Interview from : http://www.cleveland.com
From rockabilly to big
band,
Brian Setzer is keeping it hip
Friday, November 18, 2005
Jeff Hagan
While most guys would be thrilled to eke out a career in music playing what they like -- combining inspired covers with covers-inspired originals -- Brian Setzer's done it twice. And he did it big both times.
In the summer of 1980, his band the Stray Cats left suburban New York for punk-drunk London and created a smash with their rockabilly-based rave-ups. With their greaser duds and do's, they were a hit on the fledgling MTV, and U.S. audiences began searching out their music on British imports. They returned home with "Built for Speed," an album containing their Brit hits, and took the States by storm, landing two songs in the Top 10 and leading a rockabilly revival.
After the Cats called it quits, Setzer regrouped in a big way, forming the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which is five or six times the size of his former trio. His big band and jump blues struck a big thumping bass chord with rock fans, and again Setzer found himself making hits just by playing the kind of music that interested him. Other groups with the big band sound, like Squirrel Nut Zippers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Cherry Poppin' Daddies, joined him on the charts.
In 2002, the Brian Setzer Orchestra released an album of Christmas tunes that evoked a cooler crooner than Bing, and a swinging Santa more interested in hanging out with the naughty than the nice. Now, with "Dig That Crazy Christmas," a second album of holiday songs just released, and a tour under way, Setzer's become something of the go-to guy for a hipper Christmas.
"I didn't mean for all this to happen," says Setzer. "The first Christmas album was just for fun, but it keeps flying. Now Christmas starts Nov. 6th for me and ends Christmas Eve."
Setzer was also surprised by his earliest success, when the retro-rocking Stray Cats earned a place alongside such punk-rocking stars as the Clash in the British music scene. What the two styles shared was a distaste for the music that came right before them.
"It was the late '70s, and it was a bad time for music for me." He was particularly turned off by groups like Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
"I just didn't get it," says Setzer. "But I got rockabilly."
"It kind of spoke to me, that music. It was unpretentious and not pompous."
"When punk came along, it was a real kick in the ass," says Setzer. "It was direct, it was primitive. It was kind of like a wake-up call. Rockabilly paralleled punk."
Where Setzer differed from his punk peers was in his musicianship, which has landed him on the covers of various guitar-geek magazines. It's also led him to his current, unique position of leading a big band as a guitar player.
"I didn't have anything to compare it to," he says. "I've had to learn where to lay out and where to play. In other words, there's a lot going on."