Dead Beat Jacks
Chicago, Illinois, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2021 | SELF
Music
Press
"Look out for those guys. I mean, seriously, look out for those guys-- they're going to get you." - Rev. Andy's Psychobilly Freakout Radio Show
"Proudly half-baked, kitsch-fried, and boiled up with spine-tingling zest, these master chefs of neo-rockabilly stew up a bouillabaisse of the genre's favorite and familiar lyrical ingredients: girls, graveyards, and ghastly ghoulishness. These are seasoned and spiced with customary tip-toeing bass lines, urgent drum thwacks, breathless vox, and finger-lickin' Gretsch git licks. Mmmm, tasty!" - Iain Ellis, author and cultural critic
Jax Wax Records [2021]
Psychobilliac – Before I Lose My Mind -Graveyard Chicks Are Easy – Scary Truck – Baddest Cat In Town – Demon O – Drink IPA – Satan’s Niece – How I Go – An Undying Quest – Bone Stimulator – It Just Gets Worse – Zombie Bloodbath
Coming from Chicago, The Dead Beat Jacks are a trio (guitar, double bass and drums) and sing songs about graveyards, zombies and demonic things. That would be enough for a lazy reviewer to qualify them as a Psychobilly band. But things are a little bit more complicated than that.
Of course, it contains plenty of songs that belong to the Psychobilly idiom — like Scary Truck or the ‘Demented Are Go’ influenced Psychobilliac — but they also have more neo-Rockabilly sounding tunes like Drink IPA. Their album also contains, and that’s where they develop their true identity, a solid dose of musical oddities like Before I Lose My Mind, which in its structure evokes a 50’s ballad in the style of Buddy Holly. Still, once the Dead Beat Jacks treatment is applied, it becomes a weird and totally insane thing. The same goes for Satan’s Niece. This one is very close to Heavy Metal in its form but escapes the genre’s grandiloquence by a very down to earth treatment.
This is one of the main strengths of these guys. By avoiding all the clichés and the facilities, their songs are often groovy with unusual structures and changes of pace. Hell, they even play a love song!
By not following the rules, the Dead Beat Jacks have developed an infectious and very original brand of music.
More infos here.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis - The Rockabilly Chronicle
In-studio performance and interview with the band. - WNIJ-FM, DeKalb, IL
Discography
"Graveyard Chicks Are Easy" (Jax-Wax Records, 2021): 13-song album released on April 29, 2021-- its a covid baby. Dig it!
Photos
Bio
From the depths of the COVID pandemic, out of a bunker deep on the South Side of Chicago, The Dead Beat Jacks have emerged as a fresh voice on the international psychobilly scene. Everybody deals with tragedy and loss, especially these days. The DBJs address this head-on—but with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
The DBJ’s debut album, Graveyard Chicks Are Easy (Jax Wax Records 2021), reflects the pain that is living—and the love and humor that gives us reason to carry on. In late 2022, their second album, Two-Faced, Brown-Out Drunk, and Half-Dead Anyway, will be released.
It’s been a hard road for the three Dead Beat Jacks. Individually, Jack, Jackman, and Chris have worked the minor leagues of the music industry for decades, playing everything from major festivals to American Legion Halls, from London, England to Bluefield, West Virginia, and a thousand places in-between. Along the way, they’ve faced life-threatening accidents, cancer, job insecurity, family members murdered, addiction, divorce-- all of which both shaped their music and galvanized their need to make it. They spent years perfecting their craft, working in factories, prisons, ships, and carnivals to pay the bills. And with every timeclock they punched or hospital they checked into or funeral of a former bandmate they attended, their need to make music grew more intense.
Jack and Jackman (on drums and guitar/lead vocals, respectively) hooked up as Jack was recovering from heart surgery and Jackman was recuperating from a near-fatal motorcycle accident. What started as therapy turned into something much more, crafting a series of affecting, sardonic, often campy songs full of hooks, human insights, and insane cackles. Chris soon showed up with a doghouse bass and a chemo pump, ready to rock between treatments. They spent the pandemic quarantined in their south side Chicago bunker-studio. And it got a little weird.
On their debut album, the DBJs have taken the tragedy and joy that life has handed them, applied some sideways humor and a strong backbeat, and produced some of the most remarkable songs being recorded today. Lonely in quarantine? Apparently, “Graveyard Chicks Are Easy.” Smash your leg in a car accident? They’ll lobby your HMO for a “Bone Stimulator.” And when things go irreversibly south, as they surely will, better start thinking about “How I Go.” Of course, life isn’t only about the darkness. Running through the DBJs material is a strong, if twisted, love of life and a belief in the promise of the only things that really matter in this world—love and human connection. That is truly “An Undying Quest.” And you might as well enjoy it now, because “It Just Gets Worse.”
Life’s a bitch, and then you die. But the Dead Beat Jacks aim to soften the ride a little. “Hooky,” “accessible,” “poignant,” “insightful,” “surprisingly emotional”—these words are rarely applied to a psychobilly band. But the DBJs wear them as a badge of honor.
You need to hear this band.
SELECTED MEDIA QUOTES:
“Look out for those guys. I mean, seriously, look out for those guys-- they're going to get you.”
Rev. Andy’s Psychobilly Freakout Radio Show
“Proudly half-baked, kitsch-fried, and boiled up with spine-tingling zest, these master chefs of neo-rockabilly stew up a bouillabaisse of the genre's favorite and familiar lyrical ingredients: girls, graveyards, and ghastly ghoulishness. These are seasoned and spiced with customary tip-toeing bass lines, urgent drum thwacks, breathless vox, and finger-lickin' Gretsch git licks. Mmmm, tasty!”
Iain Ellis, author and cultural critic
Lecturer in English at University of Kansas
“That would be enough for a lazy reviewer to qualify them as a Psychobilly band. But things are a little bit more complicated than that…Once the Dead Beat Jacks treatment is applied, it becomes a weird and totally insane thing… By avoiding all the clichés and the facilities, their songs are often groovy with unusual structures and changes of pace. Hell, they even play a love song! By not following the rules, the Dead Beat Jacks have developed an infectious and very original brand of music.”
Fred “Virgil” Turgis
The Rockabilly Chronicle (France)
http://www.the-rockabilly-chronicle.com/dead-beat-jacks/
Band Members
Links
