Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I did quite a lot of interviews during the first two days of the 2010 Vans Warped Tour but out of everyone who was playing the festival (and trust me, there’s a lot of bands), one of the bands I was most excited to speak to was Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band.

On last year’s Warped Tour I considered the band to be “the most punk band despite being decidedly unpunk” and I spoke of their live show constantly. The results of my conversation with Reverend Peyton and his wife, “Washboard” Breezy Peyton, could not have gone any better. They were exactly as you would imagine and gave some of the most quotable answers I’ve ever heard (I mean “in a margarine world, we are butter” and “they’re either good or they’re bad – it doesn’t matter what’s in their pants;” you can’t get better one liners than that). They were down to earth and, like they claimed, incredibly real and unafraid to speak plainly and honestly about anything and everything.

The conversation once again proved that Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band is one of the most punk bands around despite being decidedly unpunk.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, today is the first day of the 2010 Vans Warped Tour – are you guys excited for it?

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Bobby: You guys played two weeks on it last year; so do you have any tips or advice for anybody who hasn’t done it before?

Reverend Peyton: If you’ve never been out here before and never seen what Warped Tour’s all about, it’s really hard to explain. It’s unlike any other festival we’ve ever been apart of it and we’ve played blues fests and country fests and roots fests and rock fests. All the big fests like Summer Camp and Wakarusa and Austin City Limits and this is just so different. It’s so unlike all that. There’s just so much to do. The thing with this fest is you’ve gotta get here early, you gotta wear lots of sunscreen, and get ready to have your walking shoes on because you want to really throw yourself in there and see as much as you can – there’s lots to see.

Bobby: This is one of the more gruelling tours you can do. Its 43 cities in 51 days, the days are long, it’s hot and the drives are even longer. Do you guys bring anything to the Warped Tour that you wouldn’t normally bring to a regular tour?

Reverend Peyton: We learned last summer that some of these… I guess the haul from the load in area to the stage and to the merch area is so far that we saved up and we bought a golf cart this year. [laughs] Yep. So we’ve got a damn golf cart out here.

Breezy: It’s nice for our tour manager running merch and it’s nice for us just driving around and having fun.

Bobby: I also see Bryan from the Souls riding his bike around backstage. You guys have one upped up, “screw the bike, I got a golf cart man.”

Reverend Peyton: Yep! [laughs]

Bobby: The bike’s old school, it’s all about the golf cart now. Last year, the tour switched up the main stage setup from having two stages to only one where they played forty minutes instead of thirty minutes. This kind of made it so kids had to go walk around and explore the side stages a bit more. Are you glad they did that? Do you see that as a positive change?

Reverend Peyton: Well yeah.

Breezy: It helps us.

Reverend Peyton: It definitely helps us. Well, I don’t know for sure, but I’m sure it had to have helped us at our stage.

Bobby: Well, I saw you guys at Warped Tour last year in Calgary and for me, your set was probably the highlight of my day at Warped Tour because it was just very different than anything else on the Warped Tour. It’s a very unique sound and it was incredibly entertaining.  So just walking around and seeing you guys was probably the highlight.

Breezy: That’s the thing about Warped Tour; we stick out like a sore thumb. For better or for worse, kids at least look to say “what the hell’s going on over there?” Usually they say they like it, so that’s the lucky thing for us.

Bobby: There’s not that many washboards on the tour.

Breezy: No, there’s not a lot of washboard competition, that’s for sure

Bobby: If there ever is a washboard competition, you have it in the bag.

Breezy: I’m by far the best washboard player here.

Bobby:  And then you have your cousin that plays the five gallon bucket that is quite odd to be on the Warped Tour as well.

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah, yep; he’s excited. We all are man. You know, I tell you, I’m not trying to knock anybody or any particular band because it really has nothing to do with that. I think our culture in general; I think people are starved for something that’s real. There’s a lot of bands out here that are real and there’s some that ain’t; but I can tell you this much: love us or hate us, in a margarine world, we are butter.

That’s all there is to it. If nothing else, we want to be the thing out here that’s real. Or at least part of what’s real. I mean there’s over a hundred bands, and I don’t know if I could name you a hundred bands right now that I like even. So you’re going to come to a festival like this with so many bands and you’re going to see some stuff you don’t like. But I tell you what, if you want to, you can really get into stuff that’s great and I just hope that as this tour continues, the kids come out and they check us out and they see that at least if nothing else, we’re real. We’re part of that that’s real.

Bobby: Well that’s one good thing about Warped Tour too, that you could have a fan that comes out to see – as you call them – the margarine bands, the generic bands or whatever and they can just walk and discover you guys or GBH or The Bouncing Souls or something like that. It’s kind of a cool atmosphere to just walk around and be introduced to all these new bands that you normally wouldn’t hear. Do you think it is positive to have all these different styles and genres mixed in together?

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s definitely a good thing. When I was younger man, I was way more like “I like this and that’s it.” As I’ve gotten older, I can’t really put a finger on what it is that I like, just as long as it’s real. That’s the thing. Whatever it is, I just don’t like something that’s fake. I don’t like being fed bullshit. I don’t like being lied to in music or anything. If something’s real and it’s this, that or the other, it does not matter to me. It’s all about being real.

Breezy: I think that’s the essence of punk. People say “what is punk rock?” or whatever; I think punk rock was just music that is just real. It was in your face and it wasn’t a whole bunch of bull crap or people in costumes out there. It was real people, saying things that really bothered them. When they were pissed off, they say they’re pissed off.  I think that’s why we do well on a tour like this where there’s a lot of punk bands. We’re not punk by any means I don’t think but I think a lot of our fans think we are and if that’s the case and they see us as punk, then I guess we’re punk.

Bobby: Well the way I always liked to describe you guys when I was explaining last year’s Warped Tour was I would always say that you guys were the most punk band despite being decidedly un-punk. [Rev. Peyton and Breezy laugh]

Reverend Peyton: Thanks.

Bobby: That, to me, encapsulated you guys. It was the most punk but so not punk.

Breezy: A lot of kids get hung up and they go “well, to be punk rock, you have to have a giant Mohawk and you have to have studs on your shirt and you have to have safety pins…” but that’s not what punk rocks about. The beginning of punk rock, if they came and saw some of these kids they would go “what the hell happened?” You know what I mean? It’s about being real.

Bobby: You said that when you were younger you would only listen to one thing and that’s all. With Warped Tour having so many sounds and styles, it can kind of expand that young kid’s musical palette and make them see “oh, there is more than just my stuff.”

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah, I hope so. That’s part of the thing that’s lucky for us. It’s lucky for us that Kevin Lyman and the people that put this together decided to take a chance on a band like us. Take a chance on a few of the other bands out here that maybe don’t necessarily fit in with whatever’s the cool thing on MySpace is right now. You know what I mean?

Bobby: Yeah; like you said, you guys are a little bit of a unique band on the Warped Tour. Do you ever feel out of your element while you’re playing on the Warped Tour or does it not really bother you at all?

Breezy: Not on stage generally. When we’re on the stage, it goes back and forth. So a band plays before, and we go “how are any of the people who like that music going to like our music?” But for some reason it always works out. Because we did it two weeks last year, we got a lot of confidence. Going into it years ago was scary.

The first time we did a tour with Flogging Molly we kind of were scared to go up there and do our thing for their fans. We love their music; we were just like “man, I just don’t know.” I think if you go in there with the confidence, people are going to feel that confidence. If you go up there and you’re nervous people are going to hate it, then that’s probably going to be their response.

Bobby: With so many bands, you kind of have to exude that certain amount of confidence otherwise people will say “I’m not going to waste my time with these guys.” You gotta have belief in your self if you want to sell yourself.

Reverend Peyton: That’s true anytime you get up on stage. That’s sometimes the hardest thing to muster but you’ve got to. You stand up there and play music in front of a bunch of people looking at you, staring at you – you gotta have that. I tell you what; I don’t feel out of my element here because I don’t know that we’re in our element anywhere. I don’t know that we’re ever necessarily in our element. We’ve always snuck in the back door of places.

Breezy: There is no rural blues scene. There is no country blues scene. They don’t have their own festival or anything like that.

Reverend Peyton: And what we do is different than that anyway. We go to a blues fest and we stick out like a sore thumb. We play a folk fest and we stick out like a sore thumb.

Breezy: Last year, right before the Warped Tour, we played Sturgis, we played the Vancouver Folk Fest, we did a blues festival and then we did Warped Tour. There’s no band in the world that can do all that; and all of them were great for us.

Bobby: It makes you guys a lot more versatile.

Reverend Peyton: That’s been the secret to our success. We’ve grown up from little seeds and we did it by just saying “hey, we’ll play anywhere. We’ll play in front of anybody, it don’t matter Just put us in front of people, just give us a chance.”

Bobby: Which is what you need to do. You have to some bands now who say “oh, I’ll only play if it’s this big a venue” when you need to say “I’ll play for two people, I’ll play for one person if I have to.”

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah, when you’re starting out you definitely got to. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and be out there and try to do it. It’s hard to get out there and play for a bunch of people – arms are crossed, staring at you, don’t know you from Adam and they’re like “who’s this?” That’s tough.

Bobby: But then you play Clap Your Hands and hopefully get them to clap their hands.

Reverend Peyton: Hopefully. I play music because that’s just the only thing I really know how to do. We play from the heart and we play as hard as we can every show and it doesn’t matter if there’s one person paid or a thousand or ten thousand – everybody paid. They all deserve to get the real show.

Bobby: It’s not like you only half ass it because there’s only ten people there. Those ten people still want to see it.

Breezy: They paid the same amount as if there were a thousand people there. They deserve the same show.

Bobby: Of course one thing with Warped Tour is that with so many bands playing, all the set times overlap which means you can’t go and see every band you want – it’s impossible which kind of makes bands fight for an audience and go out and hand out fliers, say “come see us.” Do you guys have any ideas for what you guys are going to do to try and convince them to come see you guys instead of somebody else?

Breezy: This year we had one of our friends from Punk Rock Graphics – it’s a company that does stickers and tshirts and stuff like that – they made us stickers where we can put on what time we’re playing; but you know what, for the most part we’ve always had just luck. We start playing the music and people just show up. There’s ten times the amount of people after the first song in front of us then there are before the first song.

Reverend Peyton: You can do all this promo stuff, people throw a bunch of money at bands and music sometimes; but I tell you what, I think first and foremost, you gotta go out and give people a show. Play them songs they like to hear; melodies that are good, that they want to sing along with, and play it real. That’s the only way I know how to do it. I mean, we’re not a band that can get away with selling it through fashion. No one’s buying perfume from Reverend Peyton – you know what I mean? I ain’t going to be on clothing company commercials anytime soon. I’ve got to do it through my music, it’s all I’ve got.

Bobby: Do you think having all these people having to fight for an audience and hand out fliers and stickers kinds of reignites the DIY ethics of old punk? Going out and meeting the fans and stuff?

Breezy: That’s definitely the best part about Warped Tour, everyone is equal. You can see the guys from The Bouncing Souls out there. We go out and we’re at the merchandise table all day long hanging out with people. Some bands don’t do that, they’re back at the tour bus getting drunk and they don’t want to do that – but they’re missing out on what Warped Tour’s about. I hardly think it’s worth it to be in the heat if you don’t give a crap about your fans.

Reverend Peyton: Oh yeah, like you’ll be walking around and you’ll see Kevin Lyman walking around; he’s watching shows and he’s a fan. I mean, that’s what it’s all about. To be honest, that’s what really sold me on it. Last year they said “come back and do the whole thing” and we’re like “yeah, we want to do it.” Summers usually our biggest festival time and being out here on this, we had to kind of say no to a lot of good festivals; but it was worth it because we just felt like this was special. We felt like that there was a family out here and…

Breezy: It’s like summer camp.

Reverend Peyton: Yeah, it’s like summer camp for rock and roll: rock and Roll summer camp. These passes here that we got – every band on this tour has the same pass. There’s no like “if you’ve got a red pass, you get to go this stage and this stage. If you’ve got a blue one, you get to go this one and this one.” That’s how so many festivals are – not this one. Everybody’s equal. All the bands have a pass and then there’s a VIP pass for press and things like that. [I point out my VIP pass] There you go. It’s so equal and, really, that’s hard to find. It’s hard to get bands – it’s not the fault of the promoters necessarily – it’s hard to get bands to agree with that. They go “oh, no,no,no,no. We need a special area. We need special this, we need a special rider.” Everybody eats the same thing [on Warped Tour]. Everybody eats from that tent right there and the food’s great.

Breezy: If they’ve got a problem with it, they can go to their bus and wallow in their own misery.

Reverend Peyton: Yeah. It’s great and I love hanging out there. Warped Tour catering is awesome. The people are great; they’re like one of the bands out here. It’s such a family thing out here. It’s really special.

Bobby: Well like you said, Warped Tour has a unique atmosphere to it. There’s the music but there’s also a family atmosphere to it, there’s the skate ramp in the middle and there’s a lot of energy. How would you describe the atmosphere of Warped Tour?

Reverend Peyton: Just that – it’s like a family atmosphere. These people, we were on it for two and a half weeks and since then, this last year, we’ve stayed at these people’s houses.  We’ve eaten in their homes. We’ve hung out with all the friends we’ve made at Warped Tour. We’ve toured with them. We’ve stayed in touch. It’s like a family. People say that, you hear Kevin Lyman say that in interviews and he’s not lying, he’s not exaggerating. It really is that way. 

I’ve never played another festival that’s that much of a family atmosphere. Some of them want that, some of them could have that or very close, but nobody has it like this.

Breezy: The bands change out from year to year, but the crew – some of these people have been doing it for years. Jon Cheese, one of the guys that’s on our bus this year. He sells the compilation discs for SideOneDummy. How many years has he been on it?

Reverend Peyton: Twelve.

Breezy: Twelve years.

Reverend Peyton: That’s amazing. That’s one of the things that I think has kept this thing going. Sixteen years that they’ve been doing this. There’s a lot of people that have been here for sixteen years. Like “how many years have you been doing it?” “Oh, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”

In this day and age, it’s hard to find anybody that’s been doing anything that long. Even as a regular job, it’s just so hard. The world’s changed.

Bobby: Yeah, you work at a job one year – get a better opportunity and go somewhere else. You’re always changing, nobody sticks around for sixteen years in one place.

Reverend Peyton: Yeah.

Bobby: A lot of bands just released a CD just in time for Warped Tour. You guys released The Wages on May 25th on SideOneDummy  – how important do you think Warped Tour is in promoting a new album?

Reverend Peyton: Well, I mean it’s no secret that we timed it so that it would be out in time for the Warped Tour. It was going to be probably close anyway but we wanted to make sure so we worked real hard to make it happen. I guess the jury’s still out. We’ll see how important it is in a couple of months.

Bobby: You only have thirty minutes, how do you find a balance between the new songs from The Wages and the old songs?

Reverend Peyton: We’ve been pretty heavy on The Wages this time. We’re going to come out here and play at least two thirds or so or maybe more of the Wages. I don’t know how everybody else feels about it but my latest thing is my best thing. I tell you why: because I work on being better every single day. I want to be better tomorrow at everything.

Bobby: That’s a good attitude to have instead of just sliding by.

Reverend Peyton: Yeah, I think you’ve got to when you’re an artist of any kind. Otherwise, why keep making art? If the best is behind you, you gotta leave.

Bobby: The Wages was recorded live and with analog tape – why did you decide to do it that way?

Reverend Peyton: You know, I think it sounds better. It’s part of being real. We want to be butter man. The world’s become so margarine – we’re butter.

Bobby: I also read online that you’re actually a Kentucky Colonel.

Reverend Peyton: Yep.

Bobby: How did that happen and what does that entail?

Reverend Peyton: That is basically a service award from the government of Kentucky. It’s the highest award that the government of Kentucky can give to a civilian.

Bobby: So what did you do to receive it?

Reverend Peyton: Well you have to be nominated by another colonel and Colonel J.D. Wilkes of the Legendary Shack Shakers nominated me and it goes to a committee and the governor signs off on it.

Breezy: A lot of it has to do with – and Reverend Peyton’s not going to say this – with service to the community. A lot of it has to do with his music and southern culture. Where we’re from is very close to Kentucky, so a lot of family there.

Bobby: Okay; just a few questions for you. Punk rock and alternative rock has predominately always been kind of a male dominated industry. This year you look down the list of Warped Tour bands and there’s quite a lot of female fronted bands or female members – like VersaEmerge, Automatic Loveletter, We Are The In Crowd, The pretty Reckleess, stuff like that.  Why do you think that is? That there’s suddenly a lot more females in punk bands and do you think that’s a good thing?

Breezy: Yeah; well of course I think it’s a good thing. I think if you look at it you can say “yeah there’s more of them” but there’s still a very small percentage. Still, in the mornings I can get a shower when the men here can’t get a shower because there’s so few women here.

I think people are more open to it and it’s more acceptable to be a girl in punk rock. I think for a long time, it was seen as too masculine to a woman and it was kind of foul. I think now people are more accepting to it and just think that you’re a bad ass if you’re into it. I think that’s part of it. I never tried to be punk rock – I just tried to be myself.

Bobby: Do you ever feel kind of outnumbered with being surrounded by sixty other male bands?

Breezy: Oh yeah, absolutely. There’s not very many women on this tour playing. There’s a lot of people behind the scenes and stuff helping out. But I don’t feel intimated or anything like that.

Bobby: At the same time, do you think sometimes the press just puts too much focus on the fact that it is a female singer?

Breezy: Absolutely. I think there’s a lot of bands out there that people are go “oh, they’re female fronted!” It’s like they’re either good or they’re bad – it doesn’t matter what’s in their pants.

Bobby: Okay cool, I guess that’s about. Thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to add?

Reverend Peyton: Nah man; thanks a lot. I think that’s it. I just want people that are going to be reading this on the website – just tell them we hope to see them out here this summer; and if they’re on the fence about Warped Tour – if they’re on the fence like “oh man, I don’t know if I really want to go, I don’t know if it’s going to be worth it” – I think it is worth it regardless of what music you’re into.

If there’s a hundred bands and you can’t find something you’re into in a hundred bands, then you need to re-evaluate your life I think [laughs].