Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Brian Setzer And The Songs That Inspired Him
Episode Date: May 1, 2024Conan sits down with musician Brian Setzer for a deep dive conversation about his trademark blend of rockabilly and big band as well as the songs that inspired him. Follow along with the full list of... songs here: Somethin’ Else (Eddie Cochran)Be Bop A-Lula (Gene Vincent and The Blue Caps)She Loves You (The Beatles)
Transcript
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Hey, this is kind of cool.
Recently I got to sit down with one of my heroes.
As you may know about me, I'm kind of a rockabilly fanatic and I love Brian Setzer.
Turns out he was in town and we got to sit down for an hour long conversation, which
was just a blast for me.
We talked about a lot,
Brian committing to always doing what he wanted to do
as a musician, that guy has stuck to his guns
and it's worked out beautifully for him.
Having a guitar lead,
a big band was something he had never done before,
which is massive.
Guitarists did not lead big bands, but he did it.
How rockabilly spoke to him,
as it did to me at a very young age.
Meeting George Harrison in Ringo, but never Paul.
And Brian and I talk a little bit
about living on a tour bus
and how it can drive one quite insane.
Anyway, it was a really fun conversation.
If you want, you can listen to the episode
with the songs included by searching Conan
in the new SiriusXM app, or you can listen to the conversation here and queue up the
songs on your music streaming app of choice.
Check it out.
Here's my conversation with Brian Setzer.
Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, bend the shoes, walk and lose, climb the fence, books and pens.
I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
The message of my career is dreams do come true.
And I've been a massive fan and huge admirer of a
gentleman known as Brian Setzer for many years and he's been an influence on me
in all kinds of ways and I adore him and over the years I've had the pleasure of
Brian coming on my shows and getting to perform live with Brian.
And then we heard that there was a chance
that he might be in town
and might have a moment to sit down with us
and appear on Conan O'Brien Words and Music
with my friend Jim Pitt.
And so we did everything we could to get him here.
We kidnapped him about an hour ago
and he's here with me now and I could not be happier.
Brian, thanks for being here.
Oh, seriously, I'm just like,
and I've told this to many people
that I can kind of do the hair.
If I could play guitar like you and sing like you,
no one would ever hear me tell a joke again.
I'd be gone, I'd be out on the road
because you're living the life that I would like to live.
So, and then to find out years ago
that you're also an incredibly nice person
was this nice gift.
I remember being afraid the first time you came on the show,
what if he's an asshole?
You never know. There's gonna be a fight.
Yeah, exactly.
From your music, there's just, you know,
there's a lot of people fighting and switchblades.
Yeah, drinking.
He might pull a knife on me.
And then you could not have been a nicer guy.
And so many of my favorite memories
of doing a late night show over the years
was when you would come by, when you would bring the
Brian Setzer Orchestra.
Oh, yeah.
And people knew on days when you're coming
with your orchestra, don't bother me.
Meaning don't give me a lot of comedy that day
that I have to rehearse.
Don't try to have a lot of meetings with me.
Don't have the accountants in that day.
Leave me alone so I can go downstairs
and sit in the audience and watch you guys do your thing. Always a joy.
Oh yeah, you loved the big band. I know you did.
Yeah. And I remembered sitting, this is one of my favorite memories, I'm sitting in the
audience and you play the set that you're going to play, what you're going to do for
the late night show.
And then you said, hey Conan,
anything else you wanna hear?
And I'm just sitting there in the audience,
like with Jim Pitt, who's sitting with me
and maybe a couple of other people.
And I said, are you guys do the Hawaii Five-O theme?
And you went, guys, one, two, three,
dun, dun, dun, dun.
Oh, I know, you just did it.
And when it was over, my clothes had been ta-ta-ta-ta. Oh, I know. You just did it and it, when it was over,
my clothes had been blown off.
I was completely naked.
I was just, it was absolutely incredible.
And how, just, I mean, first of all,
I know this is one of the things I've heard about you
and it's something I've thought about over the years,
which is some of the best music ever made in America
is television theme songs.
Yeah.
And we grew up with them. We're the same vintage and we grew up with this stuff.
Hawaii Five-O, I know you're a big, I've heard you talk about the Manix theme.
Oh God.
I think about, you know, the Wild Wild West.
Yeah.
There are all these incredible.
Bonanza.
Bonanza, great orchestration.
Yeah.
Great music.
And it was television themes.
Yeah.
You know what happened?
So those were jazz guys, right?
That once the big band, Dinosaurs, went away,
they became extinct.
They had nowhere to go.
And they started doing that for TV.
So we need something big and bold that sounds out West. And it was four guys in New York City
in the Brill Building, writing about the Wild West. It's the funniest thing. And it's the best stuff.
And they wrote Bonanza, Hawaii Five-O and all that, just fantastic stuff.
So when I actually got the big band together,
heard that back, it was my favorite stuff to play.
It's amazing.
I love playing that.
James Bond. Who could do the James Bond theme?
No, it's incredible.
That music is so iconic and because it was a TV theme,
it was easy for people to, at the time,
probably dismiss it, like, oh, it's just some song
on television, it's not the real thing,
until you go back and listen to it and realize
this is some of the best music recorded.
I was really, it didn't surprise me,
but when I found out that, because when I was a kid,
one of my favorite cartoons was Top Cat.
Top Cat, da da da da da,
ba da da da da da, Top Cat, ba da da da da da.
And it was this cartoon,
sort of like a Sergeant Bilko who's a cat
and he's got his gang
and they always pull one over on somebody.
It was very funny,
I think it was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon,
that the Top Cat theme was an inspiration for you.
Top Cat theme, because it was badass.
You know, they were mixing some, you know, trying to mix rock and roll, but their roots
were in that 50s big band stuff.
It was just sweet.
Nobody had hit upon it.
And I had the idea, why don't I lead a big band with a guitar?
That's never been done.
And everybody tried to talk me out of that one.
And they were saying, oh, it's gonna be an embarrassment.
No one's gonna wanna listen to this.
You just won't be able to pay them.
Yeah, who's gonna come see that?
They said that was rockabilly too.
But I've always just done what I've wanted to do.
And that big band just kind of kept taking off,
taking off, it got higher and higher and higher.
You know, I paid the band out of pocket
the first couple of shows.
And then I remember all of a sudden is
the Greek theater want you.
The Greek, we just did the House of Blues.
It caught on and it just kind of,
it kind of stayed there at this point.
So a lot of people, we ended up with the Hollywood Bowl,
a lot of people feel the way we do.
Well, that's the kind of, I always call it the field of dreams phenomenon.
If you build it, they will come.
Which is, if you, my whole career I've thought,
if this is something I really care about comedically,
I'm just gonna keep doubling down on it.
And if no one else cares,
at least I did what I wanted to do.
But I think other people are gonna care.
Right.
And if you just keep putting that signal out,
and it's a little bit of almost a religious thing,
spiritual, like I'm gonna double down on this
and put this signal out there.
And I'll show them.
Yeah.
Yeah, and going back like is interesting
because it's hard to explain.
Time goes by and then people lose the context.
But when Stray Cats first comes around,
when you're first playing this music, 1980, 81,
it is the exact opposite, late 70s, early 80s,
it's the exact opposite of what the music scene is.
Completely, diametrically opposed.
Nobody's got a three piece playing stripped down,
rockabilly stand up bass, snare drum,
6120 Gretsch guitar, no one's piling their hair up like that.
It's the cars, it's the, I mean,
we could go on and on about what it was,
but it was not that.
No.
And, but I think it was just musically so undeniably amazing
that it cut through and became a sensation.
And I think a lot of people were hungry for it when it came.
Yes, we found that out.
But when we first started, first of all, the band was right.
Me, Jim, and Lee, we had a chemistry.
We're just three guys from almost the same block
on Long Island.
And we just believed in the sound,
because without mentioning other bands' names,
we had had enough of the big pompous bands
with the gongs and all that stuff.
And I said, you don't need all this stuff, you know?
You don't need the half a million dollar Les Paul.
You don't need that, man.
I'm picturing the Stray Cats going out with just you guys
and a gong and I'm on gong and every now and then
you signal me and a dong.
And a G-string.
I do it, I do it.
But yeah, so you were, it was a reaction
to what was happening and you did that.
And then of course, later in your career,
when you did the big band, that's a reaction
because I think when you came out with the big band,
it was grunge was what everybody wanted.
That's right, absolutely.
I've got this massive orchestra
and I'm gonna do Louis Prima,
and it's gonna be huge.
And it was.
It did become huge.
The idea for the big band, you know,
I learned how to read and write music.
And Johnny Carson asked,
and he didn't have rock bands on yet,
if we wanted to be on the show.
We're like, what? Who, just kids?
And then he said, you want East Docks big band? And that's where the idea started. bands on yet if we wanted to be on the show. We're like, what? We're just kids.
Then he said, you want to use Doc's big band?
That's where the idea started.
Did you do it?
They didn't have us on.
No, it didn't work out.
Johnny did that a lot, invite people on,
they'd show up and he wouldn't let them in.
It was an old Johnny trick.
Yeah. That's pretty much how it happened.
We didn't get the show,
but they were talking about it,
but that idea remained.
What if I put that big band behind the Stray Cats?
Sure.
Since I can write all that stuff.
I just wanted to hear it because the two had never met.
A guitar player had never led a big band.
Like you said, we were influenced by all that 50s and 60s television theme stuff.
So I at least had to try it.
And believe me, it was hard to get 17 guys to do this,
to write all that music out.
People would yell out songs and I would say,
well, but we don't have the charts.
What?
Play, rock this town.
Well, I didn't have a written out yet for the big band.
I hadn't re-imagined it yet.
Right.
So it was an idea that I had to follow through with.
But from the very first one, it was like,
wait, this is not like Sinatra.
This is something different.
It's a hybrid.
Yeah. It was my idea of rock and roll,
but not a swing band.
People thought we were swing as well,
and the swing bands had three or four horns.
This was a full big band, you know?
So that's what started that idea,
and then it caught fire pretty quick.
I have to say, for me personally,
I think one of the reasons I grabbed onto you
and what you were doing
immediately is I had this experience.
I was born in 63, so I'm in college and everyone's listening to what people are listening to
in the 80s.
I'm in freshman year, soft sell is really big and patented love.
You've got all this stuff happening in the eighties.
And I remembered it was fine,
but I wasn't grabbed by any of it.
Then I think they did some reissue
of the Sun Session albums.
Or I started to hear early Elvis.
Cause I had only known.
Sure.
I had only known Elvis hits that we were all.
The stuff that your mom played.
Right, exactly, the stuff that was on RCA
or especially the stuff that came later on,
you know, 70s, late 60s, 70s.
And so I start to hear,
like I hear a baby let's play house
and I can just feel something happen to me.
It's so primal.
I know.
Baby, baby, baby. And I'm just, I'm listening to it and It's so primal. You know, baby, baby.
And I'm just, I'm listening to it and it's,
you might go to college, you might go to school,
you might drive a pink Cadillac, but you know,
and there's a real passion behind it.
It's very simple.
And then obviously that's all right, mama.
And I'm listening to all this stuff.
And the next thing I know, my dorm room,
I have an early Elvis poster,
but I also have Jerry Lee Lewis from High School Confidential
on the back of the truck playing the piano.
He's on the back of like a pickup truck.
It was a still from the movie High School Confidential.
And I'm listening to Jerry Lee Lewis,
and then I'm listening to Lil Richard.
And that's the stuff I'm listening to,
and my friends don't get it.
They're like, what are you doing?
Why are you doing this?
And of course, you guys come around,
and then suddenly it's cool.
It feels like it's, you know,
you know what I mean?
It's, I could understand it,
because to me, it was,
I still explain it as,
this is the music that still like,
reaches right into my chest and grabs me.
And for me, it's like for Buddy Holly, it's Ray Vaughan.
Like the kind of insistence of it, you know,
that in its driving and it's very simple,
but that was why what you were doing
and everything that you've done throughout your career
has always kind of made perfect sense to me
because other stuff, I don't know.
I love and admire a lot of the other stuff,
but there's something so,
like I would just go back to Primal about what you're doing.
I know.
You either get that or you don't.
I feel the same exact way.
I went through the same thing.
And I think the first I heard any of that real stuff was my dad was in Korea.
He was, you know, and he came back with some records.
This is what the guys were listening to, you know, I like it.
And I put on, you know, Carl Perkins.
And I couldn't tell him I liked it.
But to me, it rivaled, it was, it rivaled that energy that punk rock was just starting with, but the guys
could really play. And it just spoke right to me. And that's the hardest thing to write, is the
simplest stuff with the direct lyrics, the direct chords. I mean, because it's all been written.
with the direct lyrics, the direct chords. I mean, because it's all been written.
You know, that's the hardest stuff to come up with.
But I had the same exact feeling as you did.
Isn't that funny?
I didn't know everybody was going to do their hair like me.
I thought that was for stage.
Yeah.
But I stuck with it for the longest period.
And people were like, when I was this writer...
Oh, you still got a good head of hair there.
When I was a writer on The Simpsons,
I had this giant pile on my head and I had sideburns
and people were just like, you're a comedy writer.
Mm-hmm.
Why do you?
Yeah, but that's how you feel comfortable, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. You showed up earlier than I thought you were coming in and I wander around my, because
it's my building, I get to wander around with a guitar around me all the time.
You will attest that this is true.
That goes back a long way.
That goes back a long way and I always have a guitar in the shop. Yeah, you always have a guitar around me all the time. You will attest that this is true. That goes back a long way. That goes back a long way,
and I always have a guitar in the slot.
Yeah, you always have a guitar, right?
So I have, I heard all this commotion downstairs
because they were having a birthday party
for Sara Federovich, and I come down just to join in,
and of course I just have a Gretsch,
a Duo Jet around my neck, and who do I,
the first person I run into is you, Ryan,
and I feel like an ass,
because it's like walking up to Tiger Woods
holding a golf club.
I feel stupid now.
Look what I've got.
I know how to play.
The coincidence.
Yeah, exactly.
Who knew?
But I'm glad it made it into the studio.
You know, we were gonna,
one of the things we like to do occasionally on this show
is we ask our guests to pick a couple songs.
And the first one you picked is something else
by Eddie Cochran, which is 1958.
And I got into Eddie Cochran, I think after college,
I'm out here in LA and I'm really trying to start to learn.
I'd been a shitty drummer,
and I decided it's time to be a shitty guitar player.
And I, a friend of mine, Randy Clempert,
and I, who were in improv class together,
he could play serious rockabilly licks,
and that's what I wanted to do.
And he said, you gotta know about Eddie Cochran.
So he was the one that got me into Eddie Cochran.
And Eddie Cochran was the guy who had a big orange Gretsch 6120.
And that was the guitar that you had to have if you were going to do what you wanted to
do.
Well, can I tell you how I discovered him?
There's no time.
We're out.
All right, goodbye everybody.
No, I'm kidding.
I'll see you then. Go ahead. yes, that's why you're here.
But the funny thing about Eddie was nobody knew who,
like, you know, my folks didn't know who Eddie Cochran was.
He had summertime blues,
but we had a record store called Whirlin' Disc,
and it was a cheap little place,
and the guy had the album covers hanging from Fish and Line.
I don't know how old I was, well, early 70s, right?
You know, just, you know, teens, early teens, 14.
And I didn't like anything I was hearing.
And I banged into this one record.
I go, who's this guy?
I didn't know what he sounded like.
I go, this guy just looks cool.
I just, that look made me feel right too, you know?
I couldn't relate to the 70s kind of rock and roll look,
but I was a rock and roller.
So I saw a picture of Eddie with the baggy pants,
the slick back, I went, this cat's cool.
You know, he could be in a motorcycle gang,
he could be a guitar player.
And then when I went home and put the record on it was all over
Why doesn't everybody know who he is? Yeah, they do in England and places like that
but I but we opened up for the stones here in
1980 and I'm you know, I'm just glad we didn't get boot off
But we came up on stage and I said,
"'Hey, hello, Minnesota, home of Eddie Cochran.'"
People just gave me a what?
Quizzical look.
I had no idea, yeah.
They didn't know who he was.
One second time I came back,
they had signs saying, "'Home of Eddie Cochran.'"
Well, tragically for the listeners
that don't know Eddie Cochran, brilliant, fantastic.
He wrote and he sang and he looked like a million bucks,
but he could also play.
He was a real player.
Yes.
And you know, not everybody, not everybody,
some guys just funked out rhythm,
but Eddie Cochran could really play
and his trademark was 6120,
which you all know it when you see it,
it's big orange guitar that was kind of a country
western theme guitar and they would put a cattle
brand on it of the Grets G and some of the ones,
I've never had one but some of them have all this
inlay of like little cactus and little,
and I remember when you first started playing,
seeing that you had a 6120,
but you would put like dice on for the knobs.
And I thought that was the coolest thing.
I still think it's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
You know, I'm seeing a lot of cool stuff,
but I still think that is the guitar, you know?
But he went to England and was touring
and was in a car accident and was killed.
Yeah.
And I've always heard that George Harrison,
this is pre-Beatles, followed that tour.
George Harrison, of course, was like a young kid,
teenager who loved Eddie Cochran.
They didn't get access to these stars
because very few of them came over,
but that George was really interested
in following that concert and trying to get a chance
to look at Eddie Cochran and see him.
And tragically, he passed away on that tour.
He was killed.
On that tour, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So we have a song,
because we asked you to supply three songs
and the first you said was something else by Eddie Cochran
and I love that song.
He goes, what's all this?
What's all this?
It's just all swagger.
Oh, it's all swagger, but you know what's also nice?
There's a sweetness to it, which is, you know,
the punk or version or you'd think would be,
you know, I want that girl, I gotta get that car,
I'm gonna go fucking steal that car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm gonna work real hard and save my dough.
I never thought of that.
And it's kind of like, it's nice, there's almost this,
there's this almost like work ethic message in there.
I never thought of that.
I'm not gonna go steal it, but you can tell he's got swagger and everything, but he's
gonna do this the legit way.
How did they get that sound?
What is happening there?
Do you know?
Do you have any idea?
Good gosh.
We have tried to capture all those sounds, and I'm telling you, it's in the air, because
even if you use the old flat wound strings, even if
you go back and use all the tube stuff, you can't catch it. It was just in the air. I
was going to say it's funny when I was living back in the UK, there was a big division amongst
groups, right? The punks didn't like the rockers and they didn't like the mods and they didn't
like all that stuff. They all agreed on Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
Like, oh, Gene Vincent, all right.
I remember Lemmy saying, oh, Gene Vincent, mate,
it takes 10 of you to make one of him.
Everybody agreed that those were the guys
who was no fighting amongst that.
Here's a weird thing too, again, not to be morbid,
but I think Gene Vincent was in the car.
Gene Vincent was in the car. He was. Gene Vincent was in the cab.
Yes.
With Eddie Cochran and Eddie Cochran's girlfriend
when the car crashed in England
when they were doing that tour.
And as a side note, Gene Vincent was injured,
Eddie Cochran was killed, but his girlfriend,
Sharon Shealy, co-wrote something else with him.
Yeah, she was a writer and they were a great,
I've heard her interviewed talking about Eddie
and talking about them working together.
Have you?
Yeah.
Now I've been on that little curve where they smashed,
it's pretty wicked even on a nice night,
raining and all sorts of,
come on we wanna go home, that kind of jazz.
It's the, it's the, I had a chance
because I'm a Buddy Holly fanatic.
I, we had, the crickets came by once
and they performed on late night.
Right.
And afterwards we were just hanging out
and I couldn't believe I was getting to talk to the crickets.
And then I just said, you know, I kind of just said,
I don't know where, like, why did Buddy get on that plane?
It's snowing and why'd he do that?
And I think it was the Jerry Allison or someone said,
ah, buddy, he had get there-itis, always did.
You know, like he just, I gotta get there.
You know, I'm sick of this bus.
Oh, I'll go ahead, I'll take the laundry with me.
We'll take this little plane.
And I always think about that
because every now and then I'm in a situation, from doing a travel show somewhere, I'm doing something, people say, you know,
this guy can take you in a helicopter and we'll get there a little faster. And I always say,
I'm all right. That helicopter doesn't, looks like it was built in World War I as an experiment.
I think I'm good. I'll just be a little late. It's okay to be late.
I'm getting worse at two as I get older
because we, you know, I live in Minnesota in the Tundra
and we took a 25 hour bus ride,
even though we have the dogs and you know,
we want to come like that.
But I took that over a flight because I just,
I just got to go my way at this point, you know.
Can you sleep on a bus?
Because I did some bus time, Can you sleep on a bus? Cause I did some bus time, couldn't,
could never sleep on a bus.
And so what I would do is I'd be too wound up from the show.
So I would sit up front with the bus driver and jabber while everyone else was
sleeping and just talk and talk and talk.
That's the thing.
People who'd never been on one of those things.
I can, yeah. But people who've never been on one of those things, I can yeah,
but people never been on those think that anytime off is just like you know, no big deal,
you can go do this and go do that, you know, you know, when they said, well, Conan wants you to
come on, I said Conan, I'll make time for, but you know, I was told you got on a bus and it was 25
hours just for this interview and you're turning around and coming, and you're going straight back.
That might have been an exaggeration.
I'm gonna stick with my story.
Conan walks me, get up the bus.
Get out that bus.
Yeah, Gene Vincent was a guy that I got really into
also around the same time as Eddie Cochran.
And what I knew about Gene Vincent was obviously,
he had great style and he had a great voice,
but he had this guitar player.
And at the time, when I first heard it, I thought,
is that Gene Vincent playing that?
I didn't know anything.
And it turned out to be, he had this guitar player,
he's one of the great guitar players
in rock and roll history. I know.
Maybe one of the all time, you know, like if you're going to make a list of 10, Cliff
Gallup.
Everybody has to agree on Cliff Gallup.
I heard Cliff Gallup for the first time again, you know, we're about the same age.
How would you hear that?
And I was in Max's Kansas City in Manhattan and shooting pool.
All the punk was on there,
screaming out of the jukebox.
All of a sudden, will be
Bobbaloo and it was like a hand came across
the pool table and pulled me into that jukebox.
That guitar solo came on and it
was the sexiest thing I'd ever heard.
I go, what's this guy doing really?
Yeah, that's, that's how I started to use it.
A pick and my fingers.
He, uh, uh, Gallup used finger picks and thumb pick.
I just use my fingers and a guitar pick, but I, I pick like that.
And then I go back down with the pick and I just did it because I, I wasn't
getting, I wanted to finger pick.
You know, I wanted to do some stuff that Scotty Moore did.
Yeah.
So I just invented that.
I never saw anyone do it.
But when I heard that song, I just went, wow.
It was, it was sexy.
Yeah.
I just had it.
We had Scotty Moore sit in with Scotty and DJ.
He and DJ.
And DJ Fontana, his drummer,
they sat in with Max Weinberg.
I mean, I used that late night show so much of it was,
Conan works out his quiet perversions
and America has to come along whether they want to or not.
But he came and then the show was over and I asked him,
could you just, Scotty, I can play the solo to
That's all right, mama.
But boom, boom, boom, boom, down, down, down.
I can do it, kinda.
But anyone, oh no, it's not that hard.
Let me show you, son.
And then he did it in front of me.
And to see the hands, this is where it gets weird.
You see the hands make the shapes and do it.
And you realize these are the same hands
that did it in 1954 in Sun Studio.
And that changed the world.
And I'm looking at the same fingers.
I know.
And then I think, okay, it's time for me to go
have a drink, take a pill, something.
You gotta get out of that head,
but it's interesting to go there for a while.
A lot of people that think that way.
Yeah.
But so Gene Vincent, he comes along
and what's interesting about Gene Vincent is Elvis hits
and he's huge and it's a phenomenon.
So everyone's looking for the next Elvis.
We gotta get one of those.
RCA has Elvis, they buy the Colonel's contract.
So Capital Records says we got to find someone.
And I had always heard that Gene Vincent had won like a contest, like sound like Elvis contest.
Sure.
And so capital signed him because they thought
this guy will be the next, he'll be our Elvis.
Right.
Which kind of makes sense because he's, you know.
Every guy from down south was trying to be the next Elvis. Yeah. But Gene had, I think Gene lived
those lyrics. He was a bad boy. But he had that sweet, what is it? Ian Dury said, sweet Virginia
whisper. He had that thing and he had the band, right?
You know that, that when they came in to record,
they had studio, like Chad Atkins was there,
in case the band wasn't any good.
They heard the band, they went,
oh, well, we could send them a studio guys home.
Right.
Band's amazing.
These guys are great.
Yeah.
Gene Vincent and the blue caps.
And the studio photos I've always seen,
all his amazing band, they're all wearing blue caps. And Gene studio photos I've always seen, all his amazing band, they're all wearing blue caps.
And Gene always has this archtop guitar
that looks like it has a hole in it.
You know, like this beat up.
A big hole.
Yeah.
Bubba told me they used to light off cherry bombs on stage
to get the audience going.
I should have, I could have used that.
There are plenty of times I could have.
Yeah, me too.
Plenty of nights we had a flat crowd.
He told me, they used to throw cherry bombs around
and blew up on the Gene's guitar.
That's what he told me about that hole.
So Gene Vincent, he really shoots to the top
cause he does a song called Bebopalula.
And that was the second song that you chose.
It's from 1956, I believe.
So this is around the time the Elvis fuse gets lit in 54,
it's really starting to burn in 55.
And then 56 is when Elvis just becomes, you know,
he's everywhere and he is the king of show business
and it's a huge revolution, king of rock and roll,
and then Gene Vincent comes up with Bebopaloola,
which is a massive hit.
And so let's give that a listen and then we can discuss.
Yeah, spin it.
Or push the button.
No one's spinning.
Spin it sounds better.
I know.
You know, it's interesting cause the guitar is amazing,
but you pointed out something about Gene Vincent's voice,
which is it sounds like,
it does sound like cool spring water.
There's something very liquid about it.
Do you know what I mean?
Oh man, yeah.
It's just kind of perfect and you can't.
It's sexy.
Yeah, it's very, yeah, very sexy.
Yeah.
And, um, what is Cliff Gallup playing? Is he playing a telecaster?
He's playing the guitar in the corner there.
Is he playing a duo jet?
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Okay.
So he's playing a Gretsch.
All right.
Gretsch duo jet.
Yep.
It is so funny cause Gretschches, which it's funny,
you single-handedly drove up the price of Gretches,
you asshole, but when you come along
and you're playing the 6120, when Gretches weren't thought
of, they weren't valued that way, especially 6120's
duo jets, and then you come along,
and after the
Stray Cats, there were thousands and thousands of
dollars and you can't have one.
My first ever electric guitar was a Tennessean.
Yep.
And with the single cutaway and it had the painted
F holes, which I didn't really know why would you
paint F holes on.
I didn't understand why.
And someone explained to me, it's because of the feedback, you know, that they didn't. I didn't understand why and someone explained to me
it's because of the feedback.
They hadn't quite figured out yet
how to keep guitars from feeding back through the F-hole.
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Yeah.
You know, I'm convinced, you know,
after all these years of playing,
if one person says something, they'll change it.
Like, I just bought this new guitar from Gretsch
and my son is having problems
and I had to save up a lot of money.
Oh, we'd better change it."
And then they'll do something like that.
Yeah.
You know?
Honestly, I use the feedback.
That's why I need. Of course.
Yeah.
Right, so people that don't play guitar,
I'll explain to them, like a solid body guitar,
doesn't feedback,
because there's nothing coming out of the guitar,
except the pickups are pulling the sound from the strings. But when you play an archtop guitar-
Which is more like a, if you imagine a violin or an acoustic guitar, it's hollow, it's got big
holes for the sound to, it resonates. It's not a solid block of wood.
Picture me playing a cello with pickups. If you stand in the right spot, it doesn't go
If you stand in the right spot, it doesn't go, because we rock them.
Those guys in the fifties, you know,
Chad Atkins, he sat down and played it like a gentleman,
country gentleman.
We started just rocking out with them, you know?
So we had to figure out how to get them to play right.
We had Chad Atkins come by the show.
Yeah, we did.
We did.
Yep, and then, so of course, being the nerd I am.
You guys had everybody.
We had everybody.
Les Paul was on like the first week.
Les Paul came on the first week,
gave me a Les Paul and signed it to me.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I wish I hadn't thrown it out.
But, but, you know, I don't want to be a hoarder,
but no, Chet Atkins came by and so I gave,
I showed him my Chet Atkins, Gretsch 6120 and he takes it out of my hand
and he looks at it, but he looks at it very technically
like, let's see.
Cause it's his, it's one that was put up
with his name on it.
So he was looking at it and he goes like, hmm, yes, well,
they did a good job with this.
And then he did a really cool thing.
He just put his initials on the back of the headstock rather than sign a big thing up front.
And he was like, well, that would mar the guitar.
So I'll just do with a little Sharpie.
And you, I mean, I have that guitar.
You can't even see it barely, but it's back there.
And it was his way of saying like,
well, we mustn't damage the product.
Right.
That is cool.
Yeah, I only met him once too, and he invited me over
and he goes, why don't you look me up before, boy? And I said, I only met him once too, and he invited me over,
and he goes, why don't you look me up before, boy?
And I said, I thought it'd be like meeting the pope.
I didn't think I could just come in and meet you.
So we sat down and played, and hold on one second,
let me show you something cool.
Sure, yeah.
So I don't know how well you can hear it.
So he goes, can I show you something?
And I go, yeah.
Yes, you can, Chet Atkins.
Yes, exactly. He goes, what do show you something? And I go, yeah. Yes, you can, Chet Atkins.
Yes, you can.
Exactly.
He goes, what do you want to know?
I go, do you have anything in B flat?
And he goes, what are you doing up there, son?
Wow.
I go, I got this big band with all these horns.
So he gave me this really cool riff. It's cool, right?
That's beautiful. I love that.
Isn't that nice?
What is it? I mean, it's not blues.
It's not, what is that?
It's kind of, it almost sounds a little like Dixieland or something.
I don't know.
It does. It does, it sounds like. Yes. You know, it's something you had to have like a, you could have like a straw boat or hat
on playing that.
Yeah.
I said, so I wrote a song around that, you know, let's live it up, let's live it up.
I wrote a song and I said, can I give you credit for that or something?
He goes, oh hell, I just stole it from Jerry Reed.
Everybody stole from somebody.
That's true.
They nicked, they nicked it.
Yeah.
As the Beatles would say.
I'm curious, you said like,
you didn't think you could just go talk to Chet Atkins.
And I love that attitude.
I've always had that attitude.
Like I don't wanna bother people.
And who am I to, I don't know, I'm always,
if it's probably better to go at it from that angle,
then this person's gonna love meeting me.
You know what I mean?
It's a good- Yeah, I mean,
do I look you up in the phone book?
I would have no idea and I wouldn't even pursue it, right?
Cause he's Chet Atkins, but he reached out,
he had the whole building there in Music Row.
Yep.
He goes, why don't you call me, boy,
why don't you look me up?
I thought it'd be like calling up the Pope.
Yeah.
And then he was just happy to sit down and just play.
Why is B-flat so cool?
B-flat is a cool key.
You like B-flat?
Well, okay, the other day, I know you're coming on
and you're on my rap.
I think one of the things I listen to
that you've done the most is your version
of Jump, Jive and Whale, you know?
And I'm listening to it and I get out my guitar
and I'm guessing and I'm like, yep,
that's B-flat going up into B, you know, but I'm just like, what, why?
So many cool things are in B flat
and I don't know what that's all about.
It's cool on guitar when you play in a horn key.
That's a horn key.
That's a horn key, okay.
Yeah, because it has three flats.
And Chuck Berry's a lot of times.
Is it three flats, Julie, B flat?
Or two, oh, it is two flats.
Yeah, but it's- B and E, they're both flat.
Anyway, so it sounds better for those guys
when you're playing those keys.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of tricks on guitar
that you wouldn't normally do in that key.
And once you discover them,
you're one of the few people that do them.
Right. Because everybody that does the A and G and C.
Right.
But B flat, something a little different.
Isn't Chuck Berry in sort of B flat territory a lot, I think?
I don't know.
If you got a sax player in those days,
you probably converted to their key.
You had to know those keys.
And then it changed some time.
And oh, you're gonna play guitar keys now, A, D, G.
Right.
It's what comes across to me when you look at all
of your work is that you're interested in all music.
You're not thinking, nope, I'm rockabilly,
or, nope, I'm just gonna do big band now.
It's, you appreciate everything.
Like you have big ears for country.
I mean, if there's, you just like music.
And then what can I do?
Well, thanks, I do.
And so many people, they're just down,
they've got those blinders on, you know?
It's like, do you only have one record in your collection?
I do like all different types of music, you know?
That's why I kind of mix it all up.
That's why it's not pure rockabilly what I play
or it's not pure big band.
I just, that's what sounds good in my head.
And that's what comes out.
Mm-hmm.
The third song, this is a little bit of a departure,
which I didn't expect by the way,
but thrilled that it's on the list,
which is she loves,
cause I'm a Beatles fanatic as well.
She Loves You, 1963, the Beatles.
How did this make it on your,
Brian Setser picked three songs and something else, Be Bopalula,
and then She Loves You?
What's going on here?
What's going on is that was so influential
and just me liking music, it was so early.
And shall I talk about it after we spin it?
Sure.
Yeah, let's give these Beatles a chance. We're gonna hear from that group again, I know. So what was it about that song that made it onto
your list? So that song, you have to understand when I was, well, I don't know how old I was,
maybe it was just when I heard it. You would have been, I think, understand when I was, well, I don't know how old I was.
Maybe it was just when I heard it.
You would have been, I mean, you would have been,
I think five when it came out.
I was born in 59.
Okay, so I probably heard it later, right?
But you had to go grocery shopping,
we called it back east, grocery shopping.
I don't think they do all over with mom.
And there was a little pizza place across the way.
And that came out of the jukebox, you know, it's like yesterday.
And I walked up to the pizza guy.
Who's that on the jukebox?
I don't know. Ask those girls.
So I went up to these girls.
Who's that?
She goes, oh, it's a new band called the Beatles.
Right?
And the only thing in my young years was that guitar.
I heard the guitar, right?
And it was just new and fresh.
I mean, I couldn't have heard something
like Eddie Cochran yet.
And that's where you have to be open-minded
when people like different sorts of music.
Then we went across the street and in another record store,
there was a picture of The Beatles
and George had the neck of his guitar
like goofing around across the other Beatles necks like that. And I go, the guitar is what
makes that sound. It's the guitar. I wanted that sound. And that's why I couldn't get it out of my
head. I didn't want a BB gun. I wanted a guitar. What? A guitar? Nobody plays guitar.
We don't know anybody who plays guitar.
That's what I wanted.
Wasn't your first instrument, was it the guitar?
Well, in school, they stuck me with this thing called the euphonium.
Sounds like an iron lung.
Poor Brian, can't breathe on his own.
We got him a euphonium.
Oh, geez, you're right. It does.
So picture the skinny little kid from Long Island with the euphonium, which is like a
mini tuba, you're right.
But that's what they had in school.
My parents didn't have any money.
Actually, I learned how to read the bass clef with that thing, but I really wanted the guitar
to play.
But that's what I played in the school band.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Like, you know, that kind of music.
And then my brothers and I were cadets, you know,
and we had the hats and we could march with that thing.
Sure, yeah.
That was in B-flat, the euphonium.
I'm glad you gave it up.
I think he went a lot.
Rockabilly euphonium.
Yeah, exactly. Well, if it wasn't for my dad, I went a lot. Rockabilly euphonium. Yeah, exactly.
Well, if it was up to my dad,
I'd be in the Coast Guard playing euphoniums.
So you, of The Beatles, you kind of got to meet George
a few times.
Yeah, yeah.
Can you talk about that at all a little bit?
Because he would have, I imagine,
loved what you were doing.
He told me he did.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was very dry, you know, very sarcastic.
You know, like, no bullshit way, you know.
But yeah, what can I say about him really?
He was, you're always in such awe
when you meet someone like that, you know,
when you met Paul or when I met George.
But that's the stuff they all love.
They all love the rockabilly stuff.
Like I said, the biggest stars that people that I grew up with,
they wanted to meet Freddie Mercury or the latest,
Jethro Tull and all that, you know,
and all these guys wanted to meet the Stray Cats.
Isn't that cool?
Yeah, oh, it was unbelievable, you know.
He must have.
And I didn't know many of those band songs because I listened to rockabilly music, you know.
Right, right.
When we opened for the Stones, I could have sung maybe Satisfaction and a couple,
I didn't know their music.
Right.
Because I was listening to Carl Perkins, you know?
Which by the way, strangely enough,
they had been listening to,
or they had been listening to earlier,
and then they had gone on to that stuff.
What's so fascinating is that I have found this to be true.
People you idolize, it's the stuff that you heard
when you were a kid, so it's just you talking about
hearing some of this music when you were much younger, and it's just you talking about hearing some of this music
when you were much younger,
and that's what grabbed hold of you.
I'm that way about comedians.
I idolized the people that were on TV when I was a kid.
Those were the ones that later on,
when I got to meet them,
when I got to meet Don Knotts,
I couldn't believe I was meeting Don Knotts.
Yeah, right.
Now, so many incredibly talented,
genius performers today who are in their 30s and 40s.
When I meet them, they're younger than me,
I'm really excited to meet them,
and I really love their work, and I think they're brilliant.
But it's never gonna have the same effect on me
as seeing those people that came through my TV set
or on my record player when I was a kid. No one can get to you the same way.
I never thought of that, but yes. Yeah. And it's because that's what you're growing up with.
That's what shaped you. You get older, I guess, and it doesn't have that same effect.
Did you get to play at all with George or just chat?
I don't think I did.
I played with Keith and with Bill a lot, Bill Wyman.
Yep.
But I don't think I ever, no.
He didn't last too long, the poor guy.
No. But he said, oh, long, the poor guy. No. Um, but he said, uh, Oh, just a quick, funny story.
Yeah.
We went to a party and there was George and my brother did, you know, you, have
you ever brought a family member to meet somebody that they're going to flip out over?
Sure.
Okay.
So he does the thing.
Oh, don't do this.
You know, it goes, Oh, hi, Mr.
Harrison.
Uh, I've got a band. Uh, we're on the Deco label. I'm going to do this, you know. He goes, oh, hi, Mr. Harrison.
I've got a band, we're on the Deco label,
I'm going to do this and I'll be doing that.
And so George just looks at him and goes,
well, see you on the telly then.
And he walked away.
I could just see him doing that too.
And I was just, why did you do that?
Yeah.
We were just kids and if somebody did that to me,
I'd be understanding, you know?
Yeah, it was so funny
because we had Ringo on the show once
and I'll never forget,
it was the first time Ringo was on the show.
I played with Ringo.
Yeah, and Ringo's such a lovely guy,
but I remembered, it was the first time he was on the show
and he's back, he's out in the hall outside 6A
and iconic 6A studio and he's out in the hall outside 6A and iconic 6A studio
and he's outside and someone comes up and says the line
that people always says, which is,
I'm so sorry to bother you.
You know, if they want you to sign something.
I'm gonna bother you.
Yeah, and what they always say is,
I'm so sorry to bother you and Ringo with just matter of fact,
like he's been saying it since 1963, it was one of the like camera man said, so sorry to bother you and Ringo with, just matter of fact, like he's been saying it since 1963.
It was one of the like camera men said,
so sorry to bother you and he went, no, you're not.
But then signed it anyway.
But as he was signing it, just saying,
if you were really sorry, you wouldn't do it.
I just thought like, oh, that's kind of a,
these Liverpool guys, they know how to give it.
They know how to dish it out.
Each city seems to have that wise guy thing going, you know.
Yeah, well, I'm glad.
And you said you haven't met Paul,
which I find hard to believe.
No, no.
Yeah.
Well, just call him up.
He's not the pope.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, he is kind of the pope, I guess, isn't he?
Yeah.
I want to make sure I mention a couple of things.
Your latest album, which I've been listening to,
The Devil Always Collects from 2023, I love it. You're playing and singing as well as ever. uh, your latest album, which I've been listening to the devil always collects
from 2023. I love it. You're playing and singing as well as ever.
And this is something that Jim and I were talking about earlier, that it's crazy.
We've talked this much about your playing. You're a great fucking singer.
And you just, it's,
when did you know that you could sing like that? You're a crooner.
You can really belt.
I never wanted to sing.
I just wanted to, I wanted to be Scottie Moore.
And I think I just maybe got better.
For me being a singer, I just had to, you know,
you gotta let all your inhibitions go.
It's hard, you know, it's hard for me to do that,
just to let it all out.
Because sometimes you feel like you're being a fool.
Why don't I just sing?
But that's what really it takes
for me to be a good singer.
The guitar thing, I know what I wanna do.
I know what I wanna play, I know where I wanna do it.
I haven't figured it out.
The singing thing, it takes longer.
But I'm glad you like the new record.
I used a Gretsch Duo Jet on most of it,
which I never used and it just seems to fit for it.
I just cut, it just cut through.
And again, this is the Gretsch Duo Jet for you,
real freaks out there who care.
It's kind of like Gretsch's answer to a Les Paul sort of,
it's a solid body.
Right. And we were talking about how there's the 6120s of like Gretch's answer to a Les Paul sort of, it's a solid body.
And we were talking about how there's the 6120s and everything else we were talking about
are these hollow bodies,
but that's the guitar that George played in the cavern
with the Beatles.
That was his first real guitar.
Oh, that's right, yeah.
Was a Gretch Duo Jet.
Was a Gretch Duo Jet.
And Danny let me hold it once.
Danny. Oh, really?
Harrison had it. And. Danny Harrison had it.
Danny's got it. And yeah, Danny has, he has all the guitars.
Oh good.
And Danny handed it to me.
I'm glad they're not in some showcase somewhere.
No, no, no, Danny has them all.
And he's got the 12 string Rickenbacker
from Hard Day's Night.
Oh my.
He's got.
He's got the acoustic, he's got all of them.
Yeah, he's got all of them.
The psychedelic one. He's got Rocky, which is the one
that George hand-painted, psychedelics.
But he handed that one to me,
and that was the only one I wanted to hold
because I knew that, first of all, it's a grudge.
Second of all, it's the one that I knew they were playing
when they played on that first album.
Because there was blood, sweat, and tears on that guitar. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So
That was didn't he buy that guitar from like an American
Navy guy visiting like maybe possibly Liverpool and they couldn't afford American guitars
There's a great story that no one's adequately told yet. Anyway, as far as I know, maybe they have,
and I just haven't seen it,
but everyone thinks of the Beatles coming to America
for the first time in February of 64
and getting off the plane and doing Sullivan.
There was three of them.
It was their first time in America.
George had been the previous winter
because his sister was living out in like the Midwest,
like Minnesota, Minneapolis, someplace like that.
Oh, she married an American guy.
She married an American guy
and they were living out there.
George visits her.
Oh really?
And the Beatles are starting to click in England,
but no one knows who they are in America.
He comes out and he visits and he's this, this,
there are pictures of him visiting New York.
I think he's in New York maybe first,
and he's just kind of wandering around on his own.
But then he goes to the Midwest,
he's hanging out with his older sister,
and then they go and they see a local rock and roll band play
and the sister says, you know, my brother's pretty good.
Yeah. And they're like, where's he from? He sounds funny know, my brother's pretty good. Yeah.
And they're like, where's he from?
He sounds funny.
Oh, he's from Liverpool, England.
All right.
And then he gets up and he plays with this like local band in a dance hall somewhere in
the Midwest.
And the other kids are like, yeah, he's pretty good.
And then he says, well, you know, I'll be seeing you.
It was nice to see you all.
You know, goodbye, sister.
And he gets back on the plane and goes, and then
returns and they, with his friends and conquers America.
Oh, really?
So I would always thinking just somewhere there's a
great documentary of what was that like?
You know, that's the, that's a great idea.
So I don't know, but maybe it already exists.
And if it does, I got to see it.
But, uh, it's a funny place that, that Midwest people think I'm English there because I don't sound, but maybe it already exists. And if it does, I gotta see it. But- It's a funny place that Midwest,
people think I'm English there
because I don't sound like them.
I go, I'm from New York.
How could you think I'm English?
Oh, maybe you're, we thought you were Welsh or something.
Welsh!
What does a Welshman even sound like?
Yeah, I'm from Boston.
God knows what they think I am.
Yeah, The Devil Always Collects is fantastic.
Thanks, brother.
As good as anything you've ever done.
Oh, thanks.
And it's got a different guitar sound that I love
because I think you're playing not just this different
guitar, but you're playing it,
is it using like a different amp?
Are you using a different setup or is it the same setup?
It's the same setup.
I gotta bring my guitars to that amp.
I use a Fender Basement amp.
If I trade the amp because it has reverb or something,
I lose the sound.
Right.
But isn't it funny, like I really appreciate that,
of course, but everyone's telling me,
this is one of the best ones you've ever made.
Why is it?
I have absolutely no idea.
I don't know. I wrote the songs, I recorded them,
I changed the guitar on some of them,
but it's just what comes out.
Well, I think it's not your job to know.
Like your job is to, it's serious,
it's your job is to make it.
And then let other people ponder what it means.
You know what I mean?
I really believe that.
This has been like, again, this is a holiday for me.
I said when you came in the door,
I always suspect when like a Brian Setzer walks in
and he's here to talk to me,
I think it's a make a wish and no one's told me
that I'm dying and they're like,
Conan, he's very gravely ill, but we can't tell him.
Get Brian in.
Have Brian talk to him and tell him he's a good guy.
Tell him some stories, but it's a huge deal for me
and I'm so glad that you were able to do this.
And what I want you to do is go sleep
because you've got a huge,
you really give it everything you have when you perform.
So you need to go sleep.
It's those buses, I tell ya.
It's those buses. I tell ya. It's those buses.
Those goddamn buses.
Yeah.
I did see in my brief time on a bus why someone would start
taking recreational things to sleep.
I did completely understand.
There's a reason if you go insane on a stage for two hours
or something, or an hour and 45 minutes,
and then you get on a bus and someone says, go to sleep.
No, fuck you, I'm not going to sleep.
Unless you have a giant rhino tranquilizer,
I'm not going to sleep.
I know, it's tough.
I got almost 13 years, no beers.
And it doesn't make it easier on the bus, you know?
Right, right.
And it's just, yeah.
That's the hardest part.
The hardest part is the travel.
I think Joe Walsh said, the gig is free.
You're paying me to get there, right?
Right, oh, that's true.
That's a good way to look at it.
But I've noticed something different this tour,
which is funny.
It's like I've got the guitar guys out now
listening to the solos and getting applause
after the solos.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, yeah, like a jazz room or something.
Sure, yeah.
Wow, look at that.
You know, so that was kind of different.
I remember it being, I think it was Stray Cat Strap,
but you were playing on the video.
This is, you know, you're like, you're just a child,
but you're playing and it's this very eighties video that was hugely popular.
But being mad that they kept cutting away to the cat
and stuff when you're playing the solo.
Oh, really?
I'm like, I wanna see what his hands are doing.
I wanna see a fucking cat or a lady looking out a window
throwing a bucket.
You're like, where's his hands?
You know?
Anyway, Brian, God bless.
Thank you so much for being here
and I'll see you at the show tomorrow night.
Make it a good one or I'm walking out.
All right.
All right.
Conan O'Brien needs a friend.
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