Just Asking...Brian Setzer

Thanks to the students at the Institute of Production and Recording, Third Avenue North has provided the North Loop's lone Stray Cat plenty of cover over the past two years. But if you have a keen eye and the stamina to stare long enough through the hipster mess, you might occasionally pick out the bona fide Long Island rockabilly with the blond pompadour, the bicycle chain around his neck, and the inked-up arms—yup, that’s really Brian Setzer. He married a local girl, Julie Setzer (née Reitner) in 2005 (“It’s nice to have a girl in the band who can sing that’s your wife—it gets boring on the road”) and the couple bought a condo in the neighborhood a couple years later. It’s become home—the Stray Cats even reunited recently at the Fine Line for Setzer's 50th birthday. But he’s been on tour all summer (“I wanted it to be a Minnesota summer—that’s what people here live for—but Europe called back and doubled its offer”), and they’re going out again this fall with The Brian Setzer Orchestra in support of two records: Songs from Lonely Avenue, a new album recorded at local producer Mark Stockert's studio, and the re-released The Ultimate Christmas Collection. They have a local date at Mystic Lake on November 22.

Where is Lonely Avenue?
Oh, there’s a lot of ’em! One in every town. But if you look at the cover, this is on my rooftop here. That’s Minneapolis.

Do you consider any music, clothing, or haircuts other than from the years 1956 to 1959 to be cool?
Sure! There’s a lot of cool music from all sorts of different eras. The Stray Cats were influenced by the punk-rock energy of the late ’70s, for instance. But there’s something about that period in the ’50s—it’s the beginning of rock ’n’ roll. When I started listening to the Beatles, I heard my dad playing “Honey Don’t,” and I asked him why was he listening to a different version of a Beatles song. He said, “I don’t know who those guys are, but Carl Perkins wrote ‘Honey Don’t.’

What do you like about that early rock ’n’ roll sound?
The only way I can describe it is like when you make love, you kind of want to turn the lights down. You don’t want to do it in a hospital room. It kind of adds a little atmosphere. It puts a little repeat on it. It just makes it sexy.

The whole London thing—the three of you (in the Stray Cats) were from the same block in Long Island, and you sold all your instruments for three airplane tickets and left your hometown. And now you’re in Minneapolis. You must be comfortable being a stranger in a strange place.
I never thought about it like that. London had a reason because I knew that there were people there who kinda looked like me. I saw a picture of a guy with a pomp and he had an earring. To have an earring in 1976? You took a lot of shit for that. It doesn’t sound like a big deal now, but I had tattoos. What’s standard now in the rock ’n’ roll land, back then you had to be a tough guy to kinda live up to that.

How did you get inspired to do another Orchestra record?
When I started to write these things I didn’t know it was an Orchestra record. I love baseball, and I’ll put on the Twins game and I’ll watch the game and I’ll fool around on the guitar. And I’ll catch something. Something will come in and I’ll go, oh!, I gotta little lick. You know, ging-guh-ding-guh-ding. All my songs start with guitar riffs. Doesn’t matter if it’s a rockabilly song, or if it’s gonna be for the big band. Even “Rock This Town” is ging-guh-ding-guh-ding-guh-ding, you know. So I’ll come up with a little idea like that, and I have an old tape recorder that was my wife’s from when she played her Duran Duran tapes, you know! And then I go back to the game

I always get messed up by girls calling you daddy.
“Give Me Some Rhythm Daddy”? Well, I wrote that song for Julie. And I said, well, what am I going to sing? I went, gimme some rhythm, baby. And she goes, “Daddy!” And we kind of play off with each other. I wrote that song because I wanted to write a song for my gal.

Have you heard Bob Dylan’s Christmas record yet?
No, is it good?

It’s kind of funny. Isn’t Christmas kind of campy?
It’s not a joke to me!

How seriously do you take it?
Well, you’re not going to beat Elvis singling “Blue Christmas.” Or even Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.” I wanted to have a little fun with it. I’m not mocking it at all.

But even Bing Crosby must have cracked up during “Mele Kalikimaka.”
Well, sure, that’s just humor. To me, I got pushed into it—in a good way—because people were bugging me. It started with that Schwarzenegger movie, Jingle All the Way. But you're right, it does have a sense of humor.

That ’50s sound doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously in general.
There they are—that’s pretty much the whole nutshell right there. (Hands me a coaster with Elvis, The Killer, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash on it.)

You’re a little obsessed with this era.
I don’t live in it, though. You know, I love it, I’m influenced heavily by it, but I’m not closed-minded to other things. Some people just want to live in that era, you know.

Why is that? Do they think it was a golden age before things went downhill?
I don’t know if they think that deeply about it. It’s a built-in lifestyle. You’ve got music, you’ve got cars, you’ve got clothes. And you have other people who like that. It’s like a club!

My dad has a buddy, Rebo, who has a ’57 Chevy that he takes to the car shows...
I do that too! I have fun with that. I have a ’56 Olds in the basement and a ’32 Ford. I like to work on ’em. It’s fun. You gotta have some kind of hobby or you’ll go crazy.

5 things you didn’t know about Brian Setzer
1. He started playing golf at Lakeview Golf Course in Orono. “I walk around in goofy second-hand clothes and golf like a nerd.”
2. His fan orientation: Mets, National; Twins, American.
3. He makes great ribs.
4. His last tattoo was a back piece in 2003.
5. His first tattoo was a Stray Cat head on his left bicep when he was 17. “I drew it myself.”