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Everyone agrees there seemed to be two people inside Michael Dean Damron’s body. Onstage—both solo and with his band I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House—the Portland singer-songwriter projected a jovial badassery that was at odds with the person he was in private.
“He exuded all kinds of confidence and toughness, but he was such a softie,” says his friend and former bandmate Adam East. “He was such a hypochondriac, always dying of something, so when we heard he was dying, we could barely believe it.”
Damron, who died from liver failure on May 8 at age 61, was an Army vet, bouncer, show promoter and amateur boxer. He named his band for a quote by pugilist John L. Sullivan, and they were known as the “SOBs” among their fans, who responded to the intensity of tirades like “Westboro Baptist Church” and the tenderness of love songs like “Walk Across Texas.”
“He was one of the rawest writers, one of the rawest performers,” says Mishka Shubaly, a singer-songwriter and author who often played and toured with Damron. “I feel like a lot of songwriters are wrapped up in the songwriting that came before. Mike was a pure songwriter.”
“He knew everybody and their brother and remembered everybody’s stories, even if he was in another town,” says Kris Deelane, who performed with him and East in the band SweetJuice.
Yet, according to Damron’s stepchild, Sloane White, he didn’t even remember their birthday or their middle name.
“It was like he was two people,” White says. “He was this amazing songwriter and musician, and then he was also my absent drunken father.”
Damron was born in Las Vegas in 1963. He grew up bouncing between his mother in Tulsa and his father in Northern California before joining the Army at age 17. He spoke about these experiences onstage and wove them into his songs, notably on Father’s Day, one of his most painful solo records.
After a stint in L.A. working at the Whisky a Go Go club, he moved to be with his brother in Dallas, where he met his future wife, Angel, and her child, Sloane. The two bonded over the shared trauma of their childhoods, and when Angel wanted to go to Portland to get away from her own abusive family, Michael was happy to make the move.
“He was like no one I’d ever met before,” Angel says. “He was wild and unique and thrilling to be around and very, very funny. And I tolerated a lot in our marriage.”
During the first year of their relationship, Damron played bass in a Mercury Records-signed act called Tablet, and he was frequently touring when he and Angel first got to know each other. His schedule intensified after he started the SOBs in 2001, and their gritty, countrified blues rock started finding fans across the country after they released their 2002 debut, Creepy Little Noises.
“We toured a lot, and I think word of mouth spread,” says David Lipkind, whose harmonica playing was a key part of the band’s sound.
Damron was happy to hit the road at a moment’s notice, regularly booking tours for fellow artists and typically accompanying them for months at a time, often living out of the tour van to save money. “He didn’t need to play to a sold-out house to be validated,” says Alex Steininger, who signed the SOBs to his label In Music We Trust in 2002 and put out their first four records along with Damron’s first three solo outings. “If he played to one person, or if he played to an empty house and just the bartender, that made him happy.”
He also kept busy when he wasn’t on the road; he worked as a bouncer at the Aladdin Theater for a time before he joined Dante’s as booker, barback, bouncer and concert producer where he worked for several years until shortly before his death. “He pretty much had his finger in everything,” Steininger says.
But his lifestyle took a toll on his family life. Michael and Angel split about two and a half years ago; the divorce was finalized last year. His behavior was hard on White, too. Though White swears Michael “never laid a finger” on either of them, they note he was prone to explosive verbal outbursts of anger, especially in his later years. “He would be able to flip a switch and he was this charming dude,” White says, “but in person it was like we were walking on eggshells around him.”
When his liver began failing, Damron seemed confident he would pull through.
“When he finally did face death, he was extremely courageous and at peace with the situation,” says Lipkind, with whom Damron lived in Portland during the last few months of his life. “It was enlightening to witness that.”
One of the last friends to visit Damron before his death was Storm Large—the Pink Martini singer met him when she worked as a bartender at Dante’s. Large was about to leave on a tour; as she speaks, she’s still on the tour, in the south of France near the Pyrenees.
“I said I’d be back in two months,” Large says. “He’s like, ‘I’ll be here.’ I thought he might do it. You know, if anyone could live without a liver...”
Steininger texted the singer-songwriter to check in as well. Damron’s response: “Grim, but it’s only death.”
“That’s when I knew things weren’t good, because his fight mentality was gone,” Steininger says. “He had never resigned himself.”
Two days after Damron’s death, a planned benefit to help pay his medical bills at the Star Theater turned into a wild celebration of the late singer’s life. While the evening saw performances by such local music scene luminaries as Hillstomp, Little Sue, and the Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee, the main event was an emotional SOBs set with White, Lipkind and others taking the mic.
“There were a lot of tears,” Steininger says. “Everyone was there. I saw people I hadn’t seen in years, some in over a decade. A lot of hugs.”
At the end of the night, White delivered a nearly 12-minute eulogy in which they frankly acknowledged Damron’s shortcomings but reaffirmed their love for their “wild, wonderful dad.”
“I need to let you know all the full context of my complicated experience,” White said to the crowd, “so that I can go on loving him and honoring him and also forgiving him because I had the courage to hold him accountable.…I think that he would respect me for that.”
After the eulogy, a friend of Damron’s from Dante’s told White the eulogy inspired him to reconnect with his own kids. “This really reminded me that life is really short and we should be keeping our loved ones close,” White says. “Because anything could happen at any moment.”