Band’s wheel keeps on turning

One of the first times the throwback country outfit Asleep at the Wheel rambled through Spokane, it was the day Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. Ray Benson, the band’s founder and frontman, remembers a long drive ending in an early morning stop in the Inland Northwest.

“We pulled into Spokane around 8 a.m., whenever the volcano blew, and we heard this thump,” Benson said. “We went to bed, woke up and it was raining ash.”

Benson said he won’t forget that gig anytime soon: In fact, he still has a jar full of Mount St. Helens ash on his desk at home.

Asleep at the Wheel has been back to Spokane many times since, and the Grammy Award-winning band returns Thursday for a show at the Bing Crosby Theater.

The group has been constantly touring since its formation in the early ’70s, but Benson said the reported estimates that he plays around 200 shows a year aren’t quite accurate. It’s closer to 150.

“Forty-five years of this and it’s what I love to do,” he said. “I shouldn’t complain because I love to play music, I get to see this beautiful country – every inch of it – and get paid for it. What’s not to like?”

Since the band’s first album, “Comin’ Right at Ya,” was released in 1973, more than 100 members have come and gone from the lineup. Benson doesn’t know the exact number – he’s certain it’s “100-plus” – but he’s been steering the ship the entire time.

“At times in the ’70s, we were a 12-piece band,” he said. “It’s what we can afford to put on stage more than anything. We’ve loaded up as many folks as we can that we can afford to pay, so it’s that kind of attitude.”

Asleep at the Wheel’s most recent studio album, “Still the King,” is a tribute to the Western swing music of Bob Wills, a singer-songwriter whose heyday was in the ’30s and ’40s. It’s the third recorded tribute Benson has made to Wills, and it was Benson’s son who persuaded him to put it together.

“He said, ‘It’s all about introducing this music to new generations, and it’s been 15 years since you’ve done one,’ ” Benson said. “As long as I’ve been doing this, the timelessness of (Wills’) music still amazes me. And the reason it’s timeless is because it’s based on emotion mixed with great technical and musical performance.”

Each of Benson’s Wills tributes has featured guest appearances from a slew of major country artists – Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, Reba McEntire and Dwight Yoakam have all made cameos. For the most recent album, Benson worked with several new alt-country acts, including Old Crow Medicine Show, the Avett Brothers and the Devil Makes Three, and also brought in seasoned veterans like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.

“They’re all acts that have the same inspirational starting points that we do,” Benson said, “going from roots music and making it into their own in the present day.”

That emotion and energy carries over into Asleep at the Wheel’s live shows, and Benson guarantees the Bing concert is going to be a blast.

“Our shows are fun,” he said. “They’re humorous, they’re heartfelt, they’re all of those things that you’d want out of a live performance. I probably shouldn’t say this, but they’re going to wish they had a dance floor.”

And he has one more guarantee: “Mount St. Helens will not explode this time.”