by Daniel Colussi | The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion…they’ve never really fit in, have they? On the one hand they’ve always unabashedly celebrated the blues, but their genesis is in the late 80’s NY pigfuck scene, that world of abrasive, atonal deconstruction of rock and roll. To meld these worlds – and hell, throw in some hip hop, soul and punk rock into the mix for good measure – could’ve easily resulted in an unintelligible sonic goop. What made it all stick was their indefatigable spirit, in particular that of frontman Jon Spencer. During the ultra serious 1990s he really stuck out with his leather pants, hyping himself in the manner of the most self assured rapper. Their’s is a strange brew for sure, but it’s sexy, it’s a good time, and it’s a powerful antidote to the seriousness of so many groups, today even more so than in’ 95. Maybe the best way to triangulate their vibe is just to say that Blues Explosion is the above all sound of New York City. Twenty years on and the band has reached a new renaissance. With their new album – Meat And Bone – the Blues Explosion have weathered many storms, not least Hurricane Sandy. Drummer Russell Simins kindly tells us why the blues is still number one…

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is quintessentially New York City. How was it for you guys during Hurricane Sandy? It was insane. We were all affected by it in a variety of different ways. I live in Manhattan, in Soho, but I was upstate with family at the time that the whole downtown area that I live in, and Judah lives in, lost power. And that lasted for days in both areas. Jon’s place also didn’t have power, because it was below 39th street. He had a lot of problems because one of his relative’s houses was destroyed, I believe in Brooklyn. So he was dealing with that for days, helping with that situation. So there was a real question of whether or not – with the power outage, the blackout, with everyone being able to get up to the show – whether or not we could get it all together to do it. At the same time, the main show revolving around these two smaller shows – two still very important shows for us, in Northampton and Hudson Valley – was this bigger Bowery Ballroom show that was sold out for a while. It was a big deal for us but there was no power in downtown Manhattan so we didn’t know if it would be happening. We were expecting at the time that there wouldn’t be any power for days, past when our show was supposed to happen, on Saturday evening. We had Jon’s son travelling with us because he was now out of school for a week. All the confluence of a variety of events caused a lot of stress, but we put together I think three of the finest shows we’ve ever done. First show was pretty exhausting with us all having lived through power-outage life for three days, and Jon dealing with helping his family out of the wreckage. But we got it together. We found out the night before our Bowery show that power was restored and that the show will go on. So in the spirit of being New Yorkers and people coming together and moving on and being strong, the show turned out brilliant, it was a packed house. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but it was a brilliant show. There was this intensity. It was a pretty special few days. But there’s still no power in parts of Manhattan, there’s people without heating. That sounds heavy. It’s great that those shows came together. Yeah, yeah, you know, rock and roll. We pulled it together. And there was this sort of fire and bravado that persevered through it all. It was really a special few days.

Are you guys the kind of band that writes a set list for a show or do you just go for it every night? We never have a set list, it’s just part of the way we are. It would feel totally alien to the way we are as a band, it wouldn’t be right, it doesn’t fit. Part of the whole nature of our show is – we have a way of communicating with each other that’s like a sixth sense. There’s certain ways of leading one song into another, certain signals, things that we can expect and know, one thing will naturally lead into another. Sometimes there will be surprises and often there’s things that happen in an improvisational way, which keeps it fresh for us always. It’s natural for us, it would be very unnatural for us – almost stifling – if we had a set list.

Do you guys reach back into the old albums? We always do. I mean, for regular shows we play new stuff, old stuff, it’s always a mixture of everything. We change up how we approach older songs, as times goes on we’re a little more inventive in ways that are exciting. With the new stuff we give a live version, which is for us pretty fresh and exciting.

Tell me a bit about the new album and recording on the Sly Stone console at Key Club in Michigan. Key Club is somewhat renowned. It’s primarily an analogue studio, run by a couple who are committed to an old school analogue environment. And they have this brilliant Flickinger console that was designed for Sly Stone. He used it for the There’s A Riot Goin’ On which is one of my all time – I highly respect that record on so many levels. And also it was in a part of Michigan that’s somewhat abandoned, sort of downtrodden part, like many parts of Michigan. It’s the base for Whirlpool, which is the only thing going on there, all the other businesses are failed or no longer in existence. It’s got this vibe, this very midwestern, kind of forgotten vibe. And it’s right next to an old theatre, almost like the Stax theatre with an old marquee. And he’s got a lot of old great gear, old cool vintage drum kits that I was able to choose from, which is to my liking. I’m mostly a fan of older drums. A lot of cool amps that Jon and Judah were able to use. Some cool synthesizers and old drum machines. We thought about it and thought it would be an adventure to just go out there. There’s a lot of cool old hotels out there It was the right price, the right vibe, the right setting to explore something that we’re all kind of down for, which is the kind of somewhat down and out, you know, kind of real, old school vibe. We were able to get a lot of work done there and get really great sounds. And just a lot of great work that we were really happy with when we were done.

And how does it feel having pretty much your entire back catalogue being reissued? You know I’m proud of it. There was the release of the jukebox singles in one package that I was really excited about because that’s some of the best, hardest stuff to find. Really cool, very much what the Blues Explosion is about on a lot of levels. And then on top of that, to revisit our whole catalogue – it naturally prompted us to look at ourselves and understand ourselves and want to get back to it as soon as possible. We started doing shows to support the releases, and once we did shows we were back in the groove again, we realized even though we’d taken some time off that it was good to do that. We were refreshed. We were ready to just go balls out again as Blues Explosion and do something new again. Whenever we get together and work together we are just naturally really psyched. e love playing together, writing and working, and being amongst each other as musicians and bandmates.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion play the Biltmore on Wednesday Nov 14th. Tickets available at Zulu, Red Cat and The Biltmore.

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Daniel Colussi is the Music Editor of Scout Magazine and a contributing writer to Ion Magazine. A veteran employee of Zulu Records and tuneage aficionado, he DJs on an infrequent basis (about four times a year) and is a musician around town who plays in several ensembles.