Jackyl played in Dayton, Ohio Friday night. I wrote about the show in advance for the Dayton City Paper. I thought you might be interested in reading some tidbits from Jesse James Dupree. The show was sold -out. I could have gone, but didn't. But I heard it was crazy as ever!
“It’s the equivalent of a man being shot out of a cannon,” Jackyl frontman Jesse James Dupree said when asked how to describe a Jackyl show in one sentence or less.
The rockers will bring their unique brand of southern metal and debauchery to Oddbody’s Music Room Friday, Feb. 27. The show is sold out. The band will be joined by special guests Transylvania Hellhounds and Four Star Revival.
Jackyl is probably best known for raunchy lyrics and for the stage antics of Dupree. After all, he plays a chainsaw in addition to guitar – and saws a wooden stool in half during every show during “The Lumberjack,” a song with more than a cult following. The modern day outlaws are no strangers to Ohio, spending a lot of time in the state for bike week, held annually in Sandusky. Ohio Bike Week is the largest motorcycle rally in the Midwest and Jackyl has been a part of the event for the last several years.
“We play Ohio Bike Week every year,” Dupree explained. “We turn that first Thursday night into ‘Jackylstock,’ if you will. It’s something we look forward to. As far as we go, you could keep us in Ohio nonstop. We’ve never had anything less than a great connection with everyone there. The common denominator is that we all work for a living. We’re right there with people that bust their knuckles 40-50 hours a week or more and they know when it comes time to jam and have a good time, they are going to get it with us and vice versa.” Bike Week is set for May 29 – June 7, 2015.
While the guys in Jackyl seem perfectly comfortable in Ohio, it has been several years since the band actually played a proper gig in Dayton.
“This will be the first time that we’ll play Dayton since we’ve had the Best In Show album out,” Dupree said. “So it will be the first time that we’ve played ‘Screwdriver’ and ‘Encore’ and those songs that have kind of taken off on their own, with people grabbing a hold of them and making them part of their playlist.”
It isn’t so much that Jackyl don’t want to play Dayton. Rather, their tour routing always seems to land them in Cincinnati, a city that is so close, it makes booking dates in Dayton on the same tour run next to impossible.
“We are excited to be coming back to Dayton and we’re glad it worked out this time,” Dupree said. “We grew up as a band playing what used to be McGuffy’s [now Oddbody’s]. It’s a special place for us since we’ve got such a history there. I don’t think we’ve ever done a show in Dayton that wasn’t just completely off the hook and a blast. People in Dayton rock hard.”
While the band continues to tour, look forward to summer and multiple bike events around the country including the 75th anniversary of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Jackyl also have big plans to write and record a new album.
“We’re always writing and working on new material,” Dupree said. “We’re trying to get that process started now so by the end of the year we can put another record out. We finished up last year by doing 130 shows after the release of the Best In Show album and the response to it and even the one before When Moonshine and Dynamite Collide. Both those records have done well for us.”
For Dupree, the best time to write a new record is on the road. This is the exact opposite for most established acts, who prefer to set a specific time to write and then a specific time to tour.
“People always say, ‘How come a band’s first album stands heads above the rest of the records they make?’ and that is because that first album has songs that are road tested,” Dupree said. “I think that’s the key. We went back on the last two albums and we road tested the songs before we ever laid them down and there is just a certain grease that gets on them when you get them out on the road. If it smells like a rock ‘n’ roll song, tastes like a rock ‘n’ roll song, well that’s probably what it is.”
Like many rock bands these days, Jackyl have their own recording studio, based in Dupree’s home. Currently, Dupree is remodeling the studio and getting it ready for the band’s next recording session. In the past, other artists like Izzy Stradlin, of Guns n’ Roses fame, The Georgia Satellites and even Cee Lo Green have used his studio to record.
To learn more about Jackyl and for a full list of tour dates, please visit rockmerollmejackylmeoff.com.
Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 12:01AM