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I was first introduced to the Starlight Drifters at the Green Bay Rockabilly Festival, but these cats are far from your run-of-the-mill rockabilly act. Instead they incorporate a huge range of influences from the first half of the last century, & are able go beyond a one-dimensional genre caricature to perform with a depth, authenticity, & enthusiasm that comes from total immersion into the American musical heritage. This interview is with Chris Casello (guitar & steel). He and singer Bill Alton have been in the band since 1997, & are now joined by Mike Kissick (drums) and Mike King (upright bass). - BL
RRP: I heard that you guys will have a song on a major motion picture soundtrack; how did that come about? Chris: Our engineer is Greg Leonard up in Michigan, his brother is a Hollywood director, did Lawnmower Man and some other stuff. The movie is Man-thing a MARVEL swamp horror movie - I pitched him some creepy swamp lap steel through an old Gibson amp, and he loved it so I got in on some soundtrack sessions. I got all kinds of old weird Ju Ju gear from the fifties and sixties and forties, scary bluesy sounds . All the while we are working on the Starlight Drifters stuff and he said they needed a Sleepwalk style instro, well it so happens I already had one! And was planning to cut it. This is actually the third film we landed a tune in. RRP: You recently moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan down to Nashville; did anyone else in the band move there as well? Chris: So far the guys are still up North. Mike King lives in Chicago, Mike Kissick in Detroit, we still get together and play once in a while. I just wanted to keep playing and getting better. People in the south dig my music and I don't have to explain what it is . I hope to move up a notch or two, also you probably know I am the only original member of the band, to keep going I need players, serious cats. Lots of hungry musicians down here. RRP: It seems like you’ve been really busy in Nashville since you’ve been there; what have you been doing and how are you liking it? Chris: Lets see, I've played with Jen Jones and the Camaros, Nic Roulette, Dave Roe (Johnny Cash and Dwight) The Ex Husbands, Rosie Flores, Brazilbilly, Don Kelly, Mark and JD from the Shack Shakers, a great up-and-comer Kenneth Brian, Jimmy Lester from Los Straightjackets, even Sonny George and I are working on a possible project, some sessions. I am feeling better everyday about it. RRP: Are you guys currently working on a new CD? How do you see the band’s sound evolving from the early days up to now, and where do you see it heading? I know that what you recorded with Ronnie Weiser took on a different feel than in your other sessions, and you also seem to be heading more and more toward Western Swing and incorporating other influences. Chris: I like jazz from the fifties and forties what can I say ...... up to '65 America was it baby! I like hillbilly music and blues a lot, so Rockabilly and Western Swing hell yeah! But everybody plays that stuff down here, it’s intimidating. The new record will have a lot of instros from Bob Wills to Surf. The swamp movie brought out a darker side I had not explored in a while. So my plan is use a couple of guest singers from the Nashville fringes - outsiders so to speak. I sing a couple myself, but mainly a lot guitar and steel, I am playing pedal steel too now. RRP: When I saw your band at the big Green Bay festival, you struck me as an exceptional guitarist, even in a building filled with amazing players. When and how did you start, and what has really helped you to develop as far as technique and style? Also, what are you working on now that is challenging for you? Chris: Thanks, I have been playing so long I don't know, its really just who I am. I started at age twelve but had some lessons when I was eight, I started playing along with Rolling Stones records though my first records were Elvis. I got a guitar and an Elvis comeback special record Christmas ‘69. I played in bands in High School, doing stuff on the Radio, but I was from Ann Arbor, home to The Stooges and the MC5 - I knew all those guys and they all had lots of guts, you know, being from Detroit area, there were a lot of bad ass Mothers playing when I was growing up. I guess I played in so many different types of bands: garage, R&B, surf, blues, jazz, country and rockabilly, even soul...it helped me a lot. I hung around older cats and went to a lot of gigs. Ann Arbor was like a little Austin. I also taught lessons for twelve years, thousands of lessons in every style. That helped me the most. What I am working on now is chord solos from Barney Kessel, jazzy country like Jimmy Bryant and Hank Garland and Pedal Steel. RRP: Do you think that the nostalgic aspects of 40's and 50's culture harms people's perception of the musical genre as being relevant today? I've seen some people, even those who like the music, regard it as a sort fun novelty or fashion, while many others relate to it in a deeper way. Is there still stuff to be said and done with it that keeps the form timeless, and not merely a musical artifact of the past unrelated to modern experience? Chris: People don't get it." Nostalgia" is an awful way of softening the most powerful and dangerous music that ever lived. The creative explosion of mid century America will never happen again. Modern art and design, film, music, technology ...we had the bomb first! It irks me when I hear people talk who actually believe that music became all it could be with the sixties with Dylan and the Beatles. I don't get it ...don't people have ears? The greatest songs, writers, musicians, singers and achievements were already gone by then. Breakthroughs? Give me a break if I want primitive I'll listen to Joe Hill Louis or even Link Wray, if I want composers give me Gershwin or Duke or Cole Porter or Hank Williams Or Chuck...how about Willie Dixon? Rock 'N' Roll was teenage music for teenagers it was wild, it was black music, it had existed for years. Americans invented it but it scared people. Now MTV and Rap has achieved what every white conservative who crushed R&R was afraid of. Don't make me say it. RRP: I've read that you prefer the performance aspect of being in a band to songwriting, and that you guys aren't "tortured artists trying to express yourselves all the time." How do you respond to the school of thought that says if you don't express yourself or have something important to say, then what is the point? And also, do you find that is a relatively new development in the history of music for musicians to be expected to write most of their own material, to the point that there is even a sort of snobbery against those who don't? Is it possible to be expressive and soulful while doing covers? Chris: Every time I play I express myself. The main thing I express is joy. My philosophy is every day above ground is a gift and if I get to play music that's two gifts. That's why I can never understand why people quit or give up. This is the best job in the world... ask all those movie stars with pretend bands. I guess I said all that stuff about tortured artists, but I don't remember what I was thinking. I actually do write quite a bit, you just will never hear my crappy stuff. Why include a turd on an album when there are so many great works available? Now living in Nashville I feel like doing my originals more, because every day you hear every song covered over and over. An artist will always put their stamp on whatever they do, if they are legit. It doesn't matter who wrote it. RRP: I know a lot of musicians who sometimes have a hard time just watching bands, not because they are elitists or feel superior, but because it makes them to want to pick up their own instrument and play. Do you ever get that feeling? Who is someone you would go out of your way to see, even if you weren’t able to play the show? Chris: My buddy Carco Clave (who's played with everyone ) said he has two reactions to watching a band: "That's easy I can do that." or "That's it , I quit" (paraphrased). I appreciate his honesty but I think everybody has something to teach you even if its something you don't ever want to do. After arriving here and seeing the best players in the world I started practicing harder, but I always practiced. I just dug in more to my own thing. There all kinds of acts that are still around that I have not seen, my objective is not to miss Hank Thompson next time or Ray Price. I missed Jerry Lee last week at the Ryman damn it . I always see Deke when he comes around. I saw Wayne Hancock in a little bar last week he's always great. I dig Southern Culture. The Detroit Garagers like The Paybacks. Opened for Wanda Jackson recently, unbelievable! I just feel scared, we are losing all the great blues and jazz guys too. I never saw Johnny Cash. I just want to meet these people or play with them. We are running out time. RRP: I read that at one point you lived a few miles down the street from Ted Nugent; did you ever get a chance to meet him? Chris: Ted has a compound down by Grass Lake, Michigan. I have seen him around. I saw him in Arby's eating a salad once . Also I owned one of his Super Twins 180 watts, orange tolex, 1976, too loud - a true beast. Played steel through it. RRP: Thanks for the interview. Is there anything else that you’d like to add? Chris: Nope, just going to hit it again this summer and fall, new disc should be out. Thanks to everyone.
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