Monsieur Jeffrey Evans Interview, Part One
Photo by BullyRook
Like rockabilly pioneer Charlie Feathers, Jeffrey Evans is a musician whose influence can't be judged in record sales. For more than twenty-five years, Evans has fronted some of the best rockabilly and garage-rock bands around: The Gibson Bros., 68 Comeback, CC Riders, and Jeffrey Evans and his Southern Aces.
Originally from the small city of Findlay, Ohio, Evans spent his early years collecting records and pursuing photography, eventually earning an MFA from Ohio State University in photography. In Columbus, Ohio, Evans formed The Gibson Bros. with Don Howland (ex-Great Plains, future frontman of The Bassholes), Dan Dow, and Ellen Hoover. Although obsessed with American roots music, Jeffrey Evans—like Tav Falco before him—wasn't interested in replicating early rock 'n' roll by the numbers. The Gibson Bros. seamlessly placed Alice Cooper covers next to traditionals. Humor was another element of The Gibson Bros. live show and recordings, captured in Jeffrey Evans' onstage banter and songs like "Bo Diddley Pulled a Boner" and "Poor White Trash."
Although hard to believe now, The Gibson Bros. really pissed off rockabilly purists in the mid '80s (they possibly still do). Myopic greasers likely missed the deep reverence Jeffrey Evans had for rockabilly; his thorough knowledge of the genre was already present on the first Gibson Bros. album, reviving obscure rockabilly gems like Sparkle Moore's "Skull and Crossbones" (featuring a great vocal by Ellen Hoover). Unlike the ossified records of rockabilly revivalists, the vitality of The Gibson Bros.' catalog remains intact more than two decades later.
In the early '90s, Jeffrey formed 68 Comeback. Numerous heavyweights of the '80s/'90s garage-rock scene passed through the band: Darin Lin Wood, Mick Collins, Greg Cartwright, Peg O'Neill, and Jack Oblivian. However, outside of sole constant Jeffrey Evans, late guitarist Jack Taylor likely left the most indelible mark on the band, employing his deconstructivist style to Evans' originals and choice of covers. 68 Comeback toured constantly, traveling across the United States in an early '70s Cadillac hearse. After a succession of great albums on Sympathy, 68 Comeback wound down as the 1990s came to a close.
In the early 2000s, Jeffrey Evans formed The CC Riders. A heavy lineup—Alicja Trout (drums), Jay Reatard (guitar) and James Arthur (guitar)—and limited-run CD-R on Trout's Contaminated label followed. For much of the past ten years, Evans has been playing with fellow Memphis legend Ross Johnson (formerly of the Panther Burns). Jeffrey Evans' newest band, The Southern Aces, released a single on Big Legal Mess a few years back. A full-length record has been completed and should be out soon.
Interview by Ryan Leach
The following interview originally ran in Razorcake #73 (www.razorcake.org)
Ryan: You formed the Gibson Bros. in Columbus, Ohio. Is that where you’re from originally?
Jeffrey: I was born in Northwest Ohio in a city called Findlay. I moved to Columbus when I went to college. That’s where I met the other members of the Gibson Bros.
Ryan: You were born in the late 1950s. When you were in high school, glam rock would’ve been popular. On I’ve Lived a Rich Life you mention your parents telling you to play Johnny Cash. Were they big country fans?
Jeffrey: Totally. They’d watch a lot of the country shows that were on in the late ‘60s. Buck Owens and Porter Wagoner had shows.
Ryan: Johnny Cash did too.
Jeffrey: Yeah. I’m not the first to say it—rock ‘n’ roll, blues and country have a lot of the same chord progressions and lyrical messages. I absorbed a lot of the music my family was into. There were also dance shows on after school at that time like Hullabaloo. Lloyd Thaxton had a show. Being from a small town, I got a lot of my exposure to music from television. Live music was almost unheard of in Findlay. I remember going into the grocery store and they’d have three bins of LPs. Above them were the 45s. Being a kid, I didn’t have any money. I’d look at the records and dream about what they sounded like. I’d check out the clothes the bands would wear and try to get a hold of them; the big square belt buckles. What I couldn’t get on TV, I’d just make up the rest in my mind. I started taking guitar lessons at nine years old. But I didn’t really apply myself. When I was a teenager, I got my guitar out again. I started playing in bands with people who were more advanced in their playing than I was. I learned things from them much more quickly than had I kept taking lessons.
Ryan: I know that Charlie Feathers ranks really high with you. He also had a big impact on Tav Falco and Nikki Sudden. A lot of younger people reading this may not be familiar with him. Can you talk about the influence Charlie Feathers had on you?
Jeffrey: Charlie was at Sun before Elvis, cutting demos. Charlie would bring a song to Sam Phillips. Sam would say, “That’s not right for you, Charlie.” That’s what happened to “Tongue Tied Jill.” Charlie later recorded for King and Meteor, but Sun Records was the Cadillac of record labels. There was a tribute to Sun that aired; I can’t remember what it was called. Younger guys did songs with some of the older guys. Paul McCartney was on there. It was a good thing. Billy Lee Riley, who had some success in his later years, still had a chip on his shoulder about his time with Sun Records. He had a song that was released around the same time Jerry Lee Lewis had one out. Sun only had so much money for promotion, so they spent it on Jerry Lee. Billy kind of got pushed aside. But those guys felt like they only had one chance. They didn’t see music as something they’d be doing at fifty. They were twenty-two and didn’t see their careers lasting more than a couple of years. They were hoping to make enough money in that short span to see them through later on. Your success was based on how many records you sold. Carl Perkins picked cotton.
Ryan: Billy Lee Riley picked cotton too.
Jeffrey: Making records was clean work. It wasn’t picking cotton. When “Blue Suede Shoes” came out, Carl Perkins was living in public housing. As the song went up the charts he was still living there. The labels don’t tell you that you don’t get paid that day. It takes a while. Back to Charlie Feathers: He could sing and write as well as anybody. People have pointed out that he was illiterate. I remember him signing autographs at Shangri-La Records. It took him a couple of minutes to sign his name. It wasn’t like Charlie was going to write a paragraph on your record. He could sign his name and that was about it. People like to make that out as a level of Charlie’s intelligence, but it wasn’t. He phrased things well. He had that song, “We’re Getting Closer To Being Apart”. It was a clever play on words. He had so many of those. They show the depth of his emotion. Whether you can write your name or not, you can write a song. I always tried to take that lesson to heart. Don’t sell people short. There was also a change that happened to rockabilly singers. Johnny Mathis later cut pop and country records. Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich went country. Charlie Feathers never changed. He stayed with his own version of rockabilly. In the ‘70s, his son (Bubba) played lead guitar for him. He had embraced the wah-wah pedal. Things that were not considered straight rockabilly, Charlie went with. It’s funny. Being from California, I’m sure you get a lot of the retro rockabilly bands. They play letter perfect songs. Straight out of 1954, with absolutely no distortion on their guitars; the amps are set at three. I liked Charlie’s approach. He didn’t change his music but he kept his mind open. “Well, my son plays guitar this way, so we’ll throw that in the mix.” There was something about Charlie Feathers, and people like Gene Vincent and Bobby Lee Trammell, that really appealed to me. I remember when I met Cordell Jackson for the first time, she said, “I think I have a song you can sing.” It wasn’t a criticism of my voice. It fit my vocal range. I’m more of shouter. They thought like that.
It’s odd, thinking about the monetary success versus the actual art that was produced on those 45s. There were records released on smaller labels than Sun. They might have had only a few hundred pressed up, but they’re world-famous records. You can find a great rockabilly or garage 45, put it on eBay, and someone in, say, Finland will buy it. It’s likely they know more about the record than you do.
When I moved to Memphis Charlie had stopped playing regularly. I did get to see him play live two or three times. But I don’t know what it was like back in the day.
Ryan: You have that great line in “In The Company of Kings”: “I think about Charlie Feathers and what must have been going through his mind.”
Jeffrey: Yeah. All of those guys were at the same place (Sun Records) where greatness struck. Elvis was considered too wild. Of course Charlie Feathers, Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis were much wilder. Elvis was living in a mansion while Charlie was living in a modest house. The music we are involved in today has no commercial potential. But back then, there were regional markets and airplay. Someone could have success.
Ryan: That’s right. That reminds me of the story of Tommy James and The Shondells. The group had fallen apart, but a DJ (in Pittsburgh) found their “Hanky Panky” 45 long after it was released. His airplay made it a regional hit. It revived James’ career. Nowadays, everything is much more spread out. Like you were saying, someone in Finland might buy that rare 45 and know everything about it.
Jeffrey: We’ve got the Internet now. I like to joke that, “The fanzine world is my private world. But the Internet is something my mother has the same access to.” I remember we were playing in Holland, and they were streaming us playing live. My mother was watching it back in Ohio. It’s bizarre. But I liked it better when it was a secret world. It wasn’t that long ago. Only about thirty years ago.
There was a glimmer of hope in the early ‘90s. Nirvana was playing a different type of music than us. It was unsettling to a lot of people but it started selling. It got you thinking, “Maybe our music will catch on and we can make a living at it.”
Ryan: It’s easy to see the parallels between Charlie Feather’s career and your own. Charlie did a lot of blue-collar jobs throughout his life. While he might not have had much commercial success, it didn’t stop him.
Jeffrey: Oh, yeah. You used a good term there: blue collar. Charlie was blue collar. Of course, Elvis was too. He was a truck driver and an electrician by trade. I’m not sure if Elvis became an official electrician.
Ryan: He drove the company’s truck.
Jeffrey: He did. There was a show called Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour. Elvis wasn’t on that show, but The Rock and Roll Trio were. Paul Burlison, the Rock and Roll Trio's guitar player, worked at Crown Electric with Elvis. Elvis was a pretty good truck driver. Paul Burlison and Elvis didn’t think playing guitar would put food on the table for any prolonged period of time. Peter Guralnick described Charlie Feathers as a part-time stock car racer and ambulance driver among other things. But Charlie considered himself a musician, a songwriter.
Ryan: Before you formed the Gibson Bros, you went to Ohio State and got an MFA in photography. You were a teacher there as well.
Jeffrey: I did. I taught as a graduate student. They gave me free tuition and health care. I got a $500 a month stipend. And you could live off that back then. I had three old Cadillacs. It was about a half hour procedure to decide which one to drive that day. I had a leaky transmission in one, so I’d have to fill it up every time I’d drive it. That was an interesting period of time. I worked for a weekly newspaper, taught, and shot one or two weddings. I figured out photography wasn’t for me. At the same time I was doing music. I formed The Gibson Bros. during that period. Music was a much more immediate thing. You can get a show in a week. With photography, it can take two years to get an exhibition together. Music had a better rush to it. I was going to flea markets two to three times a week, buying records. I’d say to the band, “We should cover this song off this record I just bought.” We’d learn it on Wednesday and play it on Thursday at a bar.
Ryan: The Gibson Bros. were doing something different.
Jeffrey: Dan (Dow) owns a record store now, but back then he worked at a record store for someone else. He was a collector and so was I. We were a good mix. I was interested in rockabilly and country. Ellen (Hoover) had a good sense of rhythm and timing. None of us had a great mastery of our instruments. There weren’t many subcategories in Columbus at that time. You had one crowd who supported all of the underground music. There weren’t rock or metal crowds. I had a vision of pompadours and matching cowboy outfits.
Ryan: The cover of Build a Raft, where you guys are playing at an elementary school, is so great. You’re grinning ear to ear, playing a huge hollow body. Ellen’s dressed up country, but it’s sort of ‘80s country.
Jeffrey: Exactly. People have always been strict about rules. The Cramps were too far gone for people who were fans of traditional rockabilly. That’s what made The Cramps so great. It did cross my mind that covering someone like Hank Williams—there was a grey line where it could become irreverent. It wasn’t irreverent because of the attitude, but because of the volume and the use of fuzz and slide guitar. Thinking that it’d be irreverent to cover one of his songs in that way today would never cross my mind—we’re used to combining genres—but at the time it was more of a risk.
Ryan: I know what you’re saying. I interviewed Dave Alvin once and he said that blues purists in Los Angeles absolutely hated Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club.
Jeffrey: What Jeffery (Lee Pierce) was doing wasn't irreverent. It just came out different. The purists were more professional. When we were doing The Gibson Bros., they’d tell us, “Use a tuner.” Well, we did use a tuner before we got on stage. But I guess we didn’t know enough to keep in tune. I play with Ross Johnson a lot now. He said to me, “The music you guys were playing—not only could you not get a gig, but you could get beat up for playing it.” Times have come a long way. Even commercials today use music that some would consider atonal. I remember the Rotters had that song about Stevie Nicks.
Ryan: “Sit On My Face Stevie Nicks.”
Jeffrey: Yeah. The nerve they had to put that song on a record is great. In some ways, that helped bring down the walls.
Ryan: What I really like about The Gibson Bros. was your transformative use of songs. On Dedicated Fool, you have “Lone Wild Bird”—a traditional song—but there’s also an Alice Cooper cover on it. They mesh so well together on the album.
Jeffrey: There was something uncool about covering Alice Cooper. It’s almost as if we were making a statement. It’s like having all the right clothes on but wearing the wrong shoes.
Ryan: You got to record at Sun Records with the Gibson Bros. For someone like you, who made the pilgrimage to Memphis, that must have been an incredible experience, although I know the circumstances surrounding the session for Memphis Sol Today weren’t great.
Jeffrey: I got to record at my dream studio a month before my band broke up. We recorded it the day after a thirty-day tour. We were tired, but really tight. It was bittersweet. It meant so much to me, but our drummer, Rich Lillash, had never recorded in a studio before. We had all these vintage guitars and amps that were available. Don (Howland) had this pawnshop, solid state Crate amp. It was a fifty dollar amp. I told Don, “Hey, why don’t you try one of these amps they’ve got?” He said, “No. I’m cool. I’ve got my tone.” That was pretty cool. The budget for the record wasn’t much. Sun was charging about one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy-five an hour. It sounded really high. The owner at the time had just worked with U2. That raised the price. Then again, we did the record in eight hours. It cost less than two thousand dollars. But we had just been in a lawsuit with Norton Records.
Ryan: That was from the A-Bones sample on The Man Who Loved Couch Dancing.
Jeffrey: Yeah. Homestead was really mad at us. They settled out of court with the A-Bones for a small amount. It was more of a symbolic victory. It might have been a month’s rent in New York City. Eight hundred dollars. All the press was favorable toward us. They ran photos of Miriam (Linna) posing in front of a Neo-Nazi organization. The A-Bones got all the shit thrown at them. We put the needle down on their record, recorded it, and spliced it onto our album. That was the era when Michael Jackson was being sampled by rap bands. It was like a seven second rule—any sample longer than that and you could get sued. We didn’t know the rule and we didn’t care. It was funny. The A-Bones went to the company that handled the Michael Jackson samples in New York. Homestead was pissed. I remember we got a call on tour from them. They said, “Don’t sell anymore copies of Couch Dancing at your shows.” I told them, “Sorry. That’s our gas money.”
Ryan: Gibson Bros. records go for good money. Any chance of reissues?
Jeffrey: We signed a contract with Homestead that was for perpetuity. I’m not sure where the masters are. Long Gone John was interested in reissuing them. He was sent a letter, telling him that he couldn’t. He took the letter, peed on it, wrote in crayon, “Sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing,” and sent it back. I don’t know what’ll ever happen with that stuff. Luckily most of it is online. In the back of my mind, I always hope someone cool bought one of my records.
Ryan: Alex Chilton did.
Jeffrey: He did.
Ryan: It’s all about quality over quantity.
Jeffrey: It is. And just trying to stay happy and not taking the business side too seriously. It’s a great hobby and great art form, but it’s a shitty business.
Jeffrey Evans with the CC Riders, Gonerfest 10. Photo by Mor Fleisher-Leach
