Interview from : http://www.thedesertsun.com
Setzer breaks the mold
By Bruce Fessier The Desert Sun
December 14th, 2003
Brian Setzer sat at a back table in the bucolic Red Barn saloon in Palm Desert and scanned the interior.
There was a modern juke box, hanging televisions and Keno numbers behind the bar.
His minded drifted back to his friend, Joe Strummer of the Clash, who died last year at 50.
"The last time I was here we were sitting in the corner there," said Setzer, his trademark pompadour complementing the ’50s look of his Levi’s jacket and jeans. "The whole place turned and looked at us because we’re not one of them, you know?
"They had Keno here. Joe loved that. And he won! He won a couple hundred bucks, so ‘Drinks for everyone.’ Once he ordered drinks for everyone, we were all right."
Setzer lives in the next town over, the very unbucolic Indian Wells, where residents have one of the highest average incomes per capita in the nation.
Setzer rarely performs in the desert. The Long Island native brings his large band to Trump 29 Casino in Coachella Friday for only his second concert in his adopted home valley. But most of the songs he’s written since his trend-setting, Grammy Award-winning neo-swing album, "The Dirty Boogie," have been written in the valley.
"Joe and I wrote ‘Sammy Davis City’ here," he said. "I wrote ‘Cat on A Hot Tin Roof’ (in the desert). I wrote every single song from ‘Nitro Burnin’ Funny Daddy’ (his latest CD) out here. Most of the songs from the four years I’ve been here full time I’ve written out here."
The desert seeps into his work in many ways. His latest Grammy-nominated tune, a swing instrumental version of "The Nutcracker Suite," was originally recorded by Les Brown and His Band of Renown, the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic house band that is still based in Palm Desert.
The "Nitro Burnin’ Funny Daddy" cover photograph was shot on Setzer’s Indian Wells driveway. That album includes an instrumental "Rat Pack Boogie" and "Wild Wind," which Setzer calls "definitely a desert song."
Clearing his head
Setzer has been coming to the desert for 10 years and, in that time, his music has influenced several of the desert’s icons. His Indian Wells neighbor, Jack Jones, took a more modern swing direction with "New Jack Swing" in 1997 after Setzer launched the neo-swing movement in 1994.
Nancy Sinatra, who maintains a Rancho Mirage home, said she danced "the Dirty Boogie" in the 1950s and loved Setzer’s "Dirty Boogie" in the ’90s.
Setzer grudgingly admits, "Maybe I’m a local by now.
"What I’ve noticed in the past five years," he said, "is I like being here in the summer. You just go down the block and walk at night and it’s beautiful."
He says he finds creative and spiritual inspiration in the desert.
"When I drive through the desert by myself, that’s when I write my songs," he said. "I can’t have phones ring and I can’t have people knocking at my door, although it’s getting that way now with me. People are coming up to my front door and knocking.
"I need to get out in the middle of nowhere and just drive. Me and Joe used to do that all the time. Clear our heads out. We’d drive down to the Mexican border or something. I still do that."
The pop-culture-oriented media doesn’t write much about his spiritual side -- partly, he said, because they don’t want to hear his traditional values. But he reveals them on a heart-felt "O Holy Night" on his "Boogie Woogie Christmas" CD, and a new track, "St. Jude," that includes the line, "Spirituality is a thing of the past/ Something money can’t buy."
"Seems to me that’s true," said Setzer, taking off his Levi’s jacket to reveal arms tattooed like wallpaper. "You’ve got MTV and Howard Stern and shock jocks who make fun of religion. It’s something to be derided almost, and nobody seems to say anything about it. I’m shocked by that. I’m shocked by the lack of respect for spirituality and religion."
Setzer doesn’t worry about his image and how his views, appearance and hobbies coincide with perceptions of him. He drives a custom-built hot rod, which he hand-painted and tinkers with, and he loves American roots music, from big band to bluegrass. He doesn’t even deal with his Brooklyn-based publicist.
"I only deal with my manager, who handles my record company now," said Setzer. "I’ve gotten it down to a point where I don’t deal with the business any more. I make the records I want, I book the tours I want."
So Setzer can talk freely about how an occasional hangover can make him irritable or how often he goes to church.
"I’m a religious person," he said matter-of-factly. "I’m a Catholic. But I think any kind of spirituality is good. My chosen spirituality is Catholicism and I believe in Jesus.
"Now, if I was to say that in Rolling Stone, it would probably either get edited out or there would be some snide comment about that. And that’s what I was talking about in a song like ("St. Jude"): How spirituality or religion is almost something people deride. A lot of the reason is because of the caricatures of religion, people like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker. Young people see that and say, ‘This is a joke.’ A lot of it is the fault of these people and a lot of it is the fault of the whole left-wing journalism of Spin Magazine or Rolling Stone. It’s not ‘cool.’
"I’m just saying I think it’s a wrong thing to be poking fun at. There should be some respect of people’s spirituality and/or religion."
Setzer has a girlfriend and three children, the oldest a 16-year-old son who likes to surf. On the day of his interview, less than 48 hours before starting his national Christmas tour, he needed to wrap presents and decorate his Christmas tree, and also study his musical arrangements, do the laundry and fix a water pipe.
He plans to be home for Christmas with all of his family members who can get there from their homes across the country.
"We’ve always had a traditional Christmas," he said. "I go to church in the morning. We always open presents Christmas morning. Mom comes in. It’s total family, total kids. Just a good, old regular Christmas."
He was on tour in Virginia at Thanksgiving, but he made plans to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner there, too.
"I remember one Thanksgiving with Slim Jim of the Stray Cats," he said. "We were on the corner eating a dirty hot dog and I said, ‘You know, I’ll never let this happen again. I will never eat a corner hot dog on Thanksgiving.’ Certain things are important to me. I want to have a turkey with all the trimmings."
Setzer also has endured criticism for his taste in music. The mainstream and underground rock press pummeled Setzer and the entire neo-swing movement out of existence after a couple of years. Robert Christgau of the influential Village Voice wrote in 1998, "Big bands still can’t rock, Setzer still can't sing" in his review of "The Dirty Boogie," which he called, "the most preeningly stupid record to mount SoundScan all year."
Setzer said no one tells him the kind of music he should play.
"I just do what catches my ear," he said. "People want to know why I pick this next thing I’m doing. It’s stuff that bends my ear. Then I add my own style to it.
"It all comes from the blues – jazz, country, rock n’n’ roll, swing, big band. They’re all cousins. That’s how me playing rock ‘n’ roll in front of the big band works. It just became a natural to me.
"Do you know what I’ve been listening to a lot of lately? Bluegrass. I don’t know why. Ricky Skaggs sent me his ‘Live from the Ryman’ and it’s so good.
"I’m getting to the point where I can’t take just grinding guitars for the sake of it. Maybe in a way I’m getting older. I love good, kick-ass rock ’n’ roll. But there’s so much of it I can take where guys just can’t really play that well. I can get the spirit. I get where they’re coming from, but I’d really much rather listen to a really good banjo player or really good mandolin player or a really good finger-styled player."