Guitars and Cadillacs
Guitars and Cadillacs
Brian Setzer ain't no swingin' fool
BY ERIN HAWKINS
Interview from: http://www.eye.net
From his legendary quiff down to his greaser tattoos and creepers, Brian Setzer is the living embodiment of classic Americana. He's a walking Smithsonian of '50s cool, all rolled into a package that says, "That Honda Civic's gonna drive you all the way to Squaresville."
"Even if I was broke, I'd have a bombed '62 Chevy," he says in a thick New York accent. He talked guitars and cars during a recent stopover in Toronto to promote his rockin' new Brian Setzer Orchestra album, The Dirty Boogie (Interscope/Universal). Not surprisingly, Setzer has it bad for hot rods. At any given time, you may find either a '32 Ford, a '57 Dodge or a '60 Cadillac parked in the driveway of his house in California.
"I'm not like these collector guys who just put them in a warehouse," he says. "I use those cars every day, and my wife uses her '62 Caddie, which is gold with leopard interiors -- totally rockin'."
In the early '80s, Setzer's longtime band the Stray Cats rode a rockabilly resurgence into the mainstream with albums like Built for Speed and Rant N' Rave with the Stray Cats. He now finds himself caught up in the middle of the swing revival -- a curious place to be, considering that he quietly started up the Orchestra five years ago and that none of his BSO albums feature a pure swing sound. You might think the amount of attention the swing movement has received has irked Setzer, possibly putting him off playing swingin' music in the future, but he's actually excited that the genre has caught on and that so many bands are putting their own stamp on it.
"I can't believe I've still got it all together," he says. "I didn't think it would last more than a show or two. It was just a musical idea of me playing my electric rock 'n' roll guitar with a big band behind me. Big bands have been led by trombone players -- people like Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman -- but never by a guitar player. I wanted to make it rock, and that was my contribution. I think The Dirty Boogie is the best record since Built for Speed -- I compare those two because it's the same excitement."
When the Stray Cats split up in 1984, Setzer, bass player Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom all released solo records. They reformed in 1992, sticking it out for another four years before packing it in again because fans weren't taking to their new tunes. For Setzer, concocting the idea of a rockin' big band was the easy part. Figuring out how to write horn arrangements and tracking down a group of players hep to his jive was another thing altogether.
After his last Orchestra album, 1996's Guitar Slinger, Setzer realized that 16 horns, a hotshot band and his Gretsch didn't automatically create the sound he was looking for. He decided that slap-bass was needed, but ran into difficulty locating a rockabilly slap-bass player who could also read music. Eventually he found two: Tony Garnier (currently touring with Bob Dylan) and Mark Winchester, who once played with Planet Rockers. Setzer also convinced his drummer Bernie Dresel to track down a 1940s drumset with calfskin heads. Anyone who's thrilled to the rockabilly-tinged songs like "This Old House" or "Nosey Joe" on The Dirty Boogie should be able to hear what Setzer's talking about when he says, "New drums go 'ping-ping-ping.' The old drums are more sonically in harmony with the slap-bass."
Sonics aside, Setzer's guitar work on the album is the biggest star, sounding fuller and more confident than ever before. When asked how he came by his first Gretsch, you can see the nostalgia in his eyes.
"I think the songs that blew me away when I was growing up were Gene Vincent's 'Be-Bop-a-Lula' and Eddie Cochran's 'Somethin' Else.' But when I saw a picture of Eddie Cochran, I went, 'Aw, man, that's the guy. I want to look like him and dress like him.' I got the Gretsch, because I wanted to get the guitar that he played. For me to discover him and Gene Vincent when it was like [effects pompous accent] Emerson Lake and Palmer... it was the dark ages and Eddie Cochran was a ray of sunshine.
"My original one, I bought from a local paper when I was 17 years old. It was in pieces when I bought it, so I had to put it back together. It got stolen for a year-and-a-half, but I got it back. It totally bummed me out. It was like my kid was missing. I've got two now. My brother plays in a rockabilly band called King Kadillac and one day his friend came down with a Gretsch guitar for me to jam with. I said, 'Oooh, do you want to sell this one?' And he sold it to me. They're very hard to find."
As for his original?
"It's my baby. It flies with me now -- I bought a seat for it," he laughs. "Actually, I don't even want to take it out of the house."