My Uncle Steve was a badass.

He took a lot of pride in his family, his rusty panhead Harley (all his Harleys), and his work ethic.

Without even a high school diploma, he ran his own business as a brick mason for years before starting Aggressive Ink, his tattoo shop, which he initially opened in Elberton, GA, an hour or so south of his home near Anderson, SC, because the state of SC hadn’t yet legalized tattooing as a business.

He was a hard man who cared and fought ceaselessly for those close to him, often with tough love. And lord help you if you crossed him or any of his family.

Steve ended up filling the role of father to me in many ways, especially in my youngest and most formative years. He had deep convictions that he would share with me and my cousin Dustin—don’t live beyond your means, street smarts are just as important if not more so than book smarts, the law of the land is not as important as the laws within your own heart, hard work trumps everything.

He taught us how to shave, fight, start fires, haggle & barter, ride a dirt bike, how to hold and properly cut with knives, and that wood could be whittled into art.

He introduced me to Alice in Chains, Rob Zombie, Black Sabbath, Jackyl. He gave me my first and only banjo, a 1976 Harmony that he had gotten in one of his many barters with like-minded country folks. When he gave me the banjo, he said, “Now this ain’t really yours until you write me a song called ‘Pure White Trash.’” Just last year, 15 years after the prompt, I finally penned that song, arguably one of my best, and he called us even.

Since then, the song has garnered almost 90k views on the Heat Lightning TikTok page and feels like a sea change for this independent music outfit you’ve stumbled across. With my uncle’s blessing behind me and a sense of pride for where I came from that I hadn’t had before, I’m hoping to ride this song out of my day job and—after 20 years of trying—into the ranks of a full-time songwriter.

Perhaps you’re here because of this song or one of those videos. We both have my uncle to thank for that.

Through sheer force of will, my Uncle Steve slayed his own demons of alcohol and hard drug addiction before I was old enough to remember, but I saw the resulting sobriety and watched him enact that same will on everything else he ever did. I like to think some of that rubbed off on me.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in 2024 at the too-young age of 58. We’ll be burying him by the creek on his property this Thursday. He was a mountain of a man, and everyone who knew him will feel the void he leaves behind for years to come.

RIP Steve Ricketts 1966-2024

- Brian

P.S. If you want to hear more unreleased songs, preorder the new album, The United States of Struggle, and hear all 12 tracks before they’re even finished being recorded (and way before they hit streaming apps)!