Brian on the cover in Sweden!

Fantastic to see Brian on one more cover this year !!
Thanks a lot Bob.

Here is a rare photo that is new for me, This is from Stray cats first show in Sweden! I Only have a few from this gig. Six pages Setzer in this number.

I dont want to cuss but that picture is so amazing F'ckn awesome!!! AWESOME! it was so cool
to share with my kid because he knows Setzer as the guy in the BSO.. not the hungry, pissed off mega talented
rockabilly I grew up watching. This picture sez it ALL! my dad couldnt figure out why I wanted to perform with
my rockabilly band with my shirt off and bandana on my neck when I was young just like my hero.

this needs to be a poster

tvthewiredturtle wrote:

this needs to be a poster

That's exactly what I wanted to say.
Awesome picture. "It's all the rage" as it's written on Really Rockabilly !

Great!
Man those were the days!
He still got the second switch on the guitar body. I lost a pic of the Cats from that period.
I recall it was shot in a bathroom becuase of the white wall tiles.
It was in black and white and Jim whore like a wool army sweater. (he did wear that in those days right?)
We had a magazine in Holland called Popfoto and man I lost those pics from that time.

But look what I just found on the net:

Nice that you like it! Here is more from that show.



Tv show just one or two days from this gig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNAb5-Ly68w

so cool.. thanks for that TOO!!

Sidelake Bob, that photo of Setzer is incredible. Thank you SO MUCH!!

Jeez, he's, like, painfully skinny. But check out the vascularity in his arms and the wildness in his face.

*swoon*

When I saw that photo here for the first time
I couldn't help but think of Billie Joe Armstrong
......the similarity in the face is uncanny.

Scatman wrote:

When I saw that photo here for the first time
I couldn't help but think of Billie Joe Armstrong
......the similarity in the face is uncanny.

yes! totally agree and what ties the two is punk rock (not that green day is "real" punk)

but then, the Stray Cats weren't punk either...

Andi wrote:

but then, the Stray Cats weren't punk either...

baaaagh..yes they were, watch em in rockpalast...sez it all. The look, the sound and the attitude was a
giant "F" you to my father's era of rockabilly and all its clean livin' gentleman style.
My Dad wanted to kick my ass when I was 18 n I showed up from a gig with no shirt, a bandana and a vest
with torn levi's and guy liner with hair up high. I'd kick my ass too if I showed up to my house looking like that
now... of course I'd look like a lesbian biker at this age in that get-up. mwhahah

Ironically, like myself..
Setzer has returned to those very principles and establishment we said "F" you to when we were young.

I just bought the magazine since Sidelake made me aware of it (Takk, Lelle!), and although most of the stuff is "old news" to the fans, I took the liberty of translating the interview for all the non-Swedish members of the board.


Setzer bets double

From Stray Cats to solo career, swing orchestra, instrumental record, and - well - what is there really left to do for the restless Brian Setzer? - A rockabilly riot on record. I want to record it with two standup bass players and dual drummers, just like the latest tour, claims the uncrowned king of "slap bass rock" to Rock'n'Roll.

Brian Setzer remembers the moment when he was completely absorbed by rockabilly.
- I was at a club in New York, waiting to see a punk gig in the late 70's, when I heard "Be Bop a Lula" from a jukebox. I stopped, was grabbed by the fantastic guitar sound, and I thought WHAT IS THIS? I'd never heard anything like it. What kind of music is this? It didn't sound like any other 50's music I'd heard. The guitar sent me to another world, he says passionately.
Shortly afterwards, Brian went to a record store. There he found a compilation album by Eddie Cochran, in United Artists' "Legendary Masters"-series.
- Eddie Cochran looked so incredibly cool. I decided that's how I wanted to look! Later I found out that the guys who looked like that made that cool kind of music. Everything fell into place. The teenage Brian Setzer had found his path in life.

Nobody cared "at home"
Did you wish you'd lived in the 50's too?
- No, it really had nothing to do with the era, just the music and the look. To me the rockabilly look for men is masculine and cool at the same time. For women the style is feminine and sexy. All the greatest elements are there, says Brian.
Even then Brian Setzer strived to do something of his own, something original, regardless how much Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Scotty Moore inspired him. Since Brian had punk background, he created what is often called punkabilly. Noisy and unusually energetic rockabilly. In standup bass player Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom, he found two cool cats who were on the same track. The Stray Cats were born in 1979.
But even though the "slap bass rock" was an American invention, the newly formed trio couldn't find work in their native country. They had to move to London to be heard.
- True, Brian nods. London was the place where it happened for us, but in fact France was the country where we got the most gigs. That's where we were the most popular. But sure, it was in London it all started. The scene was there.

Nothing to lose
To afford their attack of Europe, which was launced in June 1980, Brian, Lee and Jim had to sell pretty much everything they owned.
- We had a lousy, little PA and instruments that we sold and bought airplane tickets for the money. An enthusiastic English guy became our manager, and we lived at his parents' house. We were broke and we barely got by, Brian remembers.
Is this what you call determination?
- No, it was more of an adventure, Brain feels. We had nothing to lose, we just wanted to do what we loved; play music. When you're 19 you're completely fearless.
What would you have done if your efforts had failed?
- We would've just gone back home, and we almost did. We played for months without anything happening. Then, without any of us knowing what had happened, we were hot. One day we were unknown, the next day we were everybody's new favourites. It was crazy.
I believed you had your first hit almost instantly in England?
- No, we met huge resistance at first. People didn't want us there, didn't wanna give us a chance. Protecting their turf, you know. Finally we got a gig at the Greyhound Pub in Fulham, London. It seemed as if everybody was there: Chrissie Hynde, Ray Davies and people with cowboy shirts and wavy hair. What the hell is happening here, I thought. After the gig, people started talking about us, and the ball started rolling.
Was Dave Edmunds there as well?
- He was there early, yeah. We knew who Dave was, but he was almost unknown in the USA. He came up to me and said, "Let me record your band, 'cos somebody else would just mess it up". I said "OK!"
With the Rockpile singer and business veteran Dave Edmunds as their producer, the band's first three singles, "Runaway Boys", "Rock This Town" and "Stray Cat Strut", were big hits on Arista Records, and they made the foundation for their debut album, "Stray Cats", released 1981, also a big seller.

Seemed old from the start
Album number two, "Gonna Ball", also released in 1981, felt a bit thrown together and was only a minor success. The following year, the best songs from the two albums were compiled on the LP "Built For Speed", which alongside the newly recorded title track went to number two on the Billboard Chart at home in America. Sales reached two and a half million copies.
- But none of that would have happened without the help we got in Europe, Brian states.
With their third album "Rant'n'Rave" released in 1983, the Stray Cats were still going strong in Europe, but in the US it didn't sell too good.
- "Rant'n'Rave" already seemed old when it was released. We'd been sitting on it for a year, since "Built For Speed" just kept selling in America. Besides, it sounded dated. We tried to make the perfect rockabilly record. But instead we made a museum piece, Brian says, self-critically.
1984 became the year of misfortune for the Stray Cats.
- The career's all-time low, Brian admits. It was as if the Stray Cats didn't matter anymore. We were still a good band, and we tried to keep touring, but nobody came to see us. Maybe just 30-40 people per gig. The press wrote poorly about us and said we were done. We thought our career was over when it had only just begun. That's a terrible feeling when you're barely in your 20's, Brian sighs.
- The stupid thing is, we believed what the papers wrote, 'cos we were young and inexperienced. But what does one bad review mean, really? Nothing in the long run, he reasons, and adds:
- But the hardest thing to take was that the fans disappeared. Mostly in America, in Europe they never failed us as far as I can remember.

"Okay, go to hell!"
Is that why the Stray Cats broke up?
- Yes, and because we fought over every possible thing. The success had turned us into spoiled brats. We argued over anything, even though it was really just details. We'd known each other since we were kids. It was silly things like "I'm not f...ing going to California". "Ok, bye". "I'm never gonna speak to you again". "Ok, go to hell!". We didn't communicate for four months. Stupid.

Was broken and gave up
At the end of 1984, Brian Sezter announced that the Stray Cats had broken up.
- I had a record deal as a solo artist and wanted to make my own record. That was "The Knife Feels Like Justice".
Which, when released in 1986, showed a different side of Brian Setzer, who seemed to have listened a lot to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Not a bad album, but it lacked the natural drive that the Stray Cats had had. After another solo release, "Live Nude Guitars", which peaked at # 140 on Billboard, he reunited with Lee Rocker and Jim Phantom.
- We tried to be the Stray Cats again and made a couple of good records. But we were never as big as we used to be. We didn't have a hit record.
They even brought back their old success producer Dave Edmunds for the album "Choo Choo Hot Fish" in 1992.
- A great album that sadly didn't sell anything. Very few people cared about rockabilly then, and we were on such a small record label, Pyramid Records over in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that we didn't reach out. We were used to selling millions of albums and having a huge audience. We didn't have the same conditions as the other big bands, and that broke me. We gave up around 1993-94.
Brian Setzer didn't throw in the towel altogether, he just put his heart and soul in a project he'd dreamed of realizing for years: the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Album cost two million
The idea was simple: Brian would write songs in classic Setzer style, rockabilly and rock'n'roll rooted in the 50's. He would sing and play guitar as usual, with a standup bass player and a drummer. Then a big band of 17 top-notch jazz players would make it swing by adding a 30's and 40's style horn section.
Miraculously enough, he managed to persuade a record company, Hollywood Records, to pay the relatively large amount needed for the giant recording. After a tentative start with the albums "Brian Sezter Orchestra" 1994 and "Guitar Slinger" 1996, 1998's "Dirty Boogie" became a double Grammy award winning million seller in the USA. Since then, Brian has mixed solo albums with orchestra releases, often with a Christmas theme, and even toured with the big band.
But now the big band leader sounds doubtful when he discusses his Orchestra's future.
- I don't have any plans for the Orchestra right now. It's so bloody expensive to run that thing outside the Christmas tours. Other tours barely break even, and making orchestra albums is insanely expensive.
"Songs From Lonely Avenue", the latest studio recording, released in 2009, seems to be the Brian Setzer Orchestra's last one in a while.
- It cost nearly two million (I assume it's Swedish kroner, not US dollars?) to record. We all know how hard it is to sell records these days. But I'm sure I'll find an opportunity to do something else with the orchestra. The idea is to good to just let it go.

Kept going from fright
Almost a year ago, Brian Setzer released an impressive DVD with the Brian Setzer Orchestra, "It's Gonna Rock, 'Cause That's What I Do". There he rocks in a near-manic way through Sun classics, Stray Cats hits, solo- and orchestra-numbers without him or the big band ever trembling on the cuff (Swedish expression for being nervous). It all seems so well-rehearsed down to the smallest detail, like a fine tuned engine.
Brian Setzer chuckles awkwardly over the praise.
- I just kept going from pure fright, rather than adrenalin. Back in the summer of 2010, we hadn't played for six months, and then we were asked to headline the Montreal Jazz Festival. Just rehearsing the band cost the shirt off of my back. The promotor came into the dressing room and said with a huge grin: "We just set a new audience record - 150.000 people!" I looked out on the ocean of people and I thought "Oh my God!"
- But after a couple of songs with that orchestra in my back, I was swept away by pure excitement. Not least by the thought that I'm the only one who has that big band. I was elated by the fact.

Farewell tour ... or not?
After the Stray Cats' second break up, they've got together now and then for gigs. Without a new album to promote.
- The breakups have never been because we fight over the music, Brian stresses. In 2008 we did one final tour together because it was fun, and that's the way it should be.
Was the concert at Berns in Stockholm really the last time we saw the Stray Cats?
- Yes, that was the final tour, Brian replys.
So we'll never get to hear the Stray Cats again?
- Well, I called it the final tour for a reason.
OK, let me put it this way: Was it the first time you said it was the final tour?
Brian laughs shyly.
- I don't know, I mean ... Naturally, I can't say this is forever. But I'm easily bored by doing the same thing all the time. That's why it's fun that I keep getting new ideas. I love playing with the Stray Cats, so it's nothing personal. I had Jim with me on my latest tour, didn't I? Of course you can never say never.
Alongside his own success, Brian Setzer has been able to meet several of his idols from the 50's.
- I got to play with Carl Perkins many times, among others with the Stray Cats in Nashville. Jerry Lee Lewis invited me on stage a few years ago in LA. He's totally crazy, really wild. But the most rewarding was my meeting with Gene Simmons. Not the guy from Kiss, but the guitarist who made several Sun-records back in the 50's.
The interviewee lights up.
- This is a good story: Gene had started writing a song, "Peroxide Blonde In A Hopped Up Model Ford", but left it unfinished in 1958. I heard it and wanted to record it. And I managed to find the guy! An old man living in Mississippi. "No, that song was never finished. The rest of the tape doesn't exist. You finish the song", he said. Which I did, and recorded it on my Sun tribute-album, "Rockabilly Riot Vol 1".

Realized idol's dream
The same year, 2005, Brian Setzer and Jumpin' Gene Simmons, which was his nickname during his Sun-era, performed the song together on the historic radio show "Grand Ole Opry" in Nashville. A live show that started in in 1925 and is the world's oldest of it's kind.
- It was Gene's dream to stand on the same stage as Hank Williams and Elvis. He was so happy. One year later, he was dead, Brian says.
After two live albums, "Don't Mess With a Big Band" and "Christmas Comes Alive", plus an instrumental album, "Setzer Goes Instru-Mental" with predominantly covers, you might think it's time for a Brian Setzer album with brand new songs and vocals.
Brian agrees, but as usual he's looking for something new. The approach with two standup bass players and as many drummers from the "Rockabilly Riot"-tour that reached Stockholm this summer, seems to be headed for the studio.
- It's cool with two standup bass players playing at the same time. The doghouse bass is the number one rockabilly icon. It's rhythmic, and double up it's incredibly powerful. I'm up for keeping the concept of the tour and recording my next album with it.
Brian Setzer has written six-seven new songs with lyrics, which were made before he by accident came up with the idea of an instrumental album.
- Some of the new songs are just to-the-point rockabilly like I've done many times before. They'd probably work with dual rhythm sections. I'll test the idea with the band and write more songs for them, says Brian Setzer.

Without google translate, mind you. Hope it's readable, the words keep dancing in front of my eyes now...

Anders, thanks a million mate!!
It's really nice to have this interview translated. In fact, it sounds more English than any other interview I've read before.

BTW, you are from Norway... do the Norwegians speak Swedish as well? I mean, are you taught Swedish at school??

Surprinsingly enough, I've heard that Swedish is the SECOND OFFICIAL LANGUAGE in Finland!!

Thanks Anders. Norway and Sweden language is close friends jon.

I supposed that, haha. I know that Nowway & Sweden were one Kindgom until 1900 or so... maybe that's the reason!

Heck, wish it was the same with French here in Spain. Quite surprisingly, Spanish is closer to Italian, specially in written terms!

Slim Jon Phantom wrote:

Anders, thanks a million mate!!
It's really nice to have this interview translated. In fact, it sounds more English than any other interview I've read before.

BTW, you are from Norway... do the Norwegians speak Swedish as well? I mean, are you taught Swedish at school??

You're welcome, Jon, and thanks!

Like Sidelake said, the Swedish and Norwegian languages are very, very similar - almost like two different dialects. I suppose you could say they're as different as Yorkshire and London accents...

Gretschoholic and members, how about if I translate one from a Dutch magazine? The interview is from 2005..
It might take some time before it's finished (work, wife, kids, dog, band etc...)

Patrick wrote:

Gretschoholic and members, how about if I translate one from a Dutch magazine? The interview is from 2005..
It might take some time before it's finished (work, wife, kids, dog, band etc...)

I'd like that! Please do...

Anders,
I see what you mean (* note to self: Yorkshire accent is my fav, together with the Scottish!).

LOL, then we all should start translating some stuff... hahah, I'll check in my mag archive, there are some Spanish mags with Brian on cover ;-)

Patrick, is the Dutch mag "Gitarist"??

Slim Jon Phantom wrote:

LOL, then we all should start translating some stuff...

And if we post the original interviews as well, we could call it "The HoodooVoodooLanguageClass"...?

Thank you Anders !
Fabulous interview...
It seems confirmed now that we are on the road for an album with the Riot Squad !!

Slim Jon Phantom wrote:

Anders,
I see what you mean (* note to self: Yorkshire accent is my fav, together with the Scottish!).

LOL, then we all should start translating some stuff... hahah, I'll check in my mag archive, there are some Spanish mags with Brian on cover ;-)

Patrick, is the Dutch mag "Gitarist"??

Yes it is!
Don't tell me you got it translated...:p

Hahaha, unfortunatelly for you, I'll leave the harsh task for you but... I have that magazine in my files. Pity it's a short interview !