Interview from : http//www.MTV.com
MTV News - Brian Setzer Retro King
MTV NEWS: You started working with this rock/big band/swing hybrid years and years ago. The first album with the Orchestra came out in 1994. Why do you think this time out with the third album, you found this mainstream success? What was it about the timing this time out?
BRIAN SETZER (Lead Vocals and Guitar): Well, I think I built up my own following and over the past four years, people learned what it is, and I'm definitely going to attribute some of the popularity to the movie "Swingers" and things like that, and people were kind of getting into it, you know. But I had built up my own following, just by playing gigs you know, and people were getting into it and I think it was word of mouth and luckily it caught a piece of the action.
MTV NEWS: When you set out to sort of create this hybrid or this new form...I read where you wanted to make sure that rock was first and foremost in this formula.
SETZER: Well yeah, I'm a rock n' roller, so that was going to happen, that's just going to be there and then the rest of it had to come together...I mean I have to write all the charts and stuff and write all the music that the horn players play. I think deep down inside me that's what I am. That's what I wanted to keep the basis of it, just rock n' roll, and then add everything else up around it.
MTV NEWS: Now, when you were putting the band together was everybody initially down with that concept or did you find purists who thought it was a bit strange to put an electric guitar out in front of a band like this?
SETZER: Well, when I first started this thing, nobody knew what it was and still I mean it's, if you think about it, it's the only one out there. It's probably the only big band touring the States and then I'm leading it with an electric guitar and that's the first time that's been done so it's a one-off. It's the only one.
MTV NEWS: I had heard, and I'm not sure how accurate this is, that when the first advance copies of "Dirty Boogie" went out, "Jump Jive An' Wail" wasn't on it but it's a song that you guys have covered for years. What was the journey like for that song finding it's way onto the album? Was it a late edition to the album, was it not, was it something that you had around for years?
SETZER: Well cutting additional songs for the album happens and yeah, that was one of them. "Jump Jive An' Wail" was a song that we had started the cut and then the (GAP) commercial came out and I had a song on my last album called "Hey Louis Prima" and I went, "Oh man, what's this gonna do? Are people finally discovering this?" And what it did it actually kind of helped it. It helped the whole thing happen for me I think. The other song I had cut that was a late addition was a song called "You're the Boss" that I sang with Gwen Stefani and it's just like after you sit back and make a record you think, "Well what does it need? What could I use on this record that's not on there?"And one of them was a duet and one of them was just a good fun sort of jump blues song that I turned into a Brian Setzer Orchestra song.
MTV NEWS: What characteristics in Louis Prima, either as a musician or a showman, do you appreciate and do you think that those are sort of lacking today? What do you think the world needs more of in terms of what Louie Prima brought to music?
SETZER: The world needs more humor like Louis Prima. He's really funny, you know. He made fun of himself, he made fun of the audience, just his timing, you know. It was like an act but he was a true player. He could really play the trumpet, man, and he rocked, you know. Louis was rocking that stuff in the '50s. I just like that whole sort of show he did. I mean it's hysterical, you know. If you have ever seen any old Louis Prima footage with Keely Smith, it was just...he had like shticks going and stuff and it's...everyone's so serious now and they're afraid to like let loose. Louie just let it, you know...it was great. Louis and Keely.
MTV NEWS: Now, do you find it at all surprising...like you said, when you started out, this sort of thing wasn't happening and outside of you guys it sort of still isn't with this emphasis on rock within this mixture. Do you find it surprising that this hybrid and this concoction has found a home on rock radio, that it's found a home on MTV, that it's along side all these other forms of popular music sort of happily coexisting?
SETZER: I'm always surprised whenever I get something on the radio 'cause I just do everything backwards, you know. I don't think of trends, you know. I like the kind of music. I like rockabilly, rock n' roll, I like swing, I like jazz, I like blues and that's really all American music and that kind of music is good so it's always kind of just bubbling under and I think to make it popular, you've got to do something with it that's yours. In other words, if I just copied 1948 swing music it might be good, but it wouldn't be anything special because it's been done like that.And I think that the bands that break out are the bands that do something new with it and put their own trademark, their own stamp on it.
MTV NEWS: When you set about to make the first video from "Dirty Boogie," it seems like, especially when you see the video, that it's just a very natural extension of your sound.
SETZER: Yeah, I mean I wanted certain elements in that video, you know. I wanted it to be real, you know. All those people are people in the L.A. scene, the rockabilly and kind of swing people, like all the dancers came. I went down to the Derby, found those people, all our cars are there, you know I built one of them, my '32 Ford and then a lot of people from local Hot Rod Clubs, people that own custom cars, so it's all real you know. It's all real people, no actors or actresses. And I wanted it to be really colorful and up...I mean, I wanted to look like an old Technicolor movie. And unfortunately it has to be really hot, you know lots of really intense light, so it was uncomfortable to make but that's the final product is that great really color that just jumps off the screen.
MTV NEWS: Like I said, it just seems like such a natural extension of the song, not just with the imagery but also the colors, and it looks the way the song sounds.
SETZER: Yeah it really brought the song to life. What I did to the song was first of all I had to write the horn parts, which was 13. People think these horn players just play, you know but I have to write all that. You know I have to write it out, think of it and then I got a little doo-wop in there you know, I got that little doo-wop bit in there and then this kind of ripping guitar solo which it's gotta have it if it's my song.
MTV NEWS: When you set about to do this and to bring an electric guitar to this four or five years ago, how daunting and intimidating was it to try to craft this hybrid?
SETZER: Well you know, I know how to read and write music, so that was a plus you know, but to think of all these horn parts and stuff I thought, "Wow, I'm in really big company man." I'm up there trying to do what Henry Mancini did. You know, trying to do what Nelson Riddle did. I don't know if I could do it. But I knew I had all those things in my head, you know so when I first put the pen to the paper I said "Wow it works," you know "Wow, I'm making a big band sound. I sound like Sinatra 's big band or I sound like Bobby Darin's big band." Then I thought, "Well how am I going to get this guitar, will this work over a big band because it's never been done?" So I thought, "Well maybe it won't work and that's why it hasn't been done." But the minute I plugged in, it all happened, it was an awesome feeling. I mean cause we were the only ones to do it and I'm still noticing that from crowds, from the audience, when they hear the big band with the guitar in front, it's like a one-two punch you know. They've never heard it before.
MTV NEWS: Is it hard then to capture because it's one thing when you're on stage and it all just meshes and the energy is there and it all fits, but is it hard to then capture all of that in the studio?
SETZER: Yeah, capturing that in the studio has always been my hard thing. Even you know back to the Stray Cats, to capture the way we sound live, you know and that's the hardest thing to do 'cause I'm not about trickery in the studio. It's about the performance. The big challenge with the big band was miking up 16 guys and we used old vintage microphones and even the drummer uses old drum sets from the 1940s. We used the slap bass and we tried to use the best of the old stuff cause it's just the best sounding stuff, the old microphones and all, but we recorded it in a new studio. So you're trying to mix the old with the new, and it doesn't always work, but on this record I think it really worked, we captured it.
MTV NEWS: Going from a situation where you are in a group with two other guys to a group where you have this orchestra behind you, it's much more of a production when you're on the road these days. How difficult is it to mount a production of this size, in between making sure that everybody is there when they need to be there, making sure everybody looks the way they need to look, making sure everybody sounds the way they need to sound, how difficult is it to tour these days?
SETZER: It was difficult in the early days to get everybody up there and figure out, like where do the saxophones sit, and then I saw an old Gene Krupa video and Gene had his drums on the floor and it was kind of like a flying V, and I thought, "Well I'm gonna do that." I mean I kind of stole the stage set up from Gene Krupa, you know and I put myself down on the floor and that worked so I figured that out and the guys are great players. It's not like they are running all over the place and I can't find them, you know they show up for the gigs, but it's little things that you take for granted that take a while to figure out, "Where am I gonna put the saxophones? I had them in the back once and they weren't loud enough, you couldn't hear them." So just moving the guys around and figuring out where who plays the best chair, which is the best lead trumpet player, who's gonna get the solos, it's more of a musical thing, it's definitely more of a musical consideration. MTV
NEWS: What's the most valuable lesson that you've learned while touring with this orchestra... something that you now swear by these days?
SETZER: I want to be a wise guy and give you a wise crack. I tell you the most valuable lesson I learned is I think, and it's just in life, you can't take everything so seriously because you could just have the best thing out there you think and then it comes and goes. I think you got to stick by what you believe and if you're honest with yourself, not trying to accommodate musical trends, accommodate the musical scene, having a different look every week, you know, if you just stick by your guns you'll always come up on top some how.
MTV NEWS: So now how did you find the guys who are in the band, how did you wind up hooking with all these folks?
SETZER: Well the guys have been in the band pretty much for six years now a lot of them. They're all top players, like in L.A. sessions. If you watch top movies, chances are one of the guys in my band played on that movie soundtrack. If you watch a silly commercial, Cheerios commercial when the trombone goes wah-wah...chances are it's one of my guys.
MTV NEWS: So do you have any plans yet for the next single and video?
SETZER: No, I really don't. I just kind of let things roll the way they roll. I have plans for a tour, we're gonna go out on tour late October and go out for about six weeks but just until then we're just jump, jive and wailing.
MTV NEWS: And one last question, you had mentioned before the duet with Gwen Stefani and I had read where you didn't actually know her before getting together for this project, so how did you guys wind up hooking up?
SETZER: I swiped her number and called her, and I said, "Gwen, do you want to do this... you don't know me," and she goes, "Oh, I know you." And I said, "I got a song, do you want to sing on it with me?" And she said, "Sure, I'd love to." She was my first choice too because... I didn't really know what I was going to do. I love her voice, and she just... she can sing this stuff so good. I think she should do more of it. I think she should be like Doris Day and Les Brown, man. She should do like a real torch album or something. She can really sing.