JESSE DAYTON: It’s just the way he is.

JESSE DAYTON: it’s just the way he is.  (oct 2018)

Jesse Dayton has been building a cult following around the globe for years with his guitar shredding, country-infused, Americana sound. Jesse was hired at a young age to play lead guitar on some of the last recordings, by country legends Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, Johnny Cash, & Glen Campbell. Sensing a shift in the music business climate, Jesse formed his own label in 2002, Stag Records. He has released five solo records, one duet record, one live record, all on Stag, as well as two soundtrack recordings (Devil’s Rejects, Halloween 2) for rocker/director Rob Zombie. Jesse has acted in movies and music videos, produced several records for other artists (the latest being Supersuckers front man Eddie Spaghetti’s “The Value Of Nothing”, and recently wrote and directed a new horror movie, “Zombex.,” Innocent words caught up to the Austin Texas musician on the Distinguished Delinquents tour with the Supersuckers and Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band in support of his new album The Revealer.

RRB: Thanks for giving me 20 minutes, I got your album three months ago, and I had no idea who you were but your PR gal said “hey I think you’ll love this,” and wow and she was dead on. How have I not known about you and your 25 plus year career?

Jesse Dayton: It’s weird man.

RRRB: Will this be the beginning of your twenty-year overnight success story?  

Jesse Dayton: I don’t know, maybe there is some justice in the world. I got the cover of No Depression a couple days ago, an unsung hero thing, and it was done well. Acts like me need cheerleaders, I don’t think any of these cool bands overs the years, whether it’s some country singer or the replacements, would had ever made the light of day if people wouldn’t have written about them.  there still some validity to that.

RRB: The new album (The Revealer) is out on Blue Elan, and is the first in ten years not on your own label.

Jesse Dayton: Yes, they did give me my own imprint, Hard Charger Records, it’s cool they have encouraged me to work with other people and do my thing. This record was done at a legendary studio in Houston Texas called Sugar Hill. It was so vibey and so cool. It was like the ghosts of Doug Sahm, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones and Freddie Fender, all these guys in the room. I put up all these cool room mic’s “let’s get the Sound of the Room,” ya know. It sounds like that. I’m really happy with this record. The way the vocals sound. I played a bunch of different styles of guitar on there, which I love.

RRB: You played all the leads? Cause it smokes.

Jesse Dayton: Thanks. I played all the guitars on the record, I am proud of it.

IRRB: Now you’re out on the road with the Supersuckers until when?  

Jesse Dayton: Yeah we are out until December. It’s crazy. I long history with those guys. I played guitar on “Must Have Been High.” Their biggest selling record. I produced Eddie’s last record and played all the guitar on that. That “I must have been high,” thing was ahead of its time. I was opening up for them and going out and playing country music and the punk guys were just like “what? “They just had no idea what the hell we were doing. Within like a year or so after these punk rock guys are walking around wearing Johnny Cash shirts with him flipping the bird. Things just changed.  I feel like I was doing that before Mike Ness, and before Hank the third. My record came out in 94 and it was full on honky-tonk shit and I went out and toured with X. and Supersuckers and Social D. because of that it gave me a bigger cult following than if I had stuck with roots or Rockabilly bands. Nobody in Nashville wanted to take me out on tour.

RRB: Do you think it was because you’re to “real Country.” For the new country acts of Nashville?

Jesse Dayton: Yeah. I was kind of dangerous. I Didn’t give shit. Partying and running wild. I was not the boy next store. It hurt me with the mainstream. You got be who you are.

RRB: How many years did you play for Waylon (Jennings)?

JD: I played on his last two records. We played some stuff and that was the end.  I had get my own deal going. I did some work with Johnny (Cash) and did Poncho and Lefty with Willy (Nelson). I did a whole Ray Price record.

RRB: I read all that about you and could not believe I am just hearing about you.

Jesse Dayton: The deal is, I’m fifty and people think I’m younger than I am. Thank God. No fault of my own and all the clean livin’ I do, but people look at me and say “You’re not old enough to have played with those guys.” Well I was 26, years old. I had some really great times with those guys. I did the Crook and Chase Nashville TV show. I was not supposed to be on there. I was on with Kristofferson. Me and him immediately bonded because we are like these two weirdo’s and everybody else is super mainstream Nashville. Kris is like “what you doing, let’s hang out.” So we smoked a joint in the back of this rental car in the parking lot and started talked about books, it was the greatest. He got the Gibson guitar factory to open up for us. We hung hard. I go to my motel room and the next morning Waylon calls and said “hey I was watching you last night, all of us were watching because Kris was on TV, you want to come play on a song today?”

RRB; Wow! You said YES Sir What Time?

Jesse Dayton: Exactly! I hauled ass over to Woodland Studios. I knocked on the door and Johnny Cash opened the door. He goes “you gonna stand there with your mouth open or you gonna come in and play guitar?’

RRB: You Met Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash in the first 24 hrs. of being in Nashville?

Jesse Dayton: In Like eight hours. It was crazy.  Cash was so funny him and Waylon had just got done watching Aliens, so Cash was on the microphone with a bunch of reverb going “We’re all fucked and doomed,” he was doing the Bill Paxton line.  There is footage of that on You Tube. I did the whole record and it started the whole shebang. Going up there and working with those guys and having them throw my name around. Right after than I got the Ray Price thing. That was crazy, I showed up and it was Jr. Brown and pedal Steel, which he doesn’t play much of, and I played all the Telecaster.

RRB: Those are sessions that don’t happen anymore.

Jesse Dayton: No, No, it doesn’t happen. I t was great I got to know Shooter (Jennings) real well, we went and got Dr. pepper in the General Lee.

RRB: You are a natural story teller and the new album is full of great ones, is any of it true?

Jesse Dayton: A lot of is true and based on stories I heard. Like ‘Daddy Was A Bad Ass’ is not just about my dad it’s about my uncles and some other characters from that area. The whole record is about trying to escape all these insane characters. I almost have survivor’s guilt because I made it out. There all the stuff there. You’ve got “Ms. Victoria,” with the civil rights issues. It’s completely true, she was my nanny and took care of me. I wrote that song in about five minutes with tears in my eyes. “Eatin’ Crow And Drinkin’ Sand” is about a bunch of rural people being conned into not voting their interest, by a Well Witcher. It’s about not being worthy of real love and all these crazy characters I met when I was a kid growing up in east Texas in the 70’s. We had a 24hr Cajun radio station were no-one spoke English. We had a local honky tonk country music station that was old school. The newest thing they played was ‘Amarillo By Morning,’ by George Straight. We didn’t have a rock n roll station for a while. I had to find out about Punk by going to Austin or Huston.

RRB: That’s must have been a culture shock.

Jesse Dayton: It was like being saved. “Wow, I’m not that weird and there’s other people like me.” The Clash and X saved me from going to Foghat concerts. You know what I mean. Los Angelis and London Calling were it for me, those two albums, I just wore them out.   This record for me is about me going deep into myself.

RRB: Is that who The Revealer is, you opening up and letting go of your past?

Jesse Dayton: Yeah totally, being vulnerable and letting my freak flag fly. I don’t sing about retro things, I don’t care about pink Cadillac’s and poodle skirts and that kind of music. I want to sing about stuff that’s real.  What musicians miss is, they don’t realize the real true power of who they are, is being who they are.

RRB: “They Way Are,” is a straight up Waylon Jennings type of song.

Jesse Dayton: Yes. The reason I did that and ‘Possum Ran Over My Grave,’ which is about George Jones, is because I hear all these mainstream Nashville guys dropping their names and they sound nothing like them. I am kind of at that “What The Hell have I got to lose,” point in my career. Which is why the record sounds that way it does. It did it for myself and I don’t give a shit. I’m not trying to play the game and be an Americana guy or a retro guy, punk rock or whatever. So the Waylon thing, yeah let’s just do a real Waylon beat when is the last time somebody did that.   ‘Holy Ghost Rock N Roller,’ is another true story about this tent Revivalist Pentecostal preacher guy. He used to see me at the Piggly Wiggly. He was so creepy. Those people scared when I was kid.

RRB: Who is the voice on the intro to that song?

Jesse Dayton: That’s Jimmy Snow. He was Hank Snow’s son who became a super right wing preacher who had a radio show during the fifties. With his crazy voice sayin’ “it’s the beat, and and, and it’s evil.”

RRB: Kind of pertinent to what is going on today in the media.

Jesse Dayton: I don’t understand it. I kind of feel sorry for America. We are so divided, because corporations have divided us. Whether its media or gun manufacturers, the Kock brothers, whoever. They all are perpetuating this thing. Half of us are buying into it and the other half of us are calling bullshit on it. there’s not much common ground. I’m an independent voter.

RRB: You think people coming out to your shows are like minded folks.

Jesse Dayton: Yeah, but I get a lot of good old boys too. I don’t talk about politics on stage ever. I’ve seen Steve Earl and James McMurtry run people off. There not there for my political views. Go to my Face Book page and you’ll find out.

RRB: I had a theory that the song “Never Started Living’” is about music and your guitar.

Jesse Dayton: Well that song is about an ex-wife, and boy was I wrong about that. The song really is about me, and growing up and trying to take responsibility for your bullshit. It’s hard lesson for young people. I just grew up in the last few years. I had a kid when I was super young, that will change the game for you.

RRB: Let’s talk about guitars and stuff.

Jesse Dayton: The guitar stuff we did on the record we cut live with me just going for it. We used some pretty cool amplifiers. Couple of early 60’s black face super reverbs. I played a Telecaster and this King guitar I am playing tonight.  Not a lot of effects on it. I put a little phasor on “The Way We Are,’ for the Waylon thing. Maybe there’s a little Slapback on a couple songs. It’s all pretty much plug in a go

RRB: Is that the same with your road set up?

Jesse Dayton: Yeah, I have a few pedals I use with the band. Like a tremolo just to changed it up. 90% of the show I’m just playing straight in to the amp.

RRB:” The Tone is all in your fingers.

Jesse Dayton: Yes, tone is in your fingers. I can sound like myself on any guitar I play. That’s cool. I’m glad I’ve achieved that. A lot of my friend’s sound exactly like a lot of other people. Those are guys with a bag of tricks, they can do many things but it’s like “who are you?” 

RRB: When is Capt. Clegg coming back?

Jesse Dayton: Man Don’t think we’re ever gonna do that again. I mean we get asked to play a Halloween show every year. And they play the shows on the radio. Rob Zombie came in and helped me reimagine what my career could be. He is a genius. People have no idea. They look at that guy and think he’s completely out of his mind. Because of his stage persona, but he is incredibly smart and he works more than anyone I know. Him and Jerry have been really cool to me.

RRB: Will there be a Zombex II?

Jesse Dayton: We probably won’t do that, but we are talking about going to Canada and doing a film next year. I’m excited about that. The first thing is in January we’ll put together the new record, and put it out the same time next year. I’ve got the best band I’ve ever had right now, with Chris Rhoades as my bass player and Kevin Charney on drums. We are just three piece and never miss the other instruments, everybody sings and everybody’s is musical.

RRB: “You can’t help the way that you are”. You are waving the freak flag for every musician on that tune. None of us can help it.

Jesse Dayton: Yeah man thanks. I appreciate it.

Rick J Bowen  © 2020