Whether you call it Rockabilly, Psychobilly, Punkabilly or whatever the description of the day is, Texan Jim Heath or (endearingly known as) Reverend Horton Heat has been mastering the genre for over 2 decades. Born out of the hodge podge that was the music of the ‘80’s, the rockin’ Reverend stuck to his style, never deviating yet always expanding his retro themes by combining flavors of blues, jazz, rock, country and punk. Consistently releasing an album every two years and following up with extensive worldwide touring, loyal fans and enthusiasts never have to wait too long to hear his scorching rhythms, storytelling lyrics and fiery crooning. Upon returning once again to Atlanta, a favorite stop on his tours, the rockabilly Reverend blessed Atlanta Music Guide with a chat.

NH (Atlanta Music Guide): Over your 20 plus years as the Reverend Horton Heat , what do think has changed and what has remained the same?

RHH (Reverend Horton Heat): What’s stayed the same is that I still love to play music. I guess what’s changed is that I used to do a lot of dumb stuff, and I’ve grown up a little since. I suppose - even though, I’m still in a band, so I guess I haven’t fully grown up yet. I’ve figured some things out, but I’m still learning. I’ve had a lot of drummers too. We’ve had Scott for a long time now but I think he’s drummer eight or nine!

NH: What made you pick up a guitar in the first place?

RHH: Well my cousins played, and that got me very interested. Every holiday, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. there would be a family get together at some point, and they’d have these songs written and they’d bring over their guitars and banjo and play for us. Then they started to bring over the electric guitars and amps, and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever! My parents also played a little too and when I was really young I learned some chords on the ukulele!

NH: What was the first guitar lick you remember learning?

RHH: Johnny Cash’s "Folsom Prison Blues." I was trying to play just like Johnny but little did I know that it was really Luther Perkins .

NH: Did you know what style of music you wanted to play as a guitarist?

RHH: Well, when I got to be the age where I wanted to go out and buy rock-n-roll albums, I’d go to this record store that had a really extensive blues collection, including a lot of great urban blues from the ‘50’s and country blues as well. I really loved the electric guitarists like Freddy King , B.B. King , Robert Junior Lockwood , and Buddy Guy -he was SO rippin’ and rockin’, and that’s how I got interested in starting to play the blues.

NH: Were your first bands blues based?

RHH: Let’s see… I was a blues player first and then there was this band that played ‘50’s music that wanted me and they would say “You’ll be good at this. It’s the same thing, it’s rock-n-roll. It’s just the blues a little faster.”

NH: So in actuality, it wasn’t until by suggestion that you ever considered playing ‘50’s style rock-n-roll?

RHH: Uh huh. I didn’t know anything except that I was just learning how to play blues licks and that I wanted to be in a band. I was so young. We were all goofy little 14 year olds. I was just super grateful to be in any band, and y’know that was the sentiment for years after. If you’re gonna play music, you have to give up a lot. You can’t say, “This is the style I’m gonna be and I’m gonna get a band together that’s gonna play this style and we’ll all like it that way. You’ll never be in a band with that attitude. I was in a lot of bands where that was the way they did things. You have to be able to work with people and ultimately I did learn a lot from playing in those [cover] bands.

NH: When did you first consider a career as a musician?

RHH: When I was in high school, the band that I was in (which had morphed into playing more of the rock-n-roll hits of the day) started getting gigs playing all the high school dances and I think that was when I started thinking “Hey, I can make money doing this” and I got to be kind of a little shit so when my parents would try to enforce any thing on me I’d say “I’ve got $200 in my pocket. I’ll go get a hotel room if y’all don’t want me around here.” But I learned that there was a way to make money playing and I played in a lot of bands to do that and also to play as much as I could.

NH: So many styles of music were being made during the ‘80’s. Did this have any effect or influence on you and the creation of the Reverend Horton Heat sound?

RHH: I really started to focus on the rockabilly thing around ’79-the big rockabilly explosion. Now to me, punk was still new and I kind of sensed that a lot of the punk bands were crossing into the rockabilly sound, a wild rock-n-roll sound. A friend and I thought “Let’s start a band that’s nothin’ but really obscure and wild rockabilly music” and we were called Teddy and the Talltops and it was a really cool band but we were largely a cover band (at that time playing covers was the only way to get gigs in Texas) and I had all these songs I wanted to play and things eventually didn’t work out.

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