Hoodoo Revelator Interview
By Brian Owens - August 2006
I caught up with singer-guitarist Jay Scheffler, guitarist Jim Chilson and harp ace Mike Chipperini on the first day of summer and talked them about their band. The following is a look at Hoodoo Revelator...
METRONOME: When did you start your band Hoodoo Revelator?
Mike Chipperini: A good two years ago. We played our first gig, December 18, 2004.
METRONOME: How did you guys meet?
Jay Scheffler: Chipper knew Jimmy [Chilson] and Dave [Darling] and after that it was ads in the newspapers.
METRONOME: So an ad found Jay and bassist Jeff Fabrizio?
Chipper: I had jammed a little bit with Jimmy’s old band, Shakey Deal, and at that time he told me the band was breaking up. So Jimmy and I started talking and decided to form this band. He brought in a drummer friend, Dave Darling and then we recruited a bassist and lead vocalist.
METRONOME: Jay, what bands had you played in before?
I was in the Cyclones, Guaranteed Catch, The Post Mortems...
METRONOME: Were The Cyclones a rockabilly band?
Jay: Yep.
METRONOME: Was that a three piece act?
Jay: That was a four piece with no bass. It was two guitars, saxophone and drums.
METRONOME: How did you guys come up with the name Hoodoo Revelator?
Chipper: Everybody brought in a list of names and put them in a pot. Then we voted. That name won out. I think Jimmy came up with that. Nobody really knows what it means. We know that Hoodoo means bad luck and revelator in the strongest sense of the definition means, “one who’s able to feel.” But we say it means to revel, to celebrate. So what we do is celebrate bad luck as well as good luck. Such as, every cloud has a silver lining, there’s always a positive spin on stuff.
Jay: In the blues, the lyrics are often times about something screwed up that happened to you but you’re singing it out and the beat is heavy. That’s kind of what the blues is doin’, celebrating bad luck in a way.
Chipper: Bad times are just as much a part of life as good times. If you didn’t have those bad times and the pain of that birthing process of renewal, I would never have known the good times. A lot of poetry is born of pain and a lot of songwriting is born of pain, but it’s all good.
METRONOME: What was your vision for Hoodoo Revelator when you started?
Jim [Chilson]: When we started the band, what I was picturing was not just another blues band. We wanted to do more of what you would find out on a street corner in the middle of Chicago... Maxwell Street. A boogie groove kind of band that can get the people on the floor.
METRONOME: Half the songs on your new CD Do Me Right are covers and the other half are originals. What inspired you to write the title track “Do Me Right?”
Jay: It was one of those things that just all came out. Everything that you’ve been thinking and feeling about. It just pours out.
METRONOME: Did you bring the lyrics and music to the rest of the band and they helped shape it or did you have specific way you wanted the song to sound?
Jay: We were playing another song and realized we weren’t really playing it like anyone else. Our chord changes were all different so we decided why not write a whole new song on top of it.
METRONOME: Mike, your song “Chipper’s Boogie” sounds like you took some cues from The J. Geils Band. Was Magic Dick an influence of yours?
Chipper: Magic Dick is a major influence. I’m influenced by more rock harmonica players. First and foremost Magic Dick and then local legend James Montgomery. Then you have a host of others such as Neal Young, Alice Cooper, John Lennon... I think there are a lot of great rock and roll harmonica players out there that were merely influenced by guys like Sonny Boy Williamson. From Led Zeppelin to John Lennon. Lennon got a lot of his harmonica riffs from Sonny Boy Williamson.
I also got in to Paul Butterfield, Sonny Terry and John Mayall. If you listen to the beginning of “Chipper’s Boogie,” I do that little chugging thing and that’s largely an influence from Terry and Mayall. I look at a lot of my harp work as a horn. They call the harmonica the Mississippi sax, but I like Magic Dick’s idea about tonality and playing it like a horn.
Jay: Instead of having a whole horn section, we’ve got Chipper on the harp.
METRONOME: Did you have “Chipper’s Boogie” mapped out in your head or did the guys help you shape it.
Chipper: On that particular tune, I had been playing at jams here and there and trying to get my skills honed even more. With Hoodoo Revelator, I came in one day and said I’ve been working on this little thing. So I played it for them and said what I want to do is hand off to the guitar and hand off a drum solo, so we worked all that in. So I came in with the initial stuff but then of course you have five guys playing and it’s not like I’m going to dictate this is how it should be. I really wanted everybody to be involved with that tune in one way or another. At that point, neither Dave or Jeff didn’t really have any solos or anything they could stand out on. Now we gave them both a spotlight.
METRONOME: Jay, what kind of guitar do you play?
Jay: I play Epiphones. One is a semi-hollow body and one is like an SG that I put custom pickups into.
METRONOME: What kind of amplifier do you play through?
Jay: I play an Epiphone Galaxy 25. They only made them for two years. I bought it three years ago.
METRONOME: Do you trade off guitar solos with Jim [Chilson] or does he handle all the solo work?
Jay: When we play live, it’s so open ended. I’ll finish a verse and decide on the spot who is going next. I might point Chipper... it’s whoever is the most heated up. Most of the songs are wicked loose but we’re very much in control.
METRONOME: Who handles most of the guitar solos?
Jim: I do most of them.
METRONOME: Who are some of your influences?
Jim: I start with Stevie Ray Vaughan and work backwards... Albert King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker... love Hound Dog Taylor. I also like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Your typical Texas to Chicago, right up the Mississippi river.
METRONOME: What are some of things that inspire you to write a song?
Jim: Like Willie Dixon used to say, as a storyteller. Things that you view outside of yourself. I wrote the song “Don’t Want You No More” and basically that was based from a failed marriage of one of my friends.
METRONOME: What kind of guitar do you play?
Jim: Mainly Strats. I built one myself recently. I also play a Gibson ES-335...
METRONOME: What kind of amplifier do you use?
Jim: A Victoria 35-115. They’re made in Chicago. I also got the tremolo/reverb unit with it. It’s very 1950s sounding but a little beefier.
METRONOME: Do you both bring all your guitars to the live shows?
Jay: Jimmy will bring two or three and I usually just bring the Epiphone SG.
METRONOME: Who has your drummer Dave Darling played with in the past?
Chipper: He played with Shakey Deal for a period of time. He actually has two drum sets, one he uses for bigger rooms and one kit he plays in smaller rooms. People love Dave’s drum solos.
METRONOME: Tell me about some show highlights that have taken place in the last six months.
Jay: Last week man.
Chipper: Yeah, last week was great.
METRONOME: Where did you play?
Chipper: Captain Carlo’s in Gloucester had a little Blues Fest. We got on stage at ten o’clock and played for two and a half hours solid. We play a show now as opposed to just three sets in a night. We have found that audiences don’t like the space between songs, they love the continuity thing and we pulled that off at Captain Carlo’s fabulously.
METRONOME: Do you guys play there regularly?
Chipper: This is the second year in a row playing down there. We actually have another gig coming up there this summer. Another recent highlight gig was at The Chicken Bone in Framingham.
Jay: This is a group that was destined to be together. We are so comfortable with each other on stage. Even if we come from different backgrounds personally, once the music starts it’s like we’re one person.
METRONOME: You guys are obviously steeped in the blues tradition, but are there any contemporary acts that you like or are influenced by?
Jay: Chipper was digging the White Stripes. Those guys obviously like their blues.
Chipper: I like The White Stripes because they only have two people playing and he’s not afraid to try any genre. He’s up there singing Dolly Parton tunes then he’ll crash in to a Son House tune.
I’m the oldest guy in the band and I’ll bring in an iPod which I’ll play between sets or while we’re setting up and Jay will look at me and say, whoa, you’re playing The Clash. Do you like those guys? I’ll say yeah. He likes them. I like them and most of the guys in the band like The Clash. So we find that without knowing it, we have a lot of common ground. As far as contemporary music, we all have a great respect for The J. Geils Band. That’s about the strongest link I can get to as far as contemporary bands.
Jay: I’m also coming from a punk rock background. I started from blues, but I’ve done so much punk and avant garde music.
METRONOME: I thought it was interesting that you said you all liked The Clash without really knowing it before hand. I think it’s important to have common ground...
Chipper: Do you know what it’s like? Take the five Olympic rings. Instead of having the top row with three and the second row with two, all the rings overlap each other, yet half the ring is on its own. That’s what we’re like. We all have this overlap but then we have this individual influence that we bring to the band. If you notice between the paragraphs inside the CD cover, you’ll see these five diamonds all together. That represents the individual members of the band.
Jay: I learn a little something from each one of these guys every time we play a show.
METRONOME: Where can people buy your new CD Do Me Right?
Chipper: The best way to get a CD is to come to one of our shows. You can also go to our website, www.hoodoorev.com. We do all this stuff ourselves. We don’t have a guy doing our marketing or working on the website, we do it. We actually designed our own CD cover. We’re on an independent label but our independency goes much further than just the label itself.
METRONOME: So you guys created Upright Records to market your own product?
Chipper: Right.
METRONOME: Where can people catch your live act this summer?
You can hear us July 28 at Fat Boy Bill’s Blues Bar & Grill in Milford, MA. August 4 at The Tap Brew Pub in Haverhill, MA. August 11 at The Next Page in E. Weymouth, MA. August 12 at The Upper Deck in Salisbury Beach, MA. and August 25 at the Harbor House in Gloucester, MA .
METRONOME: Are you getting any radio play with Do Me Right?
Chipper: WZLX, WBOS... Holly [Harris] did an excellent spotlight on us.
Jay: Holly did us right, she featured us for a good half hour on her show.
Chipper: Then you have WHRB, WCUW in Worcester and Morgan [Huke] always takes care of us at WMFO. You can get the list of radio stations on our web site. It would be great if we could get mainstream radio play. Your magazine said it very well, “Hoodoo Revelator cooked up a blues stew.” It is a very diverse CD yet it has this linear link that runs through it.
METRONOME: Is there something you’d like to add before we close out? Words of wisdom to aspiring kids wanting to play?
Chipper: Lock yourselves in your rooms and play, play, play.
Jay: Keep your ears open too. A lot of rock you can play without listening to each other but with the blues, you’ve got to hear each other and watch each other. I think you need to keep your eyes and ears open. And don’t be afraid to mess with it live!
Chipper: Play with your heart. If you get up there and play with your heart, you’re going to have fun. The other thing is keep your egos in check because there’s no place for an ego on stage.
Jim: Keep your ear glued to the speaker, mimic what they do, but combine everything you’ve heard together and find your own style!
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