Laughin’ and Cryin’ With the Reverend Horton Heat

World famous psychobilly/rockabilly/rock `n roll band “The Reverend Horton Heat” (RHH) will play The Venue at the Hub on Tuesday, August 25.  RHH will release their latest studio album, “Laughin’ & Cryin’ With The Reverend Horton Heat” on September 1st through Yep Roc Records. 
You may be asking, “What exactly is psychobilly?” (I know I was…) According to Jim (Reverend Horton) Heat(h), founder and lead singer and guitarist of RHH, “Psychobilly is basically punk rock with sort of a hillbilly attitude and usually has a flat bass [a big upright bass].  It’s quite big in Europe.  A lot of punk bands basically jumped on the rockabilly thing.”
Do RHH consider themselves psychobilly?  After all, nearly every review of RHH describes them as an American psychobilly band and the band itself is known far and wide for its song “Psychobilly Freakout,” which can be found on Guitar Hero 2.  According to Jim Heath, “We’ll play stuff that normal psychobilly bands just don’t do.  We’ll play stuff that’s almost straight country, stuff that’s almost straight blues or straight rock….”
And don’t try to put RHH in a box when it comes to their musical style.  “Avoiding classification is usually a pretty good thing,” Heath said. “If I meet somebody, ‘Oh, you’re a musician?  What kind of music?’  I usually tell them we’re a rock `n roll band and play ‘50s music, especially rockabilly. I tell them come to one of our shows and check out the mosh pit, [they] might think we’re fun….”
Heath says that “just about everything mid-century, especially mid-century American stuff” has influenced RHH’s sound.  “I like cars from the `30s through the `60s, I like music from the `30s to the `60s, the clothes from the `30s to the `60s… I’ll get out of that realm somewhat here and there, but, for instance, I don’t know anything about modern country music.  But I know about Ernest Tubb and Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard… so to me this wild energetic music really made sense… and I’d been around it my whole life, listening to Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis, so when I started focusing on that it was a real turning point for me.”
Is it hard for RHH to live up to the title of greatest underground band ever?  “We are under the mainstream and what’s happening out there,” Heath agrees,  “kind of under the current but at the same time we’re very successful and our live show is very well attended everywhere we go…. I’m really grateful for where I’m at.  I just wanted to find my voice, my musical voice, my musical sound and style and I found it through rockabilly and then later, long story short, RHH didn’t stay a straight rockabilly band.  It started morphing into something louder and turned up… you know, RHH has never had a hit song.  We’ve had commercial success while at the same time the success of our live shows and tour and the attention that we have drawn is surprising.”
So what kind of show can Fargo expect from Reverend Horton Heat?  “We’ve got a pretty big catalog,” Heath said.  “I’ve recorded well over 100 songs so we try to play a little off of each cd and we’ll play some new stuff so that’s what we’ll do; we do some stand-on bass, throw the bass up in the air, pile drive the songs, song after song after song after song… we do blocks, 15 songs in a row without even resting.  Then we’ll stop, say a little something, then go do it again.”
Whether you call RHH rockabilly, psychobilly or just plain rock `n roll, this is one high energy, bass pounding, guitar licking show you do not want to miss.  Catch them Tuesday at The Venue at the Hub.  You won’t be sorry.

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INFO:

The Venue at the Hub on Tuesday, August 25
Who: Reverend Horton Heat
When: Tues, Aug 25, 9pm
Where: The Venue @ The Hub
Cost: $18 advance, $20 day of - 21+