The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Jesse Dayton, Part Two

No, he and Samantha Fish didn’t win the Grammy. That’s okay. Round Two of our conversation: The politics of retro country, working with Jon Spencer, skate rink jams and “going as hardcore as you can.”

Jesse Dayton and Samantha Fish channeling 1970 and ‘68 Comeback Elvis on the Grammy red carpet, Feb. 4, 2024. (Pic courtesy of Jesse Dayton)

Well, the 2024 Grammys have come and gone. Our boy Jesse Dayton and his partner in the blues Samantha Fish didn’t win that Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy for which they were nominated. Someone named Larkin Poe got the nod instead, for an album called Blood Harmony. I’m sure Ms. Poe was deserving — congrats! All I know is I listened to Death Wish Blues. A lot. Never heard one note of Blood Harmony. And so it goes.

Since we ran the first installment of this ramblin’ conversation with this punktry and western-cum-blues-slingin’ polymath back in December (link above, but here's another), he’s continued his quest to be a moving target. I don’t think the boy’s gotten off the road yet. And he’s released two fine blues rock singles of his own in the last two months, both from his upcoming Shooter Jennings-produced album. "Baby's Long Gone" is a fingerpicked ode to a “Cajun girl from Beaumont town, make the etouffee, drink the whiskey down,” featuring Courtney Santana’s backing vocals and Matt Hubbard making like Mickey Raphael and Little Walter on the harp. Then the drums kick in, JD cranks the volume knob, and the song becomes the cousin of “Mystery Train.” 

Less than a month ago, he dropped "Night Brain,"  a similarly acoustic-cum-electric screed about insomnia: “Well, every night when I lay down and try to close my eyes/That’s when my night brain’s wakin’ up to trouble me/It tells me I’m about to lose my money, lose my job, and lose my honey/I know that it’s never gonna be.” I know the feeling, hermano. I’m sure most of us gathered here today do.

Plus, can we mention how stylin’ Jesse and Samantha looked on the red carpet, channeling two adjacent Elvis eras? Check out the pic up top — Jesse’s said his suit was patterned after what Mr. Presley wore at the 1970 Houston rodeo press conference, while Samantha appears to be rocking her version of the ‘68 Comeback leather jumpsuit. And as you can see below, Jesse’s wife Emily Kaye was also stylin’ that night.

It’s good to be The King…. (Pic courtesy of Jesse Dayton)

He flew to Puerto Rico to join the Outlaw Country Cruise, of which he’s been a staple, pretty much the moment Mojo Nixon passed away. We will be paying homage to Mojo soon. But right now, let’s pick up where we left off last time, where Jesse was warming up to why exactly he’s taking a short rest from country music. We’d normally put material like this behind the paywall, for paying subscribers. But I am opening this up to all who come to this ‘Stack for now, to sample the benefits of full patronage of this space. And we’ll attach another subscription discount, good for this month only: 20% off all paid subscriptions forever! This offer expires 2/29/24, and is available either by clicking all this highlighted crap here, or at the button at the bottom. 

Now take it away, Jesse:

JESSE: It's an interesting thing, in the retro country thing. Most of the retro country people that I know are liberals politically, but musically they're very conservative. And I always thought that was kind of ironic. I mean, not all of them, not everybody. The songwriters are who I always listen to anyway. Whether it was Rodney Crowell or Townes Van Zandt or whoever.

TIM:  I agree with you. Yeah, it's interesting. But you've done this record with Samantha Fish, produced by Jon Spencer. Sounds like a funky ‘70s record to me. It's doing very, very well. You've been out there playing on this circuit and you tell me you're getting some shit from your normal audience about this. 

JESSE:  Yeah, I am a little bit, but not a lot. But enough. Samantha's kind of getting some shit too from her [crowd], like who's this guy? And then my audience is like, who's this girl? But then they come to the show and they get it. And it's not like we're getting terrible reviews or anything like that. I mean, everything's been great, but it is kind of an odd pairing, even though we both love the blues and we sit around on the bus and listen to Buddy Guy. 

And I'm more accepting of people questioning things now, too. I'm not as reactive as I was when I was younger. But me, Samantha Fish, Jon Spencer — what could go wrong? A million things could have gone wrong. We never met Jon Spencer ‘til the day that we got to the studio. And we didn't know if Jon was going to be this precious Andy Warhol/New York type. And he didn't know if we were going to be like two bombastic guitar players playing all over everything. After we did the first song — I think the first song we cut was “Death Wish” — we were like, “Okay, I like this. This doesn't sound like a blues record with Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Bonham. It sounds like we're doing something different with the form.”

TIM: Well, it definitely sounds like almost a more polished version of the Blues Explosion, but with other people singing, you know?

JESSE: Yeah, it definitely has that. The thing is, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's records were so fun to listen to. Sonically, the things he did were outrageous. And we're all listening to ‘70s stuff while we were recording that. What's the guy who sang, “Fooled Around and Fell In Love?”

TIM: Oh, Elvin Bishop.

JESSE:  Yeah, yeah, so we were listening to a bunch of this Elvin Bishop, Atlanta stuff, and some of that funky stuff made it onto the record. Now, that's so funny, Elvin Bishop. His singer at that time that he's doing all those records, like “Fooled Around and Fell In Love?” That was Mickey Thomas, the guy from Starship! I couldn't stand Starship! I wanted to set my hair on fire every time I heard Starship! But man I loved “Fooled Around and Fell In Love!” That was a skate rink anthem!

TIM:  [laugh] Yes, it was! I didn't even think about that until you said that. But it was.

JESSE: Man, will you skate with me? Come on! That song, and “I Can Help.” They all have the 6/8 beat. 

TIM:  Another one was “Magnet and Steel.” Those were like ‘70s stroll records. I mean, Chuck Willis could have done those records.

JESSE: Yes, absolutely. It was that kind of vibe, and they played them at the skating rink on repeat. I tried to bring some of that stuff in, and Jon and Sam, we were like the Three Musketeers after a couple hours. We were just like, okay, let's. We're all here for the best idea. 

And you know what's interesting about recording is the faster you can be wrong, the better off you are. So if you try something and it doesn't work, the faster you can admit that this isn't going to work and go to the next thing, the better the session will be. Because sometimes you throw things out there and they don't work. Sometimes, something's not working on an arrangement or something that sounded great in your bedroom doesn't sound good on playback.

But it was great working with Jon. I learned a lot about the way he makes records. We recorded that record live in the studio, except we went back and punched vocals and guitar work. But all of us were in the room at the same time and we were cutting to tape. Yeah, no Pro Tools bullshit. 

TIM: Well, I remember you talking to me last week about how it's like night and day touring with Samantha versus you going out in your van with your trio and stuff like that these days.

JESSE: Yeah, I mean, the thing with the trio has gotten a lot better because now we have a nice RV, it's got some bus bunks and stuff like that. But the thing with Samantha is we're always in a nice bus, or we're always flying business class and we stay at nice places, and at this age I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't feel great. 

But it's interesting too, because when I played with X, filling in for Billy Zoom, so many of their own fans would come back and go, “I saw you guys and it was some sit-down place, it wasn't like a real punk rock place.” And I'm thinking to myself, “Man, I've been married for a long time. I live with a woman. I like for things to smell nice and clean.” The first time I ever played CBGB, I just thought to myself what a monumental shithole this place is. The hardcore fans, a lot of them want you to die in those little beer joints, those honky tonks, because it's just so romantic, you know? I couldn't wait to stop playing for dancers. I’d had enough of it.

I did it as hardcore as you could do it: Every Thursday night down at the Broken Spoke, and then we were playing weekends and we got to where we could headline a stage on Saturday night at Gruene Hall. And everybody would come out and dance. I didn't totally feel like my songwriting mattered as much, just so long as you could give them the standards, give them “Waltz Across Texas” and “Crazy Arms.” And it's great. I'm not putting that down, but as a songwriter? Even with my solo thing now, I have enough of a cult following where people buy tickets to come and stand in front of the stage and hear the songs on the records.

I think when you're a little kid, you don't think to yourself, ‘Well, when I grow up, I wanna play really low volume to couples and guys.” You know what I'm saying? Last Friday night in Colorado outside of Telluride, there were 4,000 people there, we were headlining. And I saw waves of people pogoing to our heavy blues song we were doing. And it was like, yeah, I like this. And I mean that in a very humble way. I don't mean like I deserve this or whatever. I mean it like, it makes you feel grateful.

I'm enjoying myself. When anything stops being fun, then I'm on to the next thing. I feel like I’ve been away from country music, but it's almost like we just got a legal separation and we're in separate apartments. We're not quite divorced. We can date other people, but we're not together anymore.

End Part Two.

You didn’t have to love me (or Uncle Wayne) like you did, but you did, but you did. And I thank you….

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