Once upon a hell of a long time ago, like the mid-’90s, there was a little old band out of Cleveland called the Cowslingers. They weren’t quite Country or Garage or Americana or Rockabilly or Punk — they were kind of like all of that and not quite like any of that, and they were magnificent.
They caught the ear of Cincinnati music mogul-in-the-making Darren Blase, who signed them to his resurrection of Jess Hirbe’s Shake It label and he banged a big bass drum for the ‘slingers for a good many releases and years. Ultimately the foursome — vocalist Greg Miller, guitarist Bobby Latina, bassist and Greg’s brother Ken Miller and drummer of the gods Leo P. Love — decided to go their separate ways in 2004, and Greg Miller resigned himself to a life without making music.
But then the ‘Slingers rhythm section approached him with the idea of forming a new band with guitarists Bobby Lanphier and David Bowling, and he was drawn back in, Godfather-like, to a new aggregation that, based on their legendary drinking antics, was aptly christened Whiskey Daredevils. And they were equally magnificent.
Now in their 15th year, the Daredevils have never been busier, on the road or in the studio, albeit in a slightly altered form. Ken Miller, Lanphier and Bowling have long since left for different musical challenges (although Ken and Latina returned a couple of years ago for a Cowslingers reunion, which is apparently an ongoing project after the recording of and tour for 2017’s Big Bad Rooster), with the group paring down to a quartet, with Miller and Love joined by Lords of the Highway bassist Sugar Wildman, and first with Rocket From the Tombs guitarist Gary Siperko and now with new string strangler Hector “Hex” Mattos.
Mattos has been gigging with the Daredevils for well over a year at this point, but the band’s recently released new album, Bonafide, is his first trip to the studio, and what a trip it turned out to be. The Daredevils couldn’t have scripted a better fit to take up the mantle of Whiskey Daredevils guitarist; Mattos possesses the same broad vista of influences and interests that have characterized every iteration of the band, and then some. The opening salvo of the habitual “Two Packs” finds Miller in typical full-throated homage to Brian Setzer, the Reverend Horton Heat and Mike Ness, while Mattos choogles and chugs his way through the track with an almost casual brilliance and the Sugar/Love rhythm machine provide an industrial-grade foundation.
Speaking of Ness, he makes a lyrical appearance in the loping and cheeky “Favorite T,” a relatively upbeat break-up song with a bachelor pad/Punkabilly feel. After namechecking Hüsker Dü in the chorus about the titular garment, Miller offers this bon mot to acknowledge the oft-referenced Social D frontman; “When I got home you were long gone/I got a guitar, I wrote this here song/I should have written a verse, maybe sound like I was Mike Ness or something.”
Those two tracks reinforce the blueprint that the Daredevils have established over the past decade and a half. Off-kilter, tongue in cheek lyricism that is essentially a piss take on Country/Punk tropes — “Shine a Light” is a rootsy dust-up that offers a skewed version of a Country come-to-Jesus hotdoggery, “The Mule” is a ZZ Top-tinted tale of a low rent drug runner – married to a soundtrack that can be dialed back to a gentle stroll or pumped up to a blistering Spinal Tappish 11. The real trick is in presenting these two extremes while simultaneously connecting them in a unified fashion, which is what the Whiskey Daredevils have always done and by all appearances will forever continue to do.
They self-describe their sound as “twisted Americana roots crapabilly.” Works for me, it’ll work for you.
Whiskey Daredevils play the Southgate House Revival on Saturday, December 21 with special guest Jake Logan & The Midnight Riders. The show is free. More info: southgatehouse.com.
This article appears in Dec 11-24, 2019.