Queen" video. And it's the same unwavering commitment that's turned his recovery into a recording opportunity.
Although Dietz had health insurance, he still incurred a few thousand dollars in unexpected debt. He also had a lot of time on his hands, so he started writing and recording an album (which he plans on releasing in January) with some of his musically inclined friends. The growing list of guest and accomplices includes Nashville hip-hop pioneer Pow Shadows and Hardin Draw producer/Old Crow Medicine Show bassist Morgan Jahnig. The mixes the Scene sampled were a groove-forward synthesis of Dietz's post-indie roots and a super-posi take on 21st century progressive rock — a distillation of Murfreesboro past and present. He's not going to crowdfund the project or even charge for it on Bandcamp — he's just asking for donation from those inclinated to help. He's been so lucky so far — he was a millimeter away from having TDOT hardware impale his noggin — so he doesn't worry about things working out for the best because they already have.
"I think that my life needed a little bit of a break from the constant go that I constantly put myself through," he says. "I don't know if this was the best way to get it but I think that it's done me a lot of good and brought me a lot of peace in my life to just relax a bit.
"I had to be forced to relax because of an accident, but I've learned to appreciate downtime," he goes on, his voice springing up with the buoyancy of somebody talking about a new favorite band. "But I've had enough time to relax. If I stay on the couch too much, then I'll never get up off of it."
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