The Michigan Review

Big Bad Swing Revival

by Chris Hayes

By now you should have heard about the craze in Swing and Big Band music. If you haven't seen the independent hit film Swingers, you are out of the loop. If you have never seen Swing Kids, you haven't had a girlfriend long enough to force you to watch it.

In short, a revival of Swing music has been on the move for the past few years. Every bar and club seems to have a Swing Night or give swing lessons -which packs the kids in, daddy­o.

One of the bands that is currently in the spotlight is Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. If the name does not ring a bell, they were the energetic, high intensity swing band featured on the Swingers soundtrack as well as in the movie.

The band has currently released their first major label album on Coolsville Records/Capitol Entertainment. Melding traditional Swing and Big Band with a nineties intensity, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy show they are not rehashing what has been done; they are using their surprising talent to create something familiar, yet fresh. The Review had the privilege of speaking to percussionist Kurt Sodergren about their music, success, and the Swing scene.

MR: So where did you guys just roll into?

Kurt: Right now we are in Baltimore at a small bar called Fletcher's. They have lots of pool tables and a really loud speaker right over my head. Upstairs is the club.

MR: What size clubs have you been playing at?

Kurt: The average capacity has been about a thousand, but we have gone to twenty­one hundred. This club actually is the smallest one so far. We have sold everything out.

MR: Nice.

Kurt: Yeah, this place is definitely a lot smaller. It reminds me of the old days when we would travel in this crappy Dodge Ram with all our equipment in a trailer and everyone would help set up. It was like guerrilla warfare.

MR: How long has Big Bad Voodoo Daddy been together?

Kurt: This incarnation of the band has been together for about two and a half years. That's since we've been playing at the Derby. Scott Morris (vocals, guitar and song writer) and I started the band in '91 as a trio and we started adding horn players in '93 and put out our first album in '94.

MR: What label was that on?

Kurt: That was on our own Big Bad Records. We did everything ourselves. We made the records, sold them at shows, sold them through mail order and our home page. We sold about twenty thousand and then we stopped. We decided that we would sell twenty thousand and then hopefully get signed to a label that would let us do our own thing but have a wider distribution. We found Coolsville Records as our home. It is a great label.

MR: How did Scott and yourself get started in '91?

Kurt: We were friends and we used to go see bands together. He is a really great guitar player and I had previously played the drums. After I met Scott I got really excited about his guitar playing and bought myself a drum set and took some lessons. We started playing in a trio that was a Jimi Hendrex­ and Tom Waits­ influenced blues band. Shortly after that we decided to go for more of the Big Band sound. My grandfather used to play Big Band for forty years. Scott also grew up listening to that kind of music and decided that was the kind of music he wanted to play. Not that we weren't fans of Alice in Chains and Nirvana and all the music that was happening at the time, but this is what he wanted to do and I backed him up a hundred percent. So we hired some horn players and a piano player and just started doing it. We came out with our first record and have been doing it ever since.

MR: What do you think sparked this big interest in swing?

Kurt: We stared doing this in Ventura where there was absolutely no swing scene at all. Ventura is kind of a small coastal town about an hour out of Los Angeles. There are a lot of bands playing this kind of music, like the Royal Crown Review, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Cherry Poppin' Daddies. I think bands like that are like us. They have been playing original music that is helping the scene go. That is only four bands. And for these four bands, there are about a hundred other bands doing the same thing. I think it is an underground thing that's still word of mouth. The movie Swingers really helped. When that movie came out on video, it went across the United States with vengeance. It kind of represented what is going on in LA But it also represents what is going on in Wisconsin, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Portland. That movie could easily be any of those towns. I think we are just this big cast of characters who are playing this original nineties swing music.

MR: How would you categorize "nineties swing music" as opposed to simply regurgitating what was being done in the forties?

Kurt: I think those bands that were playing jazz in the thirties and forties were playing original music. They were stepping out on a limb because jazz was the forbidden music of the time. If you were cool you would see them. Bands like us grew up on punk rock. While we know we could play that music too, we decided to do it originally. So we write an original song. While we are based in the sounds of the thirties or forties, our own influences definitely show through. We are not trying to rehash swing music and we are trying to use our influences to write new, original songs.

MR: Would you say your influences are Nirvana and Alice in Chains?

Kurt: I am definitely a big fan of those bands but I don't think what we are playing is punk rock by any means. Scott and I don't have traditional jazz training so the songs we write might break the traditional jazz rules.

MR: I agree. The people who first listen to your music are going to say "These guys are playing Swing or Big Band." But I think the heart of it still screams rock and roll more than Glen Miller.

Kurt: I really admire those players of the forties and they are a huge influence on us, but I think we are breaking the mold of traditional music. We throw a lot of energy in there and make it sound a little more contemporary. I would say that is where it all comes in. We are not punk rockers and we're not trying to play it. We grew up listening to it and are influenced by it, but we are playing Big Band music. It is original with all those influences, including Stevie Ray Vaughn. It has Count Basie, Black Flag, it has everything. We aren't following any step guidelines or rules in the songs that we write.

MR: How did you land a spot in Swingers?

Kurt: We had a slot at the Derby every Wednesday for two and a half years. When John Fabro was writing the film, he used to come in for swing lessons. That is how we met him. One day he gave this script to Scotty and said, "I'm working on this film and when I get enough money together I want to make it. I'm scraping up, but when I get enough money I am going to make this film." We read the script and told him we would like to be in it too. So he offered us that spot. I think we got paid a hundred dollars for it.

MR: Did you think, even for a second, that the film would help spark your career?

Kurt: I remember taking a ride down to San Francisco with the band thinking that when this movie comes out as an independent film, it may be picked up by a major studio. If that happened, it would be distributed across the states and could be really influential. At the night of the premier, Miramax bought it for five million bucks. Then we thought that something was going to happen.

MR: Are you afraid of simply being known as "That band from Swingers"?

Kurt: We are doing the music we want to make. It wasn't like the people at label said "We want you to do this­and­that because that is the way it appeared in the movie." We got to go in and do exactly what we wanted. I think the movie was our video calling card.

MR: Because of the movie, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is leading the mainstream revival of Swing. Are you comfortable with that?

Kurt: It makes me a little uncomfortable because I know there are other bands, like the Royal Crown Review, who have been out there; we inherited our spot at the Derby from them. Those guys are the masters. They are incredible musicians. I would feel more comfortable if we were just a band down here playing swing, and if people like us, so be it. We're just doing the same thing those other bands are doing. I think we are just really fortunate.

MR: If you had the chance to go back and touch up or change something on the album, what would it be?

Kurt: I honestly think the album is great how it stands. It represents what we do live. The art work on it is amazing. We were really happy with the packaging. So I don't think I would change anything. The first week the album came out it was number sixty­four on the Billboard Charts. That is the first time in fifty years that a swing band has been in the top hundred on Billboard. I haven't checked where it is at its fourth week, but things couldn't be going better in my opinion.

MR: So what is the next step?

Kurt: Right now we are working on a few new songs. They are going in the same direction, but we were just in New Orleans, and I think the new album will have a lot of that in it. It will also be more of a rip­roarin', guitar­oriented record. I think this record we have right now is a big horn and drum fronted record. Scott is such a good guitar player that I think we are going to have songs that are a bit more guitar driven with that New Orleans influence. It is still really hard to say because we are just now finding our voice. The band couldn't be playing any better. When we get a song that Scott has written, it comes in one way and comes out of the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy machine a totally different animal. It's kind of hard to say what the next record will sound like, but I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about living up to any expectations. I know it is going to be really good.

MR: How do you see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy fitting into a musical era where everything is supposed to be moving towards the electronic? Are you making a statement by sticking to the traditional?

Kurt: I am a big fan of that stuff. DJ Shadow is really one of my favorite artists. Scott and I are really big fans and we listen him a lot on the road. We are not reacting to that. We are playing music that we want to play. I can't speak for the record­buying audience, but I can say that we are not going to play music that a record company will want to shove down people's throats. We're playing music that we want to play and I hope we are giving an alternative to some of the music that is being shoved down people's throats. MR

This article was published in the 1 April 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 16, Number 9).
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