Your new album/debut is due for release shortly - what can you tell us about it?
Well I'm extremely happy with 'The Year to Forget' for a start. Which is saying something. I've never been 100% happy with anything I've released before this. This album captures what we do as a live band (which is important to us), but it also sounds like an album should - 11 songs that have there own sonic individual worlds. We wanted an eclectic album that sounded like a holistic consolidated representation of our twisted collection of styles. If that makes any sense...that is what we got.
Your songs, from what I've heard so far, talk about heartache, women, love, even the devil - are these themes easy to write about? Do you write a lot from personal experience? Do you have a particular writing process?
Looks like I'm going to have to broaden my themes: heartache, women, love and the devil appear to be the same one. Well three of them at least - women, love and heartache (usually in that order) are the stable diet of the blues, but I'm not interested in writing break up albums. Songs should empower their subjects by providing an insight into both sides of a story. Life, death, excess and personal experiences are definitely my muses though. My theory is that every song should be derived from personal experience then turned into it's own story with its own hero, heroine, villain or foil. That way it becomes bigger than you, and doesn't drag you through hell every time you sing it. I like the idea that an audience can take my lyrics and own what I'm singing for them selves
….and as for the Devil: I think the only reference to the devil in our songs either refer to me or the drink - both true stories.
Who were your biggest influences when it came to the sound of the band?
To be perfectly honest the biggest influence to our sound came when we added our double bass player Chris Lichti and drummer Stephen 'Dev' Devlin to the mix. That combination of instrumentation and the personal styles of each individual is what defined us and separated us from other blues bands. We all came from heavy musical backgrounds ranging from death metal to punk and I'd say that that is what seeps out of our music more so than the Delta Blues greats that originally inspired our songwriting.
Did you grow up on a steady diet of blues/rockabilly music - or was it a style that you became interested in later on?
Blues is the root of most things that I listen to, but it's definitely not the only thing that floats my boat. I'm a '70s child so I grew up in the eighties with a tape deck blaring out Metal. My father was the original guitar hound in our family, and it was his collection of blues albums that first caught my attention. Long before Slayer took the mantle of evil, there where these solo black performers with one guitar resonating tunes of sorrow and sin, with tales of deals with the devil on dusty crossroads, which overshadowed anything that Sabbath had created for me with an entire band. But I was young and a fan of volume, anger and excess...so metal and rock n' roll fueled most of my twenties. However, anger, only gets you so far (which isn't actually far at all) so in time you mellow (or at least temper) into music that has a reality that mirrors your life. You only need to sit in our tour van when the music is blaring to realize each member of this band comes form a very wide range of influences. The Bronx , Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Damaged, Gene Vincent, Dr Dre, the Hold Steady…etc
The blues/rockabilly/swamp genres are steadily finding a new audience/followers in the music scene at the moment - why do you think people are beginning to embrace this style again?
Sex. There is no better music to remind you that your hips are there for bumping and grinding. I don't know about fashion because I've never bought into it, but I know that if you add the two sexes together with alcohol, a foot stomping beat, a suggestive double bass, slinky slide guitar and enough innuendo to practically be naked…then you have a recipe for all things good.
One of your tracks, 'Love Hotel Blues' has an air of Robert Johnson 'Crossroad Blues' about it - do you like to incorporate that early blues style - or is it unintentional?
This song is definitely an intentional homage to Johnson's infamous style. It is the only song of ours that borrows directly from the delta-blues era and can only be found on the B-side of the Drunken Moon single. It began its life as lyrics I wrote (literally in a 'love hotel' in Laos) - thinking about all the loved ones in my life that I should be in touch with more instead of gallivanting around the globe. When I bought it to my brother, he wanted to drive with his signature twisted version of whatever it is we do, and I said just once can we strip it right back…and for once he did. So this is as close to literal Blues as you'll ever hear my brother get.
Apart from the album coming out, you guys seem to be constantly touring across the country - what are the best and worst parts of touring?
'Freedom' is the best part of touring. Leaving behind all your responsibilities and driving into new towns and new experiences with nothing but your instruments and a sense of deviance is a driving force. Friends and acquaintances build and before you know it - you have a community in every state and a party every night. That is what I would say the best part of touring is.
The morning after, long hours in a van and airports at 4 in the morning are the worst.
You travel to a few 'regional' areas as well, besides hitting up the usual big cities - what is it like playing these smaller towns? Is the atmosphere/reaction to the music different?
Very. When you walk into a small town pub and set up in the corner the locals will look at you out of the corner of their eye like some 'city dandy', they'll sneer some remark to their friend, fold their arms and peer down their nose with a 'go on impress me' expression… So you go to work…and by the end, they'll be dancing, screaming, buying you drinks all night and having a riot of a time. I like having to 'earn' a crowd, and these types of crowd - once you have them, you have them for life. There's something very sincere about that that goes beyond any scene or trend.
In your live sets, one thing is always certain, you guys always have a lot of energy and enthusiasm [regardless of crowd size] - is this an important part of the bands live set?
Definitely. It makes no difference to us if there is 5 people in front of us or 5000. In fact we'll probably amp it up even more if there is an intimate in your face audience. I once saw a band called 'the Hammonds' play in a school hall in the '90s. They set up, counted in, and drove their music straight into our sculls like some wild sincere musical machine. Then when the song stopped all you could hear was a few disinterested claps and you realized that there were only about 30 people in the massive hall space. They counted in again and bludgeoned us with the same enthusiasm as the 1st song if not more and so on. I guarantee you, everyone in that room went away remembering that performance and regardless of their taste in music, respecting that band. After seeing that, I've never had any respect for a band that complains about audience size or response. If the audience doesn't like it, you're not doing your job.
How would you convince our readers to come to one of your shows on this tour? Or buy your album when it is released?
Because we'll do our job. Because you came to the show.
