Veteran guitarist visits Bozeman with eclectic Live show
Revered guitarist, singer/songwriter and filmmaker Jesse Dayton will bring a performance to Bozeman’s Live From the Divide at the top of September. Visiting in support of Mixtape Volume 1, newly released on Blue Élan Records, the collection features deeper cuts by legendary artists infused with the Lone Star State native’s Texas/Louisiana-influenced style. Through his decades-spanning career, Dayton has become one of the music industry’s best kept secrets and valuable weapons with a sound that blends rock, blues, old school country, punk-rock and zydeco. On Mixtape, he offers his own reinterpretations of songs from iconic artists including Neil Young, Elton John, ZZ Top and more.
Over the years Dayton has developed into a true Renaissance man, performing as a guitarist for a range of artists including Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Ryan Bingham, Duff McKagen and seminal L.A. punk band X. He has toured with the likes of Social Distortion, The Supersuckers and John Doe, written soundtracks for three Rob Zombie films, wrote and directed his own film and just signed a publishing deal to write a memoir. With more than 50 songs licensed to film and television, 11 studio albums and one EP, Dayton is a gifted, intelligent, socially conscious and unstoppable creative force who continues to tour nearly 250 days a year. After three decades as a jack of all trades, while hiding in plain sight and working with a who’s who of artists, Dayton now enters a new chapter focused primarily on his own career.
In anticipation of his Live performance, the Rolling Zone spoke with Dayton about career beginnings, the new album, and blurring the lines of genre in the name of ingenuity.
Rolling Zone: We’re catching you ahead of a big West Coast stretch before making your way up to Big Sky country early next month. With Mixtape Volume 1 just released and considering the remainder of your catalog, what do you plan on bringing out at these shows?
Jesse Dayton: I’ve got to play the ones that have become standards with my audience, but we are going to play some songs off the new record too. It was so cool – we just played this show in London and Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders and Joe Strummer’s widow came out and we closed the show with “Bankrobber” by The Clash. It went over like gangbusters. So we’re slipping them in there. It’s fun because it kind of takes the pressure off everything. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh I know this song, I’ve never heard it that way.’ The audience really digs it.
RZ: Everyone from massive arena acts to small town barroom bands seem to enjoy experimenting and putting their spin on what they deem to be classics, but something like Mixtape really cements yours in history. At this point in your career, what was the motivation behind putting this collection out now?
JD: I did two original records back to back and I’ve been on tour for like three years straight. I wanted to take a little extra time making the next original record because it’s kind of an important time for me. I was like, ‘Let’s just go in and have fun.’ The guiding light behind it was to write cool arrangements I thought the original writers would dig if they heard them so they could say ‘hey, this guy’s not just aping me. He’s not mimicking me, he actually put some imagination into it.’ For instance, The Cars song, “Just What I Needed,” I used to do this joke on stage saying what would happen if George Jones sang The Cars. I would [only] do the first line [sings] ‘I don’t mind you comin’ here…’ And people were like, ‘Uhh… that’s funny and all but you should really do that, you should do the whole song like that.’ So I just spent some time writing arrangements. I’m kind of shocked how much attention the record’s getting, to tell you the truth. I’m glad, too.
RZ: Mixtape arrives only about a year after your last all-original release, The Outsider. Comparing the two side by side, lyrically speaking, do you notice yourself writing about the same sort of societal issues and day-to-day routines?
JD: I think I do. When you hear Jackson Browne sing, ‘Daddy’s in the den shooting up the evening news,’ that’s pretty appropriate for what’s going on in this current political climate. People are shooting up their tribe’s media. I’m writing about some of that stuff too, I also write about relationships and have my activism component. But there’s a lot of timely stuff in these songs [on Mixtape]. I think everyone, whether it’s Hemingway or Picasso or whoever, they’re all writing or painting their own truths.
RZ: You laid out your reasoning for each track’s inclusion in a recent Rolling Stone feature, but I’m curious about the common thread between the artists to whom you’re paying tribute. Looking back on these and other musically significant times in your life, what was prerequisite when determining which songs to include?
JD: A lot of these songs are from the ‘70s. I am endlessly fascinated with music from the ‘70s. Waylon Jennings, Eddie Van Halen and Earth, Wind & Fire were all using the same phaser pedal on their music. You had disco, country and rock players that were all kind of doing the same thing – and the Rolling Stones were trying to make disco songs. It was an amazing time, but I thought the thread of all these songs would be my interpretation of them. I think Oscar Wilde said, ‘might as well be yourself because everybody else is taken.’ The thread was me, the way that I approached these songs. A clump of them are songwriters like Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and then some are this British, kind of rock n’ roll thing, whether it’s The Clash or Dr. Feelgood or AC/DC. It felt like if I wrote cool arrangements like I would for my own record, even if you had never heard any of these songs or didn’t know who they were by, I would hope you’d think, ‘wow this is just a good Jesse Dayton record.’
RZ: Outside of your original music, you’ve got quite the resume playing guitar for a barrage of legendary fellas. Mixtape mixes and matches styles, but what do you suppose Johnny, Waylon, Willie and the others think and/or would think of what’s happening to genre in modern music?
JD: I think they’d probably love it. I mean, they probably wouldn’t have loved the fact we’re drowning in mediocrity. But they would probably love the whole genre thing because they all listen to different music. It’s pretty obvious with The Clash what they were listening to, reggae and early hip-hop and stuff like that. Waylon and all those guys were listening to songwriters like Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Paul Simon and Gordon Lightfoot. I grew up on the Texas-Louisiana border, and we played a lot of different styles of music. I’d play in a zydeco band one night, a honky-tonk band the next night, and then the next night I would go play rhythm and blues. So that really prepared me. I just played on the new Duff McKagan record. And Duff McKagan, I thought I was going to bring in my Marshall amps and just crank it up and rock out. He was like, ‘No man, I want you to do some of your weird country stuff.’ I love the new hybrids being born out of musicians’ boredom and imagination.
RZ: It has been super interesting to see what people are doing throughout the music scene.
JD: There’s a part of our country that’s super open to it and a part that’s not, on many levels. I think if you’re not pissing the traditionalists off at least a little bit, you’re probably not doing anything new and exciting.
RZ: Speaking of exciting, you’ve also lent your talents to curating soundtracks for several of your friend Rob Zombie’s horror films. Seems like you’ve got to have an insanely expansive music library committed to memory for that sort of thing.
JD: Those were actually easier than you would think. Rob is such a great director, he can just say, ‘I’d like something that’s kind of like this, that has this dark vibe.’ I can remember the first music videos I directed were for this band that was in a Halloween movie Rob produced. I would send it to him and he would send me back notes, ‘Make the lighting darker, it’s too bright. Put in more blood.’ Just crazy stuff. It was great. That guy taught me a lot about how to handle your career. He’s really brilliant. I became more “woke,” as the kids say, about what I was actually doing. Working with Rob Zombie changed my life. It also helped me buy a house, so that was cool [laughs].
RZ: How did you guys become acquainted originally?
JD: He found out about me through a friend of mine. He called me up out of nowhere and was like, ‘Hey this is Rob Zombie. We’re making the ultimate white trash horror movie and we think your music would be great.’ It was hilarious, like a left-handed compliment. Somebody peeing on my leg and shaking my hand. But I’m really grateful.
RZ: Circling back to your recordings, the title leads me to believe there might be a second volume to Mixtape. Maybe even a new original album. Can I ask what your designs are?
JD: I’m writing a book for Da Capo Press right now, and I’m like twenty thousand words in. So I’m doing that and writing songs for the next record, but I’m always writing songs. I’m always putting titles and lyric ideas and melodies into my phone. I amass a ton of those and then just disappear after I get off the road and go make them into arrangements and songs. The good thing about touring is there’s nothing to do on the bus, so I’ll be able to really sit and focus.
RZ: Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Did you have a closing remark for the folks coming out to the Bozeman show?
JD: We have a high-energy show and we’re starting to find how eclectic our audience. We have everyone from Americana to punk rock to country fans coming out to see us. I don’t know very many acts that have that diverse of an audience and who really enjoy the show. And I can’t wait to come back up to Montana because it’s so beautiful – and because it’s so hot in Texas [laughs].
Jesse Dayton visits Live From the Divide on Tuesday, September 3rd. Located at 627 East Peach, the music is set to begin at 9pm. Advance tickets to this all-ages event are $30 at www.livefromthedivide.com.
Following the Bozeman show, Dayton will also perform at the Remington Bar in Whitefish on September 4th. Additional details can be found at www.remingtonbar.com.
Learn more about the multifaceted man himself at www.jessedayton.com or find him on Facebook and Instagram for updated tour details and other announcements.
Find Rolling Stone’s track-by-track breakdown of Mixtape Volume 1 at www.rollingstone.com. The album is out now. •
