The Questionnaire
Reverend Peyton
Southern Indiana-bred singer-guitarist Reverend Peyton is the bigger-than-life frontman of Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. He has earned a reputation as both a compelling performer and a persuasive evangelist for the rootsy country blues styles that captured his imagination early in life and inspired him and his band to make pilgrimages to Clarksdale, Mississippi to study under such blues masters as T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour and David ‘‘Honeyboy’’ Edwards. He talks to
Alexander. Mike What are you plugging right now?
I’m plugging the fact that we have a new full-length record that came out this year called Front Porch Sessions, and we have a single that is going to be released that is a cover of the old classic song 16 Tons. That single is from a limited-edition Record Store Day release that went so well that folks decided that it needed to be heard by more people.
"I once hung my hat on a lamp, and it caught on fire and it burned a hole in it. I didn't notice it and they came to the hotel looking for a fire." Reverend Peyton
What of someone else’s do you want to plug?
My pal James ‘‘Jim’’ Connor is an amazing artist who creates killer sculptures and functional art out of stone, steel and recycled parts. He is a real mountain man and renaissance man. He also was good enough to let me set him on fire for our We Deserve a Happy Ending music video. He is truly fearless!
How did you initially get involved in music?
I have been playing since I was 12 years old when my dad brought home a guitar. He started playing chords and some old songs and I was hooked from that moment. I started giving lessons the next year. I guess that goes to show how insane I was about practising and studying the guitar and blues music. I have been obsessed ever since then.
What is a song you remember from childhood?
The first song I ever played in front of anyone was The Old Rugged Cross. That was in church. The first song I ever played in front of a non-church crowd was Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode.