Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band is on the road in support of it's latest disc The Wages. The ironically named Big Damn Band consists of only three members - The Reverend on guitar, his wife Breezy on the washboard and drummer Aaron 'Cuz' Persinger.
There aren’t a lot of Warped Tour vets who can claim proficiency in the use of washboards, bottleneck slides and five-gallon buckets. Most didn’t spend their teens playing along to Charlie Patton and Bukka White albums. And just about none are fronted by a commissioned member of the Honorary Order of Kentucky Colonels.
The Wages, their second album for SideOneDummy Records, was produced by Paul Mahern (Zero Boys, John Mellencamp) and recorded in the band’s Big Damn Tradition: live in the studio with no overdubs on honest-to-goodness analog tape. Appropriate to our times, The Wages is thematically rooted in the blues tradition of hard-bitten reality matched with enduring optimism.
The band’s home base is deep in the hills of Southern Indiana’s Brown County, which boasts a population of 14,957. (Or 14,954 when the band’s out on the road playing close to 250 gigs a year, including appearances at the Austin City Limits festival and tours with Flogging Molly, Derek Trucks, and Clutch.)
“I grew up in the country, and rural life and rural culture has shaped me and my music,” says Reverend Peyton, who really is a Kentucky Colonel, just like Elvis Presley. “I have been playing music since I was a little kid. I am pretty sure we are on to something now.”
“We may be few in numbers, but we sound big,” says Washboard Breezy. “And I think we stand for something big too. Even if sometimes it’s just that it is okay to be a regular person.”
The Big Damn Band hits Schubas in Chicago the day before Turkey Day with local jam band Frank Bang's Secret Stash opening. The band hangs around the midwest for a while before heading for warmer climes down the Atlantic Coast swinging back around to Texas before Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment