Last August, I was on my way home from an interview in Gallatin when I ran into a biker named Long Hair. We got to talking, and he told me that he was a member of Justified Riding Club and gave me his card.
As you might have guessed, “Long Hair” is a nickname, or road name. Most bikers have one. It’s the name they go by amongst their friends and other clubs, but there’s no formal process for acquiring one.
Sometimes, it comes from an inside joke, usually at the receiver’s expense. Other times, it’s more of a straight observation.
“I got out of the Army in 1991, and I swore I’d never cut my hair again. … So I got long hair,” Long Hair explained.
After meeting last summer, we stayed in touch. Months later, he invited me to check out the grand re-opening of Justified’s Trousdale County clubhouse, right off of Highway 52 in West Lafayette.
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But, as is the nature with clubhouses, I couldn’t just walk in. So after I parked, I gave Long Hair a call, and he escorted me inside.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News Inside the clubhouse, members talk over dinner while a band plays rock hits.
A rock ‘n’ roll reunion
Once I got past the door, the club had a rock ‘n’ roll family reunion kind of vibe. There was a band playing, kids running around, and adults shooting pool and helping themselves to a taco buffet.
Most of the attendees were wearing leather vests called “cuts.” Long Hair explained that the patches on a cut tell you everything you need to know about the person wearing it, from their club affiliation to their road name.
But I wanted to know, underneath the patches and cuts and road names, what was Justified all about?
Well, God, for one thing.
Chief, Justified’s president and one of the club’s founding members, is an ordained minister who hosts weekly services in-person and online. He explained that Justified allows him to reach people who don’t feel at home in a more traditional church environment.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News Long Hair (left) and Chief (right) are both longtime bikers.
“You know, I had members that would not even drive by a church. They were afraid that if they got close, it would burst into flames,” he said.
Fundraising for charity is another core part of the club’s activities. Members host charity rides, dinners, and the Izzy, an annual multiple-day fall festival that raises money for children’s causes, including paying for prosthetics.
This is pretty common amongst motorcycle and riding clubs. But Chief said that there’s still a certain stigma attached to being a biker.
“It’s not fair for somebody to look at me and — because I might have a beard or tattoos or wear rings and ride a motorcycle — automatically judge me that I don’t know God or I’m not a good person,” he said.
That sentiment is how the club landed on its motto: “I do not care if I am judged by you,” based on a quote from Paul in Corinthians.
God, family, work, club
Over the past decade, Justified has grown from just six members to 70 across three chapters in Smith, Trousdale and Putnam counties. This includes members like Fifi, who joined the club four years ago, and wears her black leather cut over a cozy yellow sweater.
She found Justified after her husband passed away.
“For the first time in my life, I was totally alone,” she said. “I was totally out of my element, and I was scared to death. What was I doing in the biker world?”
At the time, Fifi had never rode a motorcycle. Now, she’s a full patch member with her own bike.
The biker world as we know it in America today was founded by pilots and airmen returning home from WWII. To this day, motorcycle and riding clubs are especially popular with military veterans, including in Tennessee. Lucky is one of them.
“I come from a broken home as a kid and, you know, I went into the Army. And the Army is the only place I found brotherhood,” he said.
But when he retired from the Army, he felt kind of lost. He wandered from state to state on his motorcycle, never staying in one place for more than a year.
One day, he was out riding and broke down in front of a Justified clubhouse. The rest, he said, is history.
“They became my family. This is the reason I live in Tennessee. … Nothing else. This is my family,” he said.
Now, Lucky is the road captain for the Smith County chapter of Justified. That means it’s his job to plan and scope out the route before a big ride.
“I’ll do the whole route myself — make sure there’s no debris in the road and make sure there’s nothing that’s going to mess anybody up on two wheels. And then on the actual day of the ride, I’m in the front of the pack,” said Lucky.
As the celebrations continued on into the night, a small crowd of members formed outside the clubhouse to smoke and keep an eye on a gaggle of kids playing tag in the parking lot.
Lighting up a cigarette, Long Hair looked on with unmistakable fondness and pointed to a patch on his chest reading “GFWC.”
“God, family, work, club is the bottom line. That’s what we stand for. We got your back just like you got ours, you know, and we’ll help you if you need it, no matter what.”
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