STRAY CATS LEGEND BRIAN SETZER DISCUSSES HIS SMOKIN’ LATEST, THE DEVIL ALWAYS COLLECTS, PLUS BLOWN SPEAKERS, GEAR, RIFF WRITING AND HOW HE STAYS INSPIRED
By Andrew Daly
THROUGH IMAGERY STEEPED in fast cars, flashy guitars and flaming licks, since the earliest days of the Stray Cats and later with his namesake Orchestra, Brian Setzer has blazed a trail of his own creation. It took a certain level of fearlessness to play rockabilly in the early Eighties, let alone have worldwide success. And it took an even greater level of courage to pivot to swing and jive in the Nineties, when grunge and Britpop, propped up by MTV, reigned supreme.
“I don’t know if it was fearlessness — or just me being stubborn,” Setzer says. “I’m stubborn enough to refuse to follow along with whatever is going on at the time. I’ve always been someone who needs to follow his own trail. Trends be damned — I can’t follow them. I have to do what I want. Rockabilly was ignored before the Stray Cats started, so I feel proud to hold up that crown. We brought it back in a big way and did it the way we wanted. We didn’t just cover songs from the Fifties; we wrote our own songs and came up with riffs that wouldn’t have been thought of in the Fifties. That’s my badge right there; I wear it proudly.”
Setzer’s latest release is a blazing slice of rockabilly called The Devil Always Collects, the satisfying follow-up to 2021’s Gotta Have the Rumble. He recently opened up about the new record, his creative process and how he stays inspired after all these decades.
Tell me about how The Devil Always Collects got started.
This album started like most of mine — when I came up with a guitar riff. I came up with the riff for “Rock Boys Rock.” It was so simple that I was like, “Hasn’t this been done before?” I went back to make sure, and sure enough, it hadn’t been done before. It always starts with the riffs, and then the song will build from there. Then I’ll start thinking, “It would be cool if I shouted, ‘rock boys, rock,’” which is pretty catchy. So that’s how this record started, and it built up from there similarly, like, with “Black Leather Jacket,” as another example.
How do you keep from being repetitive when writing riffs?
There’s no secret to it, really. I just need to pick up the guitar and play. I just need to play, even if it means stumbling around with something I’ve already done. I might
