Roaring and Tumbling With the ‘Punk Blues’

by Larry Morrisey
April 2, 2008

Let’s make room for the older lions of the music scene. The younger ones often get the most notice, but many times it’s the elders who have the fiercest roar. Silver Lion’s 20/20 is a duo that has been together less than a year, but the group includes two veterans of Deep South blues and punk. Guitarist and vocalist Chet Weise and drummer Craig “Sweet Dog” Pickering offer their own take on the “punk blues.”

Weise and Pickering have known each other for over a decade through their work in different Alabama-based groups, but the formation of Silver Lion’s 20/20 marks the first time that they’ve played together. During the 1990s, Weise (now based in Nashville) was a member of The Quadrajets, a garage-rock-influenced punk band from Auburn. He later led the Immortal Lee County Killers, a blues-influenced duo. Pickering was the co-founder and longtime drummer for The Dexateens, a punk-leaning garage-rock band based in Tuscaloosa.

“He’s Roll Tide, and I’m War Eagle, which in Alabama is a very significant difference,” Weise says with a laugh, joking about their opposing loyalties.

Despite their associations with Alabama, neither of the musicians is a native of the state. Weise grew up in the Memphis suburb of Germantown, and got an early education in the blues. While in his mid-teens, he began hanging out on Beale Street, listening to the blues musicians who played on the street for tips.

Weise remembers the diverse audience the music would draw. “There’d be everyone from white suburban kids like me, to old black ladies in their Sunday best, to punk rockers,” he recalls. “ ... Everyone got there from all walks of life and would start dancing.”

Pickering grew up in Laurel, Miss., but admits that he didn’t get his “blues injection” until he happened into a job with Fat Possum, the Oxford-based blues label. His band came to Mississippi in 2000 to record at the Fat Possum studio. When the label’s owners heard about Pickering’s unusual job driving blind piano tuners around Tuscaloosa, they realized they might have work for him.

“I had experience driving a van and assisting handicapped people,” Pickering says, which made him a perfect candidate for helping take Fat Possum’s musicians out on the road. The drummer spent the next four and a half years managing U.S. and international tours for the label’s musicians.

At first, Pickering was only involved in the business side of the shows, but visa problems for Paul “Wine” Jones’ drummer led him to also take on the drum duties on the late Belzoni bluesman’s European tour. He also played behind T-Model Ford, a Fat Possum artist from Greenville. Pickering eventually became Jones’ permanent drummer, recording and playing with him until the guitarist’s death in 2005.

“I learned a lot from playing with those guys,” Pickering says. “A lot of drummers lead bands, but those guys, you’re totally following them. I learned how to be a follower.”

Although the Fat Possum artists—and the Beale Street musicians—have influenced him, Weise admits that it took a while for him to incorporate the blues into his own playing. “I had no chance of wrapping my head around that kind of music at that time. It’s only now, a couple of decades later, that I feel like I can even touch playing that kind of stuff.” he says, laughing. “I can’t really play the blues, so I have to sort of make up some other kind of animal.”

The Immortal Lee County Killers, Weise’s previous group, also incorporated elements of the blues into its music, but the guitarist contends that his new group takes a different approach. With the Lions, there’s “a little bit more swing to it,” he says. “The Killers were more of an assault ... they had more to do with teeth and elbows and fists. The Lions have more to do with the hips and feet and knees.”

The guitarist says his new group is taking a more laid back, “in-the-moment” approach to creating music and playing shows, but they’ll soon be ramping up their efforts. They are releasing their first single in the coming months and will be traveling to Minnesota in July to play at the Deep Blues Festival. “It’s the ‘Bonnaroo’ for punk blues,” Pickering says.

Silver Lion’s 20/20 will make a stop at Martin’s Lounge on Thursday, April 3, at 10 p.m. For more information, call 601-354-9712.

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