Well, when you hear Kenny G. or something, it’s really overproduced. It offends our ears. I think kids who grew up on punk, when they hear rockabilly or country or stuff like that, it has the same elements: it’s direct, it’s to the point, and it’s in your face a lot of the time. It’s fast.
What’s the most challenging thing while touring?
Physical comfort. When you’re twenty years old and driving around in a van for six weeks at a time, it’s great. We’ve done about 450 shows in the last two years.
Which is totally like Black Flag throughout their span.
Yeah, yeah. But if you read that book on them, which I have read, by the end of the Black Flag touring days, he is so burned out. That’s just the way I feel right now.
So in the end, it’s almost just about physical endurance?
Pretty much. Everything becomes, what’s the word I’m looking for, the point of no return. After five weeks on the road, you just want to go home. But after about six or seven weeks. . . .
You have a following in Europe.
I’ve been over there five times, with the Deke and Dave duo, and other things.
What exactly are Europeans seeing in the music? What did they see in the Dave and Deke Combo?
The main thing about Europeans that makes them totally different than Americans is that they treat it like a textbook, like this is the proper way to do it. If you don’t do it that way, it’s not the proper way to do it. Like the first time I was in England visiting my girlfriend, I looked in the paper and saw that Joe Clay, an old rockabilly guy from Gretna, Louisiana, was playing there. I was like, holy shit, Joe Clay is playing. I went there in normal street clothes, not rockabilly clothes, so I go in this place, and it’s all rockabilly dudes. Everybody is dressed to the nines. I seriously thought I was going to get the shit beat out of me, just because I wasn’t conforming to the dress code.
But don’t you feel the same weirdness here sometimes?
Some bands, you know when you go to see them, you have to wear that uniform. I love playing for audiences that appreciate the music, whether it’s the people who are wearing vintage clothing or . . .
The Gap?
Exactly.
People follow you around, attending gigs.
Yeah, they do, and it’s kinda weird. It’s like, dude, I’m not a rock star. It’s strange. There were some guys in particular from Pittsburgh, they came and saw us in Nashville, and I can’t remember, somewhere else.
Like the Grateful Dead or something.
We got booked in Missoula, Montana, and we thought, this is going to be a bomb, but it was on the way to Seattle and Salt Lake City. So we show up, and there were six to ten guys with Dave and Deke records waiting for me to sign them. A really good crowd showed up.
But what makes those eager kids show up and even follow you?
I guess I understand it because when I was growing up people would come through, bands I really liked, and I was the total autograph geek guy. Like when the Blasters came through.
And you still have that stuff?
Oh, yeah. And I still do. When I found out that we were going to be backing Billy Lee Riley and Sonny Burgess on tour, I brought all my records on the road so I could have them autographed. So I totally identify with that. A lot of times the guys in the band or the guys that are hanging out with us are like, man, those guys are geeks. But they are exactly like me, so I’m not going to snub them. I mean, I totally appreciate those guys. The only thing that I wish was that there were really cute girls instead of pasty-faced white guys in their thirties, you know what I mean? Wait, you can leave that out of the interview [laughs].
Do you feel that sooner rather than later you’re going to pack things up and say, I’d rather buy records rather than make ’em?
The whole reason I started touring full time was . . . well, Dave and Deke was never a full-time band, we only did two national tours the five years we were together. When I formed this band, I thought, “Okay, this is all I am doing, and I’m touring until I just can’t take it anymore.” I’ve just got to get it out of my system. It might be that I continue to have success and make more money. And that would be great, but if it trails off, and people aren’t interested anymore, and I’ve probably gotten it out of my system, maybe I’ll get a real job and make some money.
When’s the last time you had a real job?
Two years ago, I was working for a record label in L.A. In L.A. it’s pretty expensive. I had to work to make ends meet.
Why not simply go back to Missouri?
I love L.A., man. It’s hard to explain to people who automatically assume that L.A. sucks because I really like that place.
How do you feel you are received critically?
Our write-ups are great. That’s one thing I really like about HighTone. There are so many good interviews, but at the same time I am kinda frustrated because the more serious writers, like the guy who writes for Billboard, and the guys who write for the Americana and alternative country type things, because we’re light-hearted and have a sense of humor, they consider us a novelty act. It pisses me off.
They are dismissive?
Yeah, but I think when you get to the bottom of it, I think we have a lot more soul than the college-boy, alternative bands that are out there.
Like Reckless Kelly or some others.
I’m not going to name any. Some of those bands are really good, but at the same time a lot of them started listening to country music about two months ago and decided to go start a band.
What’s one thing keeping you from a larger audience?
Good looks.
Well, there’s Lyle Lovett.
It’s hard to say because literally every audience this band has played to, punk rockers or whatever, we win them over, so it makes me wonder. If we had enough advertising and publicity dollars, how far could we take this thing? I don’t know.
But again, Brian Seltzer has gold records and is playing Vegas.
But he received insane promotion from Interscope. There were even friggin’ television commercials for the record.
Where will alt country go in the new millennium, on past Whiskeytown or back to Bill Monroe?
I don’t know because that whole alt-country thing baffles me, I guess, because I grew up listening to country music when all those people despised it.
Were you really listening to Merle Haggard and Ray Price?
Oh, yeah, I listened to nothing but the old shit. I remember when Uncle Tupelo came around. I mean, I liked what they were doing, but at the same time I was so distrustful of all the college kids that were into them. Because I was like, the only reason you guys like them is because they wear combat boots. If these guys were real backwoods Missouri hillbilly guys, you wouldn’t give them the fucking time of day. Just because they look like alternative college-guy musicians . . .
Well, Billy Joe Shaver would come down and play to a handful of devotees, and you have to ask, “Whose got the real shit? Shaver or the Uncle Tupelo offshoots?” Do you mistrust the sincerity behind it all?
Yeah, unfortunately, of music-listening and music-buying people, about 3 percent are educated and have an actual musical taste, 97 percent just look at the big ads in the papers and let MTV or whatever else define them.
Reverend Horton Heat: Anti-Hero of
Hot Rod Culture
Originally published in Thirsty Ear, 2001, and Left of the Dial, 2001.
Jim Heath, a.k.a. Reverend Horton Heat, is a north Texas gringo who has dodged every genre pigeonhole by hot-wiring a hybrid sound melding boot-stompin’ country, piston-pumping swing, greased lightning rockabilly, and even heavy metal.
His records reek of greasy gas stations, hairnet gals with tattoos and cigarettes, pomade and martini barroom dizziness, and a prowl through dimestore nights. At the time of the interview, his offering, Spend a Night in the Box (remember chisel-faced Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke?), produced by ex-Butthole Surfer guitarist Paul Leary, was a return
to the Reverend’s stripped-down and nimble Sub Pop–era rockabilly sound.
Being the king of hot rod culture, do you ever risk becoming a caricature? Do some people not see your artistic side?
I think they completely see my artistic side. All that hot rod stuff is icing on the cake. They’re there to see me perform, that’s it. I love all those hot rod people, though I’m not really into hot rods that much; I’m a guitar player, man. I wake up in the morning and spend four or five hours playing. Sometimes I do laugh, ’cause I wear flashy suits, and that will definitely turn you into a caricature when you wear some of those that are as bad as I have [laughs].
Do you feel closer to Junior Brown or the Supersuckers?
Junior Brown is just a hero of mine. It’s the real gutbucket country, you know. At the same time, I might not necessarily enjoy seeing Los Straightjackets any less than Junior Brown. Then again, I like singers too. I tend to be a person who misses the musicianship of eras gone by. At the same time, I love Rage Against the Machine. That’s what happens with a lot of music critics. Music is all about the guy at the record store going, “I was into them back when they were cool.” Hell, to me, I think a band like Rage against the Machine just keeps getting better.
Which do you prefer, the large Warped and White Zombie tours or smaller shows?
We have fun every night; it’s hard to say what I prefer. There’s no doubt that I have a blast when we’re doing those things. There are rock stars hanging around; Slash is there. Our set is thirty-five minutes exactly—not thirty-six, not thirty-four—then we’re done. We can hang around and watch the people freak out when White Zombie sets off their bombs, because we know exactly when they’re coming. Artistically, of course, I want to get across as many of my songs as possible. That’s pretty hard to make happen with a cold crowd for thirty-five minutes. We went out with ZZ Top, but there were a lot of older people in their crowd. We’d get heckled every night, then I’d get in some banter with the heckler, and finally I’d tell him, “Fuck you, this is rock ’n’ roll!” Then everybody would go, “Yeeah!” I’d have to win them over every night. It was hilarious.
Out of thirty songs you pick to record, twenty-five are Reverend songs. What are the rest?
If we want to try a funk beat or something pop even, guess what the record company is saying? “Well, those songs are okay, but these five songs are great—this doesn’t sound like y’all at all.” What am I supposed to say? “Thanks a lot. We finally did something that doesn’t sound like us. It’s a hit?” They’d be like, “Well, no, it’s not a hit, but these five are good enough for your new record.” So, I am definitely going to be more careful about sending out all my demos and all my songs to these guys because I do what I do. Frankly, it’s an insult when somebody tells you the song is great because it doesn’t sound like y’all at all. And, man, I am sick of being insulted by record companies.
You’ve been playing guitar since age ten, but why didn’t you become a songwriter until your mid-twenties?
The truth is I was writing songs back when I was sixteen or seventeen, but having an outlet for those songs was the hardest. I was basically a lead guitar player in all my bands; there was always another front person. Whoever is singing the lead of a song, the lyrics have to be very heartfelt, very personal. A song that someone else writes for me may not be something that I personally want to say. I got to the point where I figured, man, if I want to get my songs across I’ve got to be a lead singer. So, instead of hiring a band, I started out doing a solo thing.
Are you going to play the circuit forever?
Oh, yeah. Just like Ernest Tubb, who did it until he died.
What were the benefits of recording the last record at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studios outside Austin?
The big benefit was just being out in the country. A lot of peace and quiet, a lot of fresh air, real beautiful. We had a condo that overlooked the lake. When the sun came blaring in off the lake it was pretty neat. We have fun everywhere we go, but it was real relaxed. I ate a lot of barbeque and Mexican food. And Willie was around quite a bit, because he lives right out by there. I always saw him out hitting golf balls or something.
Why haven’t you incorporated a fourth member?
I was thinking about that awhile back. My girlfriend told me, “Maybe that would take the edge off y’all.” So, I was thinking, maybe so. It might be all good, but at the same time we have fun doing what we do the way it is and we like to have extra guys come in sometimes in the studio. Maybe I will someday, but for right now we’re doing our thing. At one point in my career, I was seriously thinking about getting a horn section, and then Brian Seltzer got the whole orchestra thing, and I was like, hmm, let’s just stay a three-piece. A three-piece always highlights my drummer and bass player more. When we have somebody sit in with us, I can kinda lay back more and play a little more legato-type stuff, which is hard to do, because you have to keep it going by playing rhythm and lead.
It used to be that your ticket sales far outsold your record sales, but does that still hold true?
That’s my big business problem [laughs]. Well, not really. Our biggest-selling album, Liquor in the Front, had by far more money put into promoting it than any of our others. You got to get them to put the money where their mouth is. I don’t really think in terms of all that stuff when I’m making a record. I go in and try to do the best that I can.
You resist “the test-market dodo bird” factor?
The test-market thing has hurt us a lot. They get these record people who want to test the most average people they can get, and our fans are definitely, somewhat like myself, not normal, you know [laughs]. The test-marketing thing is kind of a weird deal. I’ve had some interesting insights into the whole business. There was this one guy in L.A. called Rambo, because he was an all-star distribution salesman. He was a cool, funny, really fast-talking guy. He came to our show, really liked us, and we went to his office and hung around. He had MTV going on the TV, you could hear that good. A CD by his desk, a whole stereo thing, and a CD going in there, and was talking on one of those headset phone things. He holds the record for selling the most records in one day or week, like half a million or something [laughs]. At one point, Urge Overkill came on the TV back when they had the song “Sister Havana” and we were like, hey, it’s Urge Overkill, because we had done shows with them. He looked up and saw us looking at it, and said, “Urge Overkill, major rotation on MTV, only moving about five to seven thousand units a week. They’re done.” And then he was back on the phone. I’m going, oh boy [laughs]. It didn’t look good at that point.
Do indie labels sometimes misjudge and mismanage just as much as majors like Interscope?
Definitely, I think so. I don’t know if it’s just true for us, but I think that labels want to stick their noses into what you are doing, and that is just a fact, whether it’s an indie or a major. And I’ve been lucky to avoid that to a pretty good degree compared to other artists, I think. That’s the hardest thing about what I do, is getting critiqued by people who need to be listening to me. We had this one album, Space Heater, but they tried to take all our swing, rockabilly, and country stuff completely off the record. That was about two months before the swing thing broke really big, so you can’t listen to those people, you do what you gotta do.
You’ve called swing, à la Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Royal Crown Revue, as “revenge of the nerds.”
I never said that.
Maybe a misquote?
About the only time I’ve used the word “nerds” lately is when talking about myself. Me and Paul Leary are kind of guitar nerds because he works hard and is serious about what he does but has so much fun. It’s like the nerds who like biology and are like, “Wow, can you believe that?”
There’s a kind of innocence to it?
Absolutely so.
Now that swing has bottomed out, are you glad you didn’t ride that wave?
We’ve always just done our own thing, and it’
s always worked out in the end. I have to be real careful because record guys can critique you right off the bat [laughs]. Just let us do what we do, and go from there.
If an era of Texas music like the Butthole Surfers, Hickoids, Loco Gringos, and others has now gone, what has replaced it?
Part of that thing with me was that I was very much part of the scene as far as not only playing gigs with bands, but I would also rent my P.A. system to these bands. So, I was working two shows and there all the time. Now, I’m a little too busy to be around, we go and tour so much. At the same time, there are a lot of really good guys around right now. As far as Dallas, where I live, I know a few of the local bands around here. I think musicianship will always rise to the top in the live format.
In the recorded format, it’s been proven that musicianship doesn’t mean shit. The producer can sample all the stuff and put it together, that’s the way they make records. In the live format, the bands that get in there and rip it up live are like Deke Dickerson, Wayne Hancock, or Big Sandy. There are a lot of great bands out there. My little scene in Dallas is still raging just like it did back then, but there are different bands because it’s a different time. I don’t know if it’s any better or any worse, but that was a fun era.
Dave Alvin in Houston. Courtesy of Tim O’Brien.
Deke Dickerson, Under the Volcano, Houston.
Junior Brown, Houston International Festival. Courtesy of Tim O’Brien.
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