Hop aboard! The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band extends an invitation on the opening track of its new disc:
“Let’s go everywhere, let’s do everything/ Let’s raise a sail, let’s jump a train,” Peyton encourages over electrifying guitar playing that sounds like a runaway locomotive rocketing down the line.
“Because it’s just one guitar, it makes it seem that much more kind of insane and off the rails because the way the song is — it’s about adventure, it’s supposed to be exciting. I wanted it to feel like a train that was literally about to come off the tracks,” Peyton said of “Let’s Jump a Train.”
Expect an explosion of sound on the trio’s fifth disc, “So Delicious!” Peyton is the engineer, his fingerpicking six-string assault driving the raucous old-timey music.
“The beginning of American music is the country-blues,” the singer-songwriter said. “And the people that played that music at the very beginning, they played finger-style guitar, where they’re playing the bass with their thumb as they’re playing the melody with their fingers.
“When I first heard someone do that, it just absolutely blew my mind as a kid. I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard, and I became obsessed with it — and still am.”
Fueled by that fascination, Peyton and his band — wife and washboard player Breezy Peyton and drummer Ben Bussell — are spreading their punkified country-blues gospel.
“I think the best way to keep music genres that have a heritage alive is just make good music,” he said during a call from his home in Brown County, Indiana. “That’s the hope that we can take this stuff and bring it out of the museums and into people’s lives and do so by making music that matters now and that feels good to people.”
Fans are listening. “The Whole Fam Damnily” entered the Billboard Blues Album chart at No. 4 in 2008. “The Wages” with the hit “Clap Your Hands” came in at No. 2 in 2010 as did 2012’s “Between the Ditches.”
“Music is like a religious experience for me. I’m so relentless and obsessed with it, passionate about it, that it’s hard for me to even describe it,” Peyton said. “I’m like a little kid about it. And I kind of feel like that’s the way to approach music. I think it’s almost better to be like a little kid about it.
“Little kids, they don’t think about it too much; they sort of just feel music. Little kids aren’t afraid to dance, and they’re not afraid to sing along, and they’re not afraid to clap along. They don’t care about what other people think. There’s no guilty pleasures for little kids; they like what they like.”
The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band will play at 7 p.m. March 1 at Frankie’s Inner City, 138 Main St. Andrew Ellis and the Ben Stalets Band will open. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
