By: Rob Cavuoto
Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead), Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) and Danny B. Harvey (Rockats, 13 Cats, Lonesome Spurs), have teamed up in the high-energy, “take no prisoners” combo HeadCat to remind the world how real rock ‘n roll is supposed to sound! HeadCat serves up a delicious melting pot with flavors of rockabilly, punk, blues and undeniable rock ‘n roll!
Their first single off Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk, “American Beat” is already getting a lot of airplay from radio stations. The CD is packed with some create covers and a few new originals like “I Ain’t Never” a real country, rockabilly number, full of love and ready to take you drifting away. Highlights of the CD are “Let It Rock” is one of the band’s favorite Chuck Berry tunes, which The Stones did it a lot in their live show in the 70’s but HeadCat plays a different version. “Something Else” is a classic Eddie Cochran song, which Lemmy once played with on stage with the Stray Cats, jamming on it at a show in the 90’s at Hammersmith Odeon.
I had a chance to sit down with guitarist Danny B. Harvey and chat about the new CD and working with Lemmy.
HeadCat
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Rob Cavuoto: Tell me a little bit about the band and how it came about. With Lemmy of Motorhead in it with you, it just seems like “one of these things just doesn’t belong.”
Danny B. Harvey: The band started a little over ten years ago. Me and Slim Jim were producing a tribute to Elvis for a record label out in California, so we decided to get our friends and all the different people from different genres of music involved and do an Elvis song the way they want. Jim was friends with both Lemmy and Johnny Ramone, and he suggested that we do a song with the two of them together. I talked to Johnny on the phone, and he wanted to do the original keys and the original tempos, so we recorded the tracks without Lemmy.
Lemmy then came down and sang the vocals to “Good Rockin’ Tonight,”. When he sang “Viva Las Vegas” it was in the wrong key for him. So I picked up a bass, Lemmy picked up an acoustic guitar and Jim got on the drums and we recorded two other Elvis songs in the studio that day. It was such a good time, so we were like, “We should do a whole album together.”
We did an album that was released as Fool’s Paradise and that was basically ten years ago. Over the years, more and more requests came for us to play live, so we went from playing one show in two years to two shows a year to now we’re playing probably twenty-five shows a year. And now we got our second album.
HeadCat – Walk the Walk… Talk the Talk
Rob: In your opinion, how does the first album compare to the Walk the Walk…Talk the Talk?
Danny B. Harvey: The first album really was a tribute. You know, Lemmy grew up on the stuff and he loves that stuff. We did a lot of Buddy Holly songs on the first one. I played keyboards and guitar on the album, and I also played the bass on the album ’cause Lemmy wanted to just play guitar, harmonica and sing. By the time we started playing live, the first couple shows Lemmy would play guitar and we would hire a bass player, but then he decided he’s much more comfortable with bass.
He went to his bass sound, his Rickenbacker through a Marshall guitar amp, so that instantly made the sound change drastically. Some people describe it like “Motorhead doing rockabilly songs” ’cause it has Lemmy’s signature bass sound now.
Rob: Is he as loud as a Motorhead concert?
Danny B. Harvey: The thing that’s funny is that he uses a half-stack when he plays with us instead of the full stack like with Motorhead. We did this show in January, where we played the Whisky for Benefit, Phil Campbell came up and did a Motorhead song and said, “I wish Lemmy would play at that volume when he plays with us.” [Laughs] So it’s probably like half the volume.
In Head Cat, we play smaller sized places that hold like 800 people, so we’re still very loud. Most soundmen aren’t used to that volume in clubs. Even as a half-stack it’s still really loud.
We played a show in Chicago and the promoter said “OK, the show is officially sold-out now.” Lemmy turned to me and said “OK, make sure your loud enough because there’s more people,” and I’m like “Lemmy, I can’t get any louder. I’m already on ten!” [Laughs]
Rob: I understand the CD is a combination of covers and a couple of new tracks. What’s the split, how many originals?
Danny B. Harvey: On this CD two songs out of twelve are originals. The first album was all covers. On this album, one of the original songs is a slow blues song that we added into the set over the years ’cause we didn’t really have any slow songs. The lyrics kind of came together from playing live. The other song, Lemmy came into the studio with some lyrics and we just kind of got out instruments and sat around the studio and worked it out really quickly, then cut the song. That’s how the two originals came about.
Rob: How did you go about picking the covers?
Danny B. Harvey: We’ve been doing live shows for ten years, and a lot of them come from us picking them for shows. We started at least doing a thirty minute set, and then we started doing headliner shows and we had to get an hour and now were at over an hour. And whenever we had to add songs, we’d discuss what songs to add.
So over the years we’ve done a lot of different songs live, and in the studio it’s us sittin’ around picking out which ones we wanted to actually record. And there were actually two other songs in the studio that popped up. We went on YouTube and learned them in the studio that way.
Rob: Lemmy’s voice actually adapts pretty well to that type of music, I was kind of surprised. I’ve been a Motorhead fan for quite some time, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Danny B. Harvey: His voice is perfect for that. His voice is like a blues singer and actually really good. He can sing harmonies; he’s got very good pitch. And he’s very astute about the whole history of music.
Rob: Is there an interesting story about how you came up with the name – HeadCat?
Danny B. Harvey: It’s funny, when we finished the first album, we didn’t have a name. We were throwing names around, there was Stray Head, there was Motor Cats, but the record company rushed it out under “Lemmy, Slim Jim, and Danny B,” which kind of irritated us ’cause we hadn’t settled on a name.
It wasn’t until five years later when we were doing the live DVD. It was a condition of the live DVD that they would reissue the album, remixed, remastered with the name of the band that we chose. We sat down and that was the best, and Head Cats seemed like the best name for the band.
Rob: So what do you think people are going to take away from this with Lemmy singing? What’s the general reaction that you’ve been hearing with him in the band?
Danny B. Harvey: The problem with Head Cats is that when we play we seem to cut across every genre. Obviously Lemmy fans, metal fans show up, and you get a lot of punks ’cause Lemmy’s very well-respected in the punk crowd. We get the rockabilly people that are fans of me and Jim’s and then we get psychobilly people cause it’s a lot louder and faster than some of the rock we played.
No one seems to leave. Lemmy said, “Every show people seem to like us, and so far no one’s ever left while we were playing.” It seems to cut across every genre ’cause it’s just simple rock n roll, but at the same time it’s really loud. Everyone seems to like it.
Rob: So tell me a little bit about touring. I know Lemmy’s out in Europe, so how is that gonna work for you guys?
Danny B. Harvey: In the past ten years our schedule’s always like: Motorhead is May-December, doing festivals or their annual tours, and then Head Cats would do shows in the months of January through April, and sometimes we would have a little window in September. That’s probably not going to change, because Motorhead does a lot of big tours and all the festivals in the summer.
We’re lookin’ at a little tiny window in September if Lemmy’s not exhausted from all the touring, ’cause he’s done more touring this year because of the DVD “Lemmy.” If he’s not exhausted, there might be that window in September. If not we’ll probably look at late winter or spring of next year.
Rob: Do you have any funny or entertaining stories about Lemmy? I know he’s a character.
Danny B. Harvey: Lemmy’s just a very interesting, a very smart man. He’s always reading history books, and on the tour bus we watch the history channel a lot. The point is he’s a very intelligent person. When you go to Lemmy’s apartment, he has thousands of CDs and books, and he keeps the CDs as stacks from the ground up, 4 foot stacks of CDs. He goes like “I want you to hear this guitar solo, Danny,” and he goes to this wall of CDs, instantly goes to the CD in the midst of all this pull it out, puts it on, goes to the track, fast forwards it and finds the exact solo he was looking for. I go, “How did you find that?” and he’s like, “Well, I know what CD it’s on…” The fact that he could find it that quickly without even hesitating.
Rob: I saw his apartment in the DVD. It’s hard to believe he could find anything in that apartment.
Danny B. Harvey: It’s been ten years I’ve been going there, and every tour he comes back with more stuff the fans gave him, things he collects, he gets more crap. And with books, his dining room table is all books stacked up and he’d do the same thing. He could find passages in books, knowing where the book was in the stack of books and which chapter has what he was looking for. He’s very astute that way.
Rob: I have a bit of Rockcats trivia for you right now. Do you remember where you were July 25th, 1980?
Danny B. Harvey: No.
Rob: You played the Palladium in NYC opened up for KISS.
Danny B. Harvey: Oh yeah, [bassist] Smutty [Smith] had a big pink bass. Me, Smutty and Slim Jim just did a show Friday in Long Beach at the Ink and Arm Festival. Me and Slim Jim have known each other since I guess since we were teenagers, my 1st band. Brian Setzer was the other guitarist, so when they first arrived in England I was already living there.
I’ve known Jim forever, but the first band we actually played in was called 13 Cats, the singer from the Polecats, Tim Polecats, me and Smutty from the Rockats and Slim Jim from the Stray Cats. We did a reunion show last Friday in Long Island at the Queen Mary.
Rob: How did you get hooked up with KISS? It seemed like an odd combination back in 1980.
Danny B. Harvey: In New York we were very trendy. Rockabilly was trendy at that time. It was actually a couple years before the stray Cats album came out, but we opened for the Pretenders, we opened for the Clash a lot, we opened for Steve Miller, Hall and Oates. We did the whole tour opening up for Hall & Oates, like playing big places.
We were just like the “cool band” and most of the artists, most people in bands kinda like rockabilly because it’s simple rock ‘n’ roll. So we were like a cool band for everyone to get to open for them. It was really easy for me to get lots of really odd gigs.
Los Angelenos – Get HeadCat on the Radio! (12 years ago)
[…] If you want to know more about Danny and THE HEADCAT, and their new album, Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk, check out this recent interview he gave to Guitar International. […]