Loaded guns, space heaters, and big skies. Welcome to the lethal littered landscape of Jim Heath’s imagination. True to his high evangelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing and reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of American music. He’s a time-traveling space-cowboy on a endless interstellar musical tour, and we are all the richer & “psychobillier” for getting to tag along.
Seeing The Reverend Horton Heat live is a transformative experience. So catch him live at Baltimore Soundstage on Wednesday, May 29.
Flames come off the guitars. Heat singes your skin. There’s nothing like the primal tribal rock ‘n roll transfiguration of a Reverend Horton Heat show. Jim becomes a slicked-back 1950?s rock ‘n roll shaman channeling Screamin’ Jay Hawkins through Buddy Holly, while Jimbo incinerates the Stand-Up Bass. And then there are the “Heatettes”. Those foxy rockabilly chicks dressed in poodle-skirts and cowboy boots slamming the night away. It’s like being magically transported into a Teen Exploitation picture from the 1950s that’s currently taking place in the future.
Listening to The Reverend Horton Heat is tantamount to injecting pure musical nitrous into the hot-rod engine of your heart. The Reverend’s commandants are simple. Rock hard, drive fast, and live true. And no band on this, or any other, planet rocks harder, drives faster, or lives truer than the Reverend Horton Heat. These itinerant preachers actually practice what they preach. They live their lives by the Gospel of Rock ‘n Roll.
From the High-Octane Spaghetti-Western Wall of Sound in “Big Sky” to the dark driving frenetic paranoia of “400 Bucks” to the brain-melting Western Psychedelic Garage purity of “Psychobilly Freakout” The Rev’s music is the perfect soundtrack to the Drive-In Movie of your life. Jim Heath and Jimbo Wallace have chewed up more road than the Google Maps drivers. For 25 Psychobilly years, they have blazed an indelible, unforgettable, and meteoric trail across the globe with their unique blend of musical virtuosity, legendary showmanship, and mythic imagery.
Watch The Reverend Horton Heat perform “Psychobilly Freakout” live on KEXP via YouTube:
Most recently, The Reverend Horton Heat released Roots of the Rev. (Volume One), a covers album, via Jim Heath’s own Fun Guy Records in 2023. Roots of the Rev. (Volume One) is an album of cover songs that have a connection to the band. Many of the songs are by artists who we knew personally — like Willie Nelson and Ronnie Dawson. Some songs are just a part of the history of Reverend Horton Heat. Each song’s relationship to the band is explained in detail in the liner notes.
The album was truly a labor of love, and it took a while to get together, The Reverend says. Now, look for some of these fun and rollicking covers on tour — a little look into the history of Reverend Horton Heat and a time gone-by. Or now, present times? Lo-fi but high energy!
The Reverend Horton Heat
W/ The Surfragettes
Baltimore Soundstage
Wednesday, May 29
Doros @ 7pm
$29.50
All ages