Brian Setzer is, as he once sang with the Stray Cats, built for speed. And you have to keep the pedal down just to keep up with him — especially when it comes to his music.
OVER THE PAST nearly 50 years — primarily with the Stray Cats and on his own — Setzer has puzzled and confounded listeners and been a master of doing what you’d least expect. Just sporting a pompadour and playing rockabilly during the AOR- and punk-dominated late ’70s would have been nonconformist enough, but Setzer, now 64, has made a career out of keeping us guessing — and pleasing us far more often than not.
Born in Massapequa on Long Island, Setzer started out playing the euphonium in his school’s jazz bands. He could be found, underage, at the Village Vanguard in New York City’s Greenwich Village, but he was quickly making connections between the broad array of jazz he loved and contemporary rock. He was particularly drawn to rockabilly, gravitating toward body ink, pompadours and the big, open sound of the Gretsch 6120. He and his brother Gary started a band called the Tomcats, which became the Stray Cats with the addition of Lee Rocker (née Drucker) on double bass and Slim Jim Phantom (McDonnell) on drums.
Long Island — and America, for that matter — was not a particularly inviting incubator for throwback cats, so Setzer, Rocker and Phantom found better fortunes over in London, where there was greater interest from fans and fellow musicians alike. Dave Edmunds took the Stray cats in from the cold, producing the group’s self-titled 1981 debut album, a number 6 hit on the U.K. charts that launched Top 10 singles such as “Runaway Boys” and “Rock This Town.” After issuing Gonna Ball later that year, the group compiled the two sets into Built for Speed and came back across the pond, where MTV was able to help translate the vision and turn the Stray Cats into a Gold-certified sensation at home, too.
Then things got really interesting for Setzer. The Stray Cats’ first breakup, in 1984, sent him out into the world as a solo artist without parameters. Setzer played with Robert Plant’s outfit the Honeydrippers, then surprised the world with his heartland rock–leaning solo debut The Knife Feels Like Justice in 1986. Four years later, he introduced the Brian Setzer Orchestra, an 18-piece big band that played jump blues (its rendition of Louis Prima’s “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” soundtracked a Gap commercial), won a pair of Grammy Awards and launched an annual Christmas tour. For the past four decades he’s mixed the BSO with Stray Cats reunions and solo albums — one of them, Wolfgang’s Big
