Dream Job

For well over a decade, the Reverend Horton Heat secured themselves a notorious reputation for living up the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. However, to focus on that alone would be a great discredit to a trio of accomplished musicians. The band has carved itself a sturdy niche in the music industry thanks to constant touring and their infectious, high-octane rock music infused with the sounds of traditional American forms like country, blues and rockabilly and seething with punk rock fury.
While the good reverend may be preaching the wild word of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, it doesn't mean he hasn't put a lot of work into honing his craft razor-sharp. The Synthesis was lucky enough to catch up with Reverend Horton Heat himself, Jim Heath, before taking the stage in San Jose. He spoke with us about his band's latest release, Lucky 7, the many unlikely places he finds his inspiration for his songwriting and the oft-times less-than-glamorous life on the road.

I've seen a lot of good press for the new album, Lucky 7. How do you feel about it?
Well it was a lot of fun to record…It was fun to do, man. The reason why we're still doing this is that I feel like I'm getting better as a musician. I think we're getting better as a band. I think it's a lot of the same Reverend Horton Heat stuff we've done, but…well, not the same stuff, but we have our own style and that's a real blessing. We don't want to stray too far from that, but we do want to get better as a band and as musicians, and that sometimes requires getting a little out there artistically - taking a few risks here and there.

I noticed that "The Tiny Voice of Reason" and "Duel At the Two O'clock Bell" seemed to be a departure from the rest of the songs on the album. Is there a story behind them?
"The Tiny Voice of Reason" was a little song I had going. I got the idea for the title when I was talking to an animator from The Simpsons. And we were talking about [the show]. He was really good. He could illustrate all the characters right there on napkins and stuff. He was asking me who my favorite character was, and I told him Lisa Simpson, and he said 'she's the tiny voice of reason' (laughs). I was, well, that's why I like her. I thought that it was a kinda cool idea for a song. We kind of ignore children, and usually they have questions that are right on target, while adults get caught up in their own grandiose ideas. It ends up that we fight wars and all that stupid stuff. The song kind of speaks for itself. I don't like to sit here and explain it too much.
"The Duel at the Two O'clock Bell"…we're having fun with that one because it's working for us live, which is strange because it's a slow song, and it's an instrumental. It's the spaghetti western thing that I had that turned into this epic (laughs) - it's got a lot of different parts to it. That's a lot of fun, and I would really like to get into doing music for films. I really do love all that Hugo Montenegra and…Henry Mancini, because he does great stuff for films. I think a song like [The Duel at the Two O'clock Bell] would work well for something like that.

Have you been approached to do music for a film?
They used some of our stuff for several different movies. Actually, I've got another one we recorded a cover song here recently…We recorded a song called "Real Gone Lover" by Dave Bartholemew. We did it for this movie called Auto Focus. It's a Paul Schroeder movie that's gonna be out in October. We do things here and there…They used quite a bit of this song called "Wildest Dreams" [in a film]…here and there we've had a lot of little things where it goes by like really quick and stuff.

You've said that "The Duel At the Two O'clock Bell" is getting a good response live. How has the response been to the new songs at shows? How do they feel when you play them live?
The crowd response has been great for our new songs…you know the crowd dictates what we do. We can't do too many of our new songs off our new albums because we have seven albums out now, and so many people pay to see us come play live to hear some of our old songs. We still have fun playing 'em, so we still try to get something a little goofy going on - to still try to make them better as we go. We managed to get like eight songs off the new album into the new set, and the crowd response has been great.

You spend a lot of time touring. How do you pass the time on the road?
It's really funny. Since we play so much - tour so much and travel - that when I'm at home, I'm thrust into doing everything that everyday, normal people have to do all the time, except that I have to cram it all into three weeks. I'll be going to the dentist every other day. Dentists…the doctor. Oh, I've got to go to the utility place, I've gotta go change my phone plan, blah blah blah, and just pack it all in. There're so much other chores around the house - all the mundane stuff that everyone has to do, I have to pack it in to those three weeks that I'm there, because then I'll leave for another six.
But when I get out on the road that's my time to play music. I play guitar five hours a day sometimes when I'm out here. There's stuff to go do and see, and occasionally we'll go out and sightsee, but that can be expensive, and we're out here trying to hold it all together. It's my time to work on my music. I'll go look around, walk around and come back and practice my guitar. When I'm at home, I hardly have the time to pick up my guitar at all. I still do, though. When I'm at home, I still play at least an hour a day.

Do you do most of your writing on the road?
A lot of it comes to me on the road. It usually comes at times out of the blue, so I don't even know when it really came to me (laughs). [I] have to have something spontaneous that's good to begin with before I take the time to turn it into something really good, which means, if I got a song that's three verses, I might write nine different verses, and when I really start doing that is when I'm at home. [When I'm] starting to prepare for the new album, I'll go back over songs that I've written over a period to time and improve those, and they're [always] morphing as we go.

Is there anyplace that you'd like to tour that you haven't been to yet?
We've been so many places. I would really be interested in playing Italy. We've gone all over Europe many times through the years. I love Australia. We've only been there once. I'd like to go back there, and we've never done Japan, so [there] and Italy right now. But traveling like we do it's not quite like sightseeing. It's a lot of work. You're showing up in the city - it'd be fun to say 'hey, let's go bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge,' but I have to do laundry (laughs). I have to send off a FedEx package, but we get to see some pretty cool stuff. It's a dream job.

Your bass player, Jimbo Wallace, has become a recurring character in your music. Why is he such a constant inspiration on your songwriting?
Well, you gotta write what you know (laughs). He's about all I know, damn it. He's been living with me now for 12 years. We travel and tour, and we're a family. He's my extended family. And y'know, he's such a character. He was always buying the goofiest stuff at the truck stops, showing up all of a sudden on his bicycle with a cowboy hat and a six-pack of beer and always throwing a barbecue on a Wednesday morning. 'Hey man, we're having a barbecue, come on over.' It's Wednesday morning, [Jimbo] (laughs).

I'll be at your performance here at The Brick Works in Chico, and I'm looking forward to it because this is the first time that I will see your band perform live. What can I expect from your live show?
I wear these elaborate, flaming tuxedoes, and I got a big hollow-bodied guitar with a Bigsby tremolo. Jimbo has a big upright bass that has flames. We do a lot of fast, high-energy stuff. It's really American roots influenced that's really amped up. We definitely have the blender thing going. We'll cross over - I'll do guitar licks that are country guitar licks and take that right into heavy metal chord changes and things like that. It's rockabilly. I usually tell people that it's a rock 'n' roll band that's '50s rockabilly influenced, but we do a lot of up-tempo stuff that's kind of almost punk rock.

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