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Dallas’ Reverend Horton Heat makes honky-tonk music for punk-rock audiences. While that’s the three-man band’s agenda in a nutshell, nothing about the Rev is ever obvious. The group’s style has been called punkabilly, thanks to a career of sometimes mixing punk with rockabilly. Then there’s also the psychobilly tag, a reference to RHH’s song lyrics. They can be funny, off-kilter and sardonic.
Don’t let any of those colorful adjectives fool you into thinking they are the band is a novelty act. Guitarist and vocalist Jim “Reverend Horton” Heath, upright bassist Jimbo Wallace and drummer Paul Simmons are accomplished musicians with raw talent. There’s always a retro vibe to the sound, especially on 2009’s Laughin’ & Cryin’ With the Reverend Horton Heat. The trio’s latest studio effort goes for a ’50s and ’60s honky-tonk ambience.
Yet rock, even of the hard variety, is never out of reach. “Death Metal Guys,” a rip-roaring track from Laughin’ & Cryin’, has a riveting rhythm inspired by thrash metal. So it’s no wonder that Heath makes an appearance in Lemmy, the recent theatrical documentary about Motörhead founder Lemmy Kilmister. Heath is on hand to help revere the heavy-metal godfather.
Other than that, Heath and his bandmates are on the road as usual. They are already booked through July. There are plenty of Texas dates, but there are also stops in New York, Vermont, Maryland, Ohio, California and Arizona, to name a few.
-- Mario Tarradell
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