Cut in the Hill Gang’s Johnny Walker

For full disclosure, I am co-owner of The Little Room Record Co.  We have released one 45 for Cut in the Hill Gang, and the LP, Hung Up, will be coming out soon as well.  With that said, I love this band.  A few years after The Soledad Brothers parted ways in 2005, Johnny Walker partnered with some musicians from his new home in Covington, KY.  Now, Johnny Walker (vocals/guitar/harmonica), Brad Meinerding (lead guitar/vocals), Lance Kaufman (drums/vocals/percussion) are continuing on the dirty, blues/rock trail of The Soledad Brothers.  In their short time together, the band has already been featured on the Sony Playstation 3 video game MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, and are just wrapping up a tour of Europe.

Cut in the Hill Gang - Hung Up

The What of Whom: You’re just returning from a tour of Europe, how was your first International outing with the band?

Johnny Walker: The response was great.  The kids were really going for it.  The music improved as the tour progressed.  We were not deported.  Our van was towed, not stolen, in Paris.  I only had minor mental breakdowns, no mechanical ones.  I took care of those repairs on the roadside.

TWOW: You had a chance to play with Ben Swank again while you were in London, how was that?

JW: That guy is a train wreck waiting to happen!  Always 2 wheels on the tracks, about to go off.  Actually, he is living in the

Johnny Walker and Ben Swank - Credit to Carl Hoff

states now and I get to play with him more often.  We played yesterday for about 2 hours.  Maximum wankerage.

TWOW: Do you have any plans to tour the U.S. more extensively?

JW: No plans for the US.  We are spoiled in Europe.  Promoters get us hotel rooms, feed us, hang out and listen to music with us.   Here it is a pitcher of beer and good luck.  The drives are insane, and I am too busy with other things to deal with all that.  Sorry if i sound old and bitter.  Dems da facts.  Maybe when the “garage” resurgence happens in 2035.

TWOW: How is the band getting along after spending some time on the road?

JW: Have you read about the double, double cross on our website, http://www.cutinthehillgang.com?

TWOW: How did the idea for the story of The Cut In The Hill Gang come about (insert included with the LP)?

JW: I am fascinated with bad guys.  I am trying to get as many people to write stories about us getting gunned down in the streets as possible.  Maybe an obituary or two.  I like the idea of people killing us off.  We can beat the record labels to the punch.  The record is being released as an LP and CD split release.  The CD is the untimely demise of the Cut In The Hill Gang.  The LP is our glorious rise.   If anyone wants to join in on killing us off, feel free.  Send me a story.  Drop our names into a Billy the Kid or Bonny and Clyde legend.

TWOW: Did you have any reservations about working with a label called The Little Room Record Co.?

JW: No, I like the idea of a communal record label.

TWOW: Well one concern I had with the name of it was the impression that we were trying to make money off of The White Stripes. Did you ever have that concern?

JW: Are you making money?  Bully for you!  I doubt the accuracy of that though.  Didn’t the Rolling Stones name themselves after a Muddy Waters song?   Or the Soledad Brothers after revolutionaries?  No shame in that game.  You name yourself after objects, people, etc. that you admire.  By the way, have you made any money?  Because i sure haven’t.  Guess that Soledad Brothers ploy never worked out.

TWOW: Jack said in Under Blackpool Lights, that you never had one guitar lesson, is that true?  How did you learn to play?

JW: No guitar lessons.  Lessons are a trap to suck people into more lessons, a money pit.  I learned with patience and open tunings.  Sitting on my bed or the front porch, and yelling my head off.

TWOW: People often talk about how great you sound live.  Can you talk a little bit about the equipment that you use?

JW: I like to run my amp with out any effects.   Usually straight into a tube bass rig, preferably with a 15 inch speaker in the cab, you have to push the amp hard.   It’s more about dynamics of playing and style than stepping on pedals.  What happens when pedals don’t work?  Disaster!

TWOW: I love ‘Hammer Me Down’ from Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move.  Can you talk about the process for

Johnny Walker - Credit to Carl Hoff

recording that song?

JW: In a nutshell, an old Silvertone record cutter, one condenser mic, putting louder instruments farther away and vocalists in the front.

TWOW: How do you hope to split your time between the new band and your work?

JW: Recipe for success, work and then play.  We never rehearse, never have, even in the Soledads.   Mostly, I play with country and bluegrass guys from Covington.  All I have to do is show up at the bar with my harmonicas.  There are about 6 guitars, an upright bass, a banjo in my bedroom and I play there a lot.  I work about 60-80 hours a week, and the rest of the time I study and play music.  No TV, no video games, no foolishness.

TWOW: A lot of the musicians that I talk to enjoy collecting vinyl, do you share that interest?

JW: Yeah, I am not as voracious as most about collecting.  I listen to vinyl, more than collect.   There is something funny about the collector’s mentality.  In my sphere of reality, the value of an object is secondary to the aesthetic of an object.   Collecting can sometimes be kind of selfish.  I am more of a listener of vinyl.  I neither categorize records nor care if I lose a record.  Sacrilegious!

TWOW: You have never been shy of talking about politics.  How do you feel about what is happening in Detroit with the auto companies?

JW: Well, my pops is a tool and die maker.  Toledo is a ghost town because the jobs are drying up, Detroit is a third world country, and we keep shoveling money at banks.  Without a manufacturing base the country will collapse.  Manufacturing is the surest way to create wealth.  Banks create a “false wealth”, it only exists on paper.   Unfortunately, the auto industry haven’t utilized or needed a powerful lobby in Washington that can rival the financial institutions.  So what side of the bread is buttered for Capital Hill?   The bail out for GM and Chrysler is about 1/20th of the bank bailout and those 2 companies employ, indirectly, about 20 million.  Want to see new millennium trickle down economics?  Watch those 2 companies fold.
The thing that makes me worried is the way they calculate unemployment.  It is “new unemployment claims in the past 6 months.”  If you declared unemployment a year ago you aren’t counted.  The jobless rate is way above 8 percent and I see the despair everyday in psychiatry.  Things are more desperate than they appear.

PS: Did you know that I have a bachelor’s degree in finance?  With honors!  More appropriately, dishonors.

TWOW: Rock and Roll and Business?  What is the world coming to?  How did you go from Finance to Psychiatry?

JW: Jaggar had a degree in Finance!  Are those degrees a deep dark secret that should be kept locked away?  In chronological order, it goes like this:

finance degree
Payne Webber
hospital cafeteria
biology
hospital orderly
ER clerk
med school
Soledad Brothers
residency

Whew!  i get tired just looking at that.  Guess I’ll have to start a new band… or write a book.

TWOW: Your views on politics were integrated into Soledad Brothers, do you plan to do the same with Cut in the Hill Gang?

JW: “I’m payin’ taxes but what am I buyin’? You can have yours and I’ll take mine”

TWOW: What are your five favorite records of the moment?

JW: Oh, I have a hard time with that question.  The last 5 records in my pile;

1) Lounge Lizards “live at the drunken boat” fantastic complex arrangements and composition.
2) Roxy Music  “country life”, great band of miscreants, weirdwind instruments!
3) James Brown “say it loud”, no better energy, duh.
4) Jr Walker “live”, amazing drum sounds, listen to that kick!
5) Merle Haggard “mama tried”, what a great lyricist.

Here is a video of Johnny Walker’s previous band The Soledad Brothers.

Tags: Cut in the Hill Gang, Johnny Walker, Little Room Record Co., Soledad Brothers