“This is Batman!” I really shouldn’t have been surprised when my phone call to Jim Heath was answered by the Caped Crusader. Heath is, after all, often in secret identity mode, usually as the Reverend Horton Heat. The alias doubles as Heath’s guitar playing alter-ego as well as the name of his band, which is rounded out by Scott Churilla on drums and Jimbo Wallace on bass.

Kevin Wierzbicki: So what kind of fun did you have at the Hootenanny (a huge yearly rockabilly blow-out in Irvine, CA that has featured performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry the Cramps, Supersuckers, the Blasters, and many others) this year?

Jim Heath: Oh, that was great. It was a really good one this year; we’ve played there six or seven times. They had to open up a whole field for parking. They had a lot more cars and people than they thought they would. It was a big gig for us, a big sea of people. Probably close to 20,000 people.

Kevin: With so many bands on the bill, did you get an opportunity to say hello to other acts, or did you just have to play and get moving?

Jim: It’s kind of odd what they do at these shows. They sell these V.I.P. passes for $100.00, so there are all these people that get these tickets that let them go backstage. So backstage was just a madhouse. But I did get to see some old friends like Lux (Interior) and (Poison) Ivy (Rohrschach) from the Cramps and Eddie (Spaghetti) from the Supersuckers. I got to talk to those guys for a while.

Kevin: Was there any kind of a jam session?

Jim: No, not really. It’s a pretty tight festival. Most bands just get thirty minutes, and as soon as they’re done playing, the other band starts. At these festivals, there’s not a lot of loose time to start a jam like you could at a regular club date.

Kevin: Speaking of club dates, and I cracked up when I read this, I see you played the Mangy Moose up in Teton Village, Wyoming…

Jim: Oh yeah the Mangy Moose was fun!

Kevin: That’s by Jackson Hole, right? So there was a good crowd there too?

Jim: Yeah, we actually do the ski resorts quite a bit. One reason is that they have pretty good access from Dallas, where we live, and lots of people come up there to ski. So we’re pretty well known there. But the funny thing is when we go play those things, it’s the locals who work the ski resort who come out to see us. Those people are wild, man! It’s just always over-the-top fun.

Kevin: I know you and your wife have just had a baby. Is there any room for family when you’re on tour?

Jim: Well, our most recent trip was a little different, because for the first ten days we had my wife and child and Jimbo’s wife and child with us. It was fun; that was the first time we had ever really done that. You know, a tour bus with a bunch of guys is not really a great place for kids to be. But all the other guys were real good with the kids. And also we had a few extra days off that we spent with the kids.

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about the car you just sold on ebay (A classic customized 1950 Ford two-door).

Jim: It didn’t sell. I’ve got another just kind of get-around-the-town car that I drive, and it broke down the last time we were home and I put it in the shop. So I had to get out there and get the old Ford running. It runs good, so that wasn’t too big of a problem. But then I started driving it around, made some trips out to far north Dallas and back, and pretty soon I was doing all my errands in it. I didn’t even pick up my car from the shop for about a month! I had just about decided that I didn’t want to sell it, but I kind of have to. I don’t want to.

Kevin: When I looked at it on ebay, it indicated that it had sold. What happened? The buyer couldn’t come up with the money?

Jim: Yeah. I think ebay is kind of hard to sell cars on. People from all over just go, “Yeah, I think I’ll go bid on it,” meet the reserve and then just flake out. They live in another town or even country so you can’t really call them up or go over to their house.

Kevin: Was this your first time with a car on ebay?

Jim: Yeah. But I still think I’m going to sell it. I have a ’32 Ford hotrod project that’s just never gonna get finished unless I sell this other car. The one thing I’ve learned about this whole “old car” thing is that what you own actually owns you. It would be great to have a collection of three cars, but where you gonna put ’em? One of my issues now is storage. For me, a good old white-trash guy, just park ’em in the front yard and hang the motor from a tree? People love that look! It’s just a space issue. If you get into cars, you’ve got to have a good place to keep them. Our family car will stay outside; my old car is in the garage.

Kevin: At what point in your life did you take an interest in vintage cars? Was that from your youth, or were you more of a Camaro guy back then?

Jim: I always liked the old clunkers. I never really got into the muscle car thing. I like the old stylish cars more than the fast muscle-head thing. I had a ’52 Chevrolet pick-up truck that I drove around for years. We’d pile all our band equipment in it and go do gigs. Then some lady ran a red light and crashed into me and totaled the truck. After that…I like old cars a lot. But to put it in perspective, I’m not a gear head. I can’t weld; I’ve tried but I can’t do it.

Kevin: I notice with the ebay ad that you gave credit to a couple guys who worked on the car.

Jim: I only do the basic stuff. I like search for parts and stuff like that. I haven’t gone a lot in the past couple of years to flea markets, but I was going for quite a while when I was building that old Ford, the ’50 that I’m trying to sell now. But I like swap meets and that kind of thing. It’s kind of a challenge to just keep them running too. I change the belts, change the spark plugs. I don’t like changing the oil anymore because then you’ve got to get rid of it. It’s just as easy to take it somewhere.

Kevin: Do you ever look out the bus window when you’re touring and see something up on blocks as you’re whizzing by and think, “Man, I wish we could stop”?

Jim: Oh, yeah, tons of times. Every now and then we’ll stop at the hotrod shops and see what they’re working on. But pretty much we’ve just got to get on the bus and go where they’re taking us. It’s pretty expensive to drive the thing around.

Kevin: Do these guys at the shops ask you to whip out the guitar for a little impromptu show?

Jim: No, but the people in that world are real nice. They’ll sit and talk your ear off. I went to this one place in Oregon called Westcott’s. This guy Dee Westcott is a hotrodding legend. He stopped his work and told old stories for about an hour. Really nice.

Kevin: What is the hurricane?

Jim: More than being just one lick, it’s kind of a concept. I’ve been working on it and doing that type of thing for a long time, but just recently I figured that it would be a really good concept to fall back on. We’re only a three-piece band, so whenever I take a solo I need to play a lot of two- and three-note chords to fill out the sound and kind of have to try to sometimes avoid playing some of the single-note lines. Because when I go to play the single-note lines, of course there’s no rhythm guitar there behind me. The bottom falls out a little bit. The hurricane is a way where I can still keep thrashing the chords. I hook my thumb over the top and also mute the second string with that, so I’m fretting the low and muting the second and that kind of frees up my other hand so I can still kind of flail and get single-note lines at the same time. It’s not just a lick; you can do so many different things with it. I decided on this album that I wasn’t going to overlay any second guitars; there was just going to be one guitar on every song. So I knew I was going to have to fall back on the hurricane to keep things really rocking.

Kevin: And I’ve heard you have some other “secret” riff?

Jim: Well, that’s just me trying to be funny. My top-secret riff, once I play it, isn’t very top secret anymore, is it? I finger pick, but I use the flat pick. Most guys just use their thumb and then their fingers. Well, I hold a flat pick and then use my other two fingers. It’s a concept that’s called “cross picking.” What it does is enable you to play very rapid sixteenth-note licks that keep ringing. I hold down a three-note chord with my left hand and get these really fast sixteenth-note licks with a lot of the strings still ringing. It sounds very similar to a banjo roll. It’s kind of complicated to explain. Not a lot of people do that stuff, so that’s why I call it the top-secret lick. But whenever I come out with a new concept or something that I’m working on, all of a sudden these other guys are doing it too.

Kevin: How does that make you feel?

Jim: In one sense, flattered. But in the other sense, when I hear them saying, “So, you’re influenced by the Little Shitbags Band” and I’m going, “What, who are they?” “Oh well, they’re a band that do music like you, except that they’re better!” Those guys would never even have that sound if it wasn’t for…oh, I don’t care. I’m flattered. It’s just when they get too big for their britches that it gets to be a little bit of a pain in the rear. But I fully understand. I’m a lot better guitar player than a lot of these bands who are selling millions of albums. But there are guys who are a lot better than me who are playing on the street, or playing at the Ramada Inn on Wednesday night. You can’t get too big for your britches. There’s always somebody better than you.

Kevin: Revival is getting really good reviews, but more importantly, it’s getting good distribution. I’ve seen it stacked in local stores. That didn’t really happen with your last release (Lucky 7) on Artemis, did it? We’re you unhappy with how the last one got out there?

Jim: I’m a little bit removed from that side of the business. We have a really good manager and he keeps a close eye on what is being done and what is being promoted and how much press we’re getting and all that. So I just let him do that. But the answer is that he was not happy with what Artemis was doing.

Kevin: Was that the reason for your move to Yep Roc, or did you just have a one-shot deal with Artemis anyway?

Jim: Just about every deal we do is a multi-album deal. But if all of a sudden, they poop out on promoting us, then we’ll ask out of our deal. A lot of times, they’ll let us. Artemis kind of shut down shortly after our album came out. They decided to not promote music so much anymore. It’s funny, man. Bands break up all the time and labels don’t last as long as bands do. [Note: after a period of inactivity, Artemis has a new and ambitious release schedule].

Kevin: Did writing “Someone in Heaven” help to keep you grounded during such a difficult time?

Jim: That song just kind of popped out. My mother passed away in December. It’s been kind of hard. The song just popped out; I don’t know what to think about this stuff sometimes. I’ve heard a lot of other artists say, and it’s really true, that sometimes songs just come out of the blue and just kind of land in your lap. It’s almost not like creating as much as it is just being there to catch it when it comes at you. That song means a lot to me.

www.reverendhortonheat.com

Kevin: There’s a line in there about her singing a song. Do you remember her doing a lot of that, especially when you were a kid?

Jim: Oh, yeah. She would sing and she played piano and my dad played ukulele. My dad was funny because all his ukulele songs were just hilarious. When we were kids we thought it was so goofy. All this “five foot two/eyes of blue.” Now I look back and think that this guy was pretty hilarious--all these funny songs he would play on ukulele. But my mom, at her funeral, one of her oldest friends that she had known since they were little girls was telling me that my mom could sing three- and four-part harmonies when she was ten years old. I knew she could sing, but I had no idea about that. But they were from a different era; they didn’t understand the rock’n’roll thing. They weren’t real thrilled about my career in music until they could finally tell that I had a group that was doing well. Then they were real proud of me. They were always proud of me, but usually the best parental decision is to say, “No, don’t quit college and join a rock band!”

Kevin: I’m sure there are many inspirations for “Calling in Twisted,” but does any particular incident come to mind?

Jim: I had this person working for me and I had this whole thing set up. We were gonna do all these things. While I’m sitting there writing this song, I get this call: “Uh, Jim, (fake cough) I can’t come to work…” I was sitting there thinking, man, you don’t realize how valuable calling in sick is to a person like me!

Kevin: Especially if it’s one of those days when you’re Batman!

Jim: (laughs).