Reverend Horton Heat – Interview

On the line with the Rev, well Jim Heath lead singer from the rockabilly group Reverend Horton Heat.

What are you up to today?

Working for Artemis today. (Laughs) Man, they had me sign like two hundred and fifty cd’s.

Is it cool to know that somebody somewhere will get one of those cd’s and cherish it for life?

It’s just nice that someone actually wants it. Now with the whole Ebay thing maybe I can actually make a living signing stuff. (Laughs) I’m really flattered that they ask.

What do you look forward to most? Working on the record? Touring?

We enjoy doing it all. I’m not really big on spending a lot of time in the studio. We tour all the time. Me and the guys can’t wait to get back on the road. We’ve been off for over a month and a half and we are ready go get back to it.

When you went into Lucky 7 was it already an Artemis project?

Yeah, we worked out our deal with them last year and went into the studio after it was worked out.

How important is the record label? Because you seem to be the kind of guy who really wants to focus on the music.

Well it’s not that important to us. We tour and play music regardless of the record deal we’ve got going on. Last year we didn’t have a label at all and we played well over two hundred shows. I consider myself a musician more so than a recording artist. The recording artist thing is more like making an advertisement for your group rather than making art. We enjoy recording, there are aspects that are fun.

You seem to make the kind of music that I, as a kid, dreamed of making. It’s just cool music. But on top of that you don’t try so hard to be cool like everyone else, because it just comes off as cool. Growing up was Reverend Horton Heat what you envisioned or did this just happen because of your love of music?

Love of music for sure. Because when I was a kid I was really into the blues. I would read books about how you had to pay your dues and I always wanted to be the kind of artist that paid his dues rather than some band who got huge and then went away to nothing. My heroes are like Ernest Tubb who played until he died. And guys like Willie Nelson are still going strong. Johnny Cash would be too if he wasn’t still sick.

And B.B. King is still going strong.

Exactly. He’s been going strong since the forties. That was something that always interested me more than latching on to some trend. I think that is why I got interested in rock-a-billy and the blues because I wanted to make an artistic statement. I wanted to find something that was identifiable to me and last me a whole career.

What would happen, or how would you feel if music trends came around to you and all of the sudden you were the foundation of the new hip music?

I’d be concerned with saving my money because the rest is fleeting. I love watching those shows like how MC Hammer had that home worth tens of millions and lost it.

I watched that movie. (we both laugh)

Did you see that? You see these guys who make all these millions and think it’ll last forever and they blow their money on all this silly stuff. If that ever happened to me, I’d save all the money I made and not buy some Rolls Royce.

Or some ridiculous house that costs fifty million.

Right. One of my favorite shows is Mtv Cribs. (Laughs) It’s hilarious. They go and spend two million dollars on a fish tank. (we both laugh)

I have to admit it pisses me off to see someone that no one knew a few months ago now with some huge mansion. Especially when you still can’t figure out how they got so much money.

Right and my problem most of the time is when I see them on the show I still don’t know who they are. (Laughs) I’m like who is this rapper with all this money?

Does it bother you that a lot of artists take playing arenas and playing in front of thirty thousand people each night for granted? And what about those groups who are brought down to earth now and can’t play arenas and pay lip service to playing small clubs again by saying they like the intimacy.

Yeah. It is lip service too because if they could play arenas they would. I saw Ice-T when he was doing Body Count and he was playing this fifteen hundred capacity club and he got up there and he was like ‘we could be playing reunion arena tonight, but I wanted to be close to the people’ and I was like yeah right. So it was bullshit. We’ve gone through all these years without having the huge hit and playing arenas and you know what? It’s a blessing. Once you get to that point where you are playing those big arenas there is no place to go but down.

That is what I was getting at. Even though you play small venues, do you ever get a chance to interact with fans and do they treat you like a regular guy?

Honestly I could be more accessible than I am. I have been at certain times. I do go out after the shows and go to the t-shirt stand so I can talk to people and sign autographs. But it is hard for me to interact because I can’t get that drunk, and people want to get you drinks. And believe me I’ll let them get me drunk if I get out there. We have managed to have wild parties and stuff, but in enough moderation to continue to play gigs. You can’t really play two hundred plus shows and get wasted every night.

Your schedule is grueling. It seems like you work more than your average pro athlete. Does it take its toll and how do you maintain your ability to push on?

I have to conserve myself, which is another reason why I can’t be as accessible to fans. Talking actually hurts my voice more than singing. Singing is my athletic thing because I do it all the time. But worse yet if you talk to people in a loud room and you talk so loud that you don’t realize it and that really ends up hurting my voice badly.

How much time do you need to recuperate.

I try to sleep a lot. I sleep a lot on the bus. But I will even sleep in the hotel during the day for a few hours to stay rested.

Lets say tomorrow you couldn’t sing, what would you do?

I don’t have the slightest idea. I actually think about that all the time because I know this can’t last forever. I think I’d get my real estate license. (laughs) But that would be a stupid move for me because I’m not a good salesman. I can’t go that extra mile and really scam somebody.

Back to recording, does the label leave you to your own devices?

We’ve been lucky in that we’ve been able to keep the labels and producers away from remixing or rewriting our albums. We’ve been able to go into the studio and do what we want to do. When we were on Interscope records we got some input from them after the fact that was to the point of being insulting. Beyond that basically I don’t have to deal with the label people as far as the artistic thing. Actually I don’t really deal with them at all. (laughs) We’ve managed to do our records without someone sitting there saying ‘you better not be doing that song’.

I ask because it sounds like you have still stayed true to a vision. Even with rock bands today who say they’ve kept their integrity still have hints of trying to puff up a song with the latest production effects, or adding a hip hop beat, or trickling the latest and greatest. But you guys still sound as gritty as ever. You do what you do best.

That is really a good compliment. Thank you.

You haven’t got a guest rapper either.

(laughs) And we haven’t hired a DJ to come in and scratch.

Do you think that artists spend too much time paying attention to the production rather than the song itself?

A lot of rap artists seem to spend so much time working on the drum loops and making samples fit. It’s really odd. I spend more time focusing on being a musician. I think being a musician is a much more valid art form than being a recording artist. There are so many young bands who get that backwards. Plus the media would rather write about a guy who used to be a gangster and is now a rapper who makes thirty million dollars rather than a guy who spent twelve years in music school learning how to play piano unbelievably and is now playing at a hotel.

Is it good to know that you can leave your house today and make a living doing what you love?

That is the best thing in the world. We make damn good money and I’m glad that we don’t have to have a bunch of jobs on the side to make ends meet. In fact playing music makes us more money than some other career. I’m glad we have been able to pull through because people still want to hear us.

+ charlie craine