Tools
w/the DT's, the Star Spangled Bastards Fri July 25, Sunset, 9 pm, $6.
Every genre has its love songs, but when you're talking about the truly volatile affairs of the heart, what better way to squeeze that bloody organ in its rawest state than with a blues grip?
Auburn, Alabama's Immortal Lee County Killers II have lives that are coated with blues like a layer of sweat-lodged bugs on a hot Southern night. The guitar/drums duo reside in the small college town of Auburn, Lee County, where guitarist Chetley "El Cheetah" Weise and drummer J.R.R. Token craft their brand of the blues--a frantic, visceral style that punks out the tradition laid down by their idols (greats like John Lee Hooker, Skip James, and Howlin' Wolf). Weise wails like a man whose last tether to reason has just been snipped, sliding around the neck of a custom-made guitar that resonates with a fuzz-rusted, low-end rumble and spike, while Token stomps through the drum beats with heavy blows.
"Our music scene in Auburn is usually a little more aggressive," explains Weise. "More up-tempo and a little more slash-and-burn. I think that's definitely a reaction to the slow pace of Auburn. There's a reason why the doldrums stereotype is there. Sometimes it gets pretty fucking boring. So when the Friday-night show comes around Auburn, everybody's ready to raise hell," he laughs.
Weise grew up in the suburbs of Memphis, sneaking into bars on the city's famous Beale Street when he was barely old enough to drive, witnessing heroes like Albert King firsthand. "They had street musicians playing, guys sitting in their chairs electrified and singing the good kind of blues, the nasty stuff--and I loved it," he enthuses. "People were dancing and it was very honest and different than what I was used to."
After spending time in the Quadrajets, Weise moved on to start ILCK (the band added the II to their name when Token later took over drumming duties from Doug Sherrard), and released The Essential Fucked Up Blues on Estrus in 2001. The record moves like a man with his sanity on fire trying to smother the flames, with Weise howling and bawling about big cockroaches and frying fish, careening all over Delta and Chicago blues like a monster truck in a china shop. Two years later, the band recorded another full-length, coming out with the more complex Love Is a Charm of Powerful Trouble (Estrus). The album showcases the frontman sounding just as intense, but there are slower moments, such as the beautiful Roosevelt Jamison cover "That's How Strong My Love Is," where he sounds overwhelmed by an oppressive inner struggle even while softening his voice. "On some of our songs I get just as frenzied, because I'm [just as] excited and happy as I am for some of the songs where I'm upset or damning myself for something," explains Weise.
"Our trials and tribulations give us our passion," he adds, "and our music, specifically, is a very passionate thing. How do you convey something passionately? You draw from inside, and for what we do that usually means trouble. Either extreme trouble or extreme jubilation--I don't want people to miss out on the joy part of our lyrics, and that's what the liner notes [to Love] are about."
Weise adds that the rollercoastering emotions in his music are a part of his Southern blood. "The South is a place of extremes, and our music is a music of extremes," he says. "There's extremely good people here and there's extremely evil people here. Everyone always associates the South with lynchings, slavery, and the KKK, but people always forget that because of [those things], Martin Luther King and his whole struggle started in Montgomery, Alabama."
Although he's been an avid blues fan all his life, Weise adds that he likes to question his idols just as much as he covers them. "There's respect, but there's also a bit of irreverence," he says. "That's what keeps things going. And I think that's what the Killers are really trying to do. That's where the rip-it-to-shreds part of our music comes from. We're not going to settle down and just play blues the way it's been done, we're going to do our music. I think it's blues--but it's our blues. That's our little contribution to the world."
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