WCBU’s Daniel Musisi spoke with Rev about their latest album, "Dance Songs for Hard Times," and about making music during the pandemic, and about returning to Kenny's for their first show since 2020.
Rev Peyton: It should have been a really perfect show. The crowd was great. It was good. But already the vibe was strange. People were scared. And at that time, in March 2020, no one knew exactly how bad things were going to be. So I'm hoping to come back now and kind of put some better memories in the old memory bank, you know what I mean?
Daniel Musisi: Yeah, totally. And so Rev, you're from Brown County, Indiana, and it seems to be a source of inspiration for your music. What about Brown County led you on a path to music? Or in what ways does it spark your drive to create?
Rev Peyton: Brown County is a very musical place, actually. There's just a ton of music in these hills here, you know, a ton of it. And then apart from that, too, you know, I, when I was young like most kids, you kind of think, ‘Oh, what do we have here, you know, or, there's no culture here, can't wait to leave. And then if we leave, and you look back, at the place where you came from, you know, sometimes you actually have to step back and look at it, and you realize, oh, wow, there was a ton of culture here. Because most the time, you don't recognize your own culture, because that's just what it is. That's what's your life, you look at other people, and look at their culture, look at what they're doing, look what they're all about. And it's like, right here. In this part of the world, there is a ton of culture. So I think there's plenty to sort of… mine from that, you know, there's plenty of humanity and inspiration, you can definitely mine from that. So that's what I've sort of, at least attempted to do is to, you know, to make a big part of musically what we're about, kind of about here. But it's really just because I make such autobiographical songs.
When you're making personal music like that, it must be absolutely lived in. I love it when I hear people feel that it came through, because to me that that's something very important to me.
Daniel Musisi: So let's talk about some of the music on your latest album, "Dance Songs for Hard Times." These songs are really cleverly written, mostly upbeat in feel and tempo. And I mean, you really come strong out the gate with songs like "Ways and Means," "Rattle Can," "Dirty Hustlin." And though they span a wide range of emotions, from joy to desperation to uncertainty, I love that in light of it all, it's kind of rooted in positivity with the common thread of dance. Was this project an exercise to get you through the pandemic that turned into something special? Or just how did it come about?
Rev Peyton: Well, when the pandemic hit, I was working on a record. And we've had talks about when we're getting in the studio, we're gonna do rehearsals, we had all this stuff planned, I had a bunch of stuff that I had kind of been working on. And then when the pandemic hit, it just felt like everything was different. You know, I mean, everything I had been doing was different. It was just like, I've got to go back to the drawing board here a little bit, and start writing. Writing in a way that I've never done before. Like, if you ever talk to somebody they go, I write songs every day. Well, they may, you know, work on songs every day, but they don't write good songs every day, you know. I'm working on music every day, but I'm not writing a great song every day, right? And the songs on this record all just kind of came out in like, just a few days’ time. When we're sitting around in our house, and it actually was the beginning of the pandemic, everything was shut down, Breezy was really sick, and our power went out. Anybody who knows anything about living in rural America, that's one of the problems - is the power go out, and you might be out of power two, three days. So it was one of those times we’d been out of power for like three days. And we were just sitting there and it was just, I felt so far away from everybody and everything and just so lonesome, and I was scared about everything. And I think you know that sort of just caused me to write.
When that was done, you know, things were looking like, ‘OK, what do we do with this?’ Like, well, this is a this is a record. You know, this is an entire record. And the working title was "Dance Songs for Hard Times." And I'm so happy that we're gonna be back out on the road doing this. It's been a long time and I'm really hopeful and I'm really excited and I hope other people are too I don't know. I hope they are too.
To learn more about The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band and to hear their latest album "Dance Songs for Hard Times", visit The Reverend Peyton's Bag Damn Band website.
