Released on February 11th, London Rockabilly guitarist/musician Johnny Crabb gives us an insight into his stories, thoughts and details on his new covers EP, track-by-track, and the inspirational bands that gave him the idea to record them in the first place
WHY DO YOU RECORD MOST SONGS IN ONLY ROCKABILLY STYLE?
“Because I think it’s fun to do. It’s my favourite form of music and I think listeners would enjoy and be entertained by it, whenever they would hear a familiar song, whatever artist of which genre it may be, they would get the idea of like, ‘oh, so that’s what it would sound like if it was recorded in the ‘50s’, you know, I just find it fun. There have been neo-rockabilly groups that have used this idea before so I’m probably not the only one”
HOW DO YOU RECORD YOUR MUSIC?
“I record mainly from my flat. I, of course, record my guitar and vocals, but how I get that double-bass sound is by recording my bass and applying a slap effect on it just by simply slapping the front of my acoustic and then I mush them together, so yeah the bass-line you will hear on the recordings is not really double-bass but sounds like double-bass. It’s great to be creative! As for the drums though, I just edit them from drum tracks I’ve downloaded”
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE SONGS, TRACK-BY-TRACK, STARTING WITH;
‘NEAT NEAT’ NEAT’
“I think it’s a great opening song, the best for a ‘punk’ album and it is my favourite ever song originally by The Damned. Just by the opening bass line and how the drums, guitar and scream all come in at once and it just grabs you like that! *finger snaps*. I remember seeing them live once at Hammersmith in 2009, supporting Motorhead, and it was great. Lemmy himself said it was his favourite Damned song too and would often join them on his Rickenbacker bass. Sadly it didn’t happen that night, but where else it happened, had to have been the best! I had fun recording it.”
‘CASTIN’ MY SPELL’
“Originally performed by Johnny Otis, this song makes me think at the times in the 1950s when some rhythm & blues artists were using ‘voodoo’ themes for some of their songs. I mean, not that I’m believer in voodoo and supernatural activity, but I love it’s theatrics and dark arts about it. It’s a lot of fun, it has catchy lyrics and the sounding of those drums you here I intended on making sound ‘jungle wild’, you know.”
‘PLAITSTOW PATRICIA’
“This, in my opinion, is the legendary Ian Dury’s most underrated song. He was a poetic genius and was arguably one of the first original London punks. He wrote genius creative lyrics, had a great sense of humour and storyline, as well as trying to reflect the reality of living in East London. It’s way ahead of its time and the swearing you hear on the opening of it, he once claimed, that he wasn’t doing to sound cool, get attention, but for the kids and angry teenagers. Thank God it came out in 1977, or it probably would have been a different story.”
‘CHIM-CHIM-CHER-REE’
“Here we go *chuckles* from a real cockney to a fake cockney, but a likeable fake cockney. It’s not rockabilly, but I gave it that bluesy-jazz feel to it. ‘Mary Poppins’ is a symbol of most childhoods and it’s this song, through the genius songwriting minds of the Sherman Brothers, I think helps cheer me up as well as it does to the two kids in the film. The line; ‘Good luck will rub off when I shake hands with you!’ I feel should stick with anyone who’s having a bad day. All I can say about recording this song and to other musicians is; if you like a song that cheers you up, learn it and record it.”
WHAT NEW MUSIC CAN WE EXPECT TO HEAR FROM YOU IN THE FUTURE?
Well I would like to do some more converted rockabilly recordings of popular songs, but at the moment, I’ve got a rockabilly trio going, we’ve played some shows outside of London so far, and are currently recording our rough demo together and will have more on that next time!
Find out more via Crabb’s Facebook or Bandcamp
