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Article published Jun 22, 2007 Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers: 'In it for the long haul'
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
Don’t use the “M” word around Col. J.D. Wilkes.
The front man for Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers doesn’t like it. To suggest that the Shack*Shakers — equal parts carnival sideshow, holy roller tent revival and hedonistic rock ‘n’ roll excess — might have somehow matured since seeing their star rise in the world of roots music ... well, that’s almost offensive to the guy who still holds close to his heart belief in the primitive power of the Shack*Shakers’ music.
“I wouldn’t consider what we do now to be taming it down,” Wilkes told The Daily Times this week. “The intensity is still there, but the need for sight gags, perhaps, isn’t as necessary. I don’t do the things I used to do, like cutting myself on purpose or break-dancing in broken glass or hanging myself, because after a while you realize that you could get hurt or you could hurt someone in the audience and get sued, and then you’d lose your whole existence.
“You have to find a delicate balance there, because the more blood and guts you give the audience, the more they demand it of you. They don’t care about you — they could give a s--t less if you survive until the next day — they just want more blood and guts. They’re like a pack of salivating dogs. You’ve got to give them authenticity, but often times you can entertain them with just your eyes.
“What it’s kind of morphed into is sort of a chaotic ballet with the illusion of destruction,” he added. “It kind of skirts the edges more so than going for the literal jugular.”
For Wilkes, the charismatic singer and quasi-revivalist preacher from Paducah, Ky., the Shack*Shakers are all about music and showmanship.
Wiry to the point of emaciation and often performing shirtless, Wilkes could care less that he looks like a scarecrow or something out of a bad acid trip. For years, he’s been all about the performance — the mesmerizing mixture of swamp rock, bluegrass, country and rockabilly combined with the shamanism of a traveling roadshow and the hellish frenzy of a pack of a circus freaks gone rabid and turned loose on an unsuspecting crowd.
Wilkes grew up not far from the hometown of slap-bassist Mark Robertson, and soon after joining forces with original guitarist Joe Buck (who left to pursue a solo career), the Shack*Shakers came into their own as Southern gothic nihilists bent on breaking down stereotypes and leaving your head full of hooks and riffs that can best be described as “junkyard carnival punk.”
The group’s music, including the band’s most recent album (last year’s “Pandelerium”), comes across as a greasy and delectable as a plate of ribs in a backwoods barbecue shack, especially with new guitarist David Lee on board.
For “Swampblood,” the band’s next record — due out Sept. 18 on the Yep Roc label — the group has tamed (oops ... there’s that word again) down it’s over-the-top bombast and gone back to basics, Wilkes said.
“The last record’s kind of like an over-the-top, circus sideshow extravaganza, with circus polka music and Eastern European klezmer-based rock ‘n’ roll songs,” he said. “On this one, we’re kind of going back and touching on our Southern blues roots. It doesn’t have quite as much bombast to it, but it’s still very lyrically dark and hard-rocking, but bluesier.
“We’re doing just a few songs from the new record right now, mostly because we’re still working up the songs live. We have a backwards approach — we work the songs in the studio, then play them out live. That gives us an opportunity to explore the songs, to flesh them out in a way they wouldn’t be if it was just a garage recording of it. They’re more theatric this way.”
And theatricality is a big part of what the Shack*Shakers do ... obviously. And while saying the Shack*Shakers have more class than they used to is like saying a 3-month-old decaying corpse smells better than it did when it was full-on rotted and bloated, there’s still an element of truth to the statement.
“With this band, we’re all front men,” Wilkes said. “We’re all trying our hardest to elicit a response, but there’s no need to be so self-destructive as I was in the past. In a way, the conviction is more believable now, because the authenticity is there. There’s not so much schtick, cart-before-the-horse showbiz thing going on.
“It’s interesting to take a look back on the journey and how the things have changed. I think a lot of it is just hard work — we’re not a flash-in-the-pan band; we’re in it to win it and we’re here to stay. It’s a passion we have, and we feel very strongly that Southern roots music is something that should be preserved and championed and resuscitated. It’s not a trendy, fashionable thing to begin with, so this is more of a cause for us than anything. Anyone who starts a band and only lasts two weeks wasn’t really serious about what they were doing to begin with.
“For us, it’s what we do for a living, and it’s a decent one,” he added. “It’s a blue-collar existence, but it’s our profession, and we’re in it for the long haul.”