Nina Agdal - Featuring J. Roddy Walston and the Business "Brave Man's Death"

J Roddy Walston (friends call him Rod ) first caught the musical
spark through his church. Just outside of Chattanooga, Tenn., near the Ocoee River, the congregation was of the exuberant Southern type, with a large choir, full band and even a horn section. You can still hear that hallelujah in his raw and scorching rock and roll. But it was movies that really made him want to belt it out. At age six, Walston saw Elvis on TV, shimmying hips in Jailhouse Rock. Then he caught Ferris Bueller lip-synching Twist & Shout in a parade. “I thought, I wanna sound like that! He’s screaming and stopped up!” Walston recalls. “I thought it was Ferris singing, not John Lennon.”

In high school Walston jammed with friends in basements. Bands would fall apart as quickly as they would form. Inevitably there would be a fight, or a member would go off to college. After six or seven groups Walston got fed up with democratic songwriting and starting penning songs for himself. “If there’s a band, great. If not, great. If people quit, I can keep going. Which is the idea behind the band name,” he says, pausing for a laugh, “that and my gigantic ego.”

Eight years ago Walston followed his girlfriend—now wife—to Baltimore, where she was studying opera singing at Johns Hopkins. The band tagged along—and just about all quit immediately. The bass player was mugged at gunpoint. “I just started to watch The Wire now that I’ve moved to Richmond, Virginia,” Walston says from a studio in the Charm City, where he’s working on material for a third album. “When I lived here, I thought, I don’t need more reason to be bummed out.”

Piano is vital part of his band’s raucous, glammy boogie. Ivory keys haven’t taken this kind of pounding since “Great Balls of Fire.” Early on, that meant lugging a 350-pound piano into closet-sized clubs, and a couple times down a ladder into a dank New York City lounge. Walston has torn through three pianos. The instruments tend to end up a heap of wood and wire, after being whipped with kicks, spit and sweat on stages. This is much to the horror of Walston’s classically-trained wife, who worked in the piano department at school. Her opera techniques don’t quite translate to his line of work, as well. “A big part of opera singing is doing everything you can to sing something perfectly in a way that doesn’t mess up your voice,” Walton says. “Everything I do is trying to mess up my voice.”

Q & A with J. Roddy Walston

Your favorite beach?

I am poor. Take that into account. But we have some friends who have money. I got to go to a couple private beaches. That was unreal. You don’t have to see the general public. One was in North Carolina, Figure Eight Island. My wife and went to Peru for two-and-a-half weeks. What was the name of the beach down there... right on the tip of my tongue and starts with a C. The beaches of Peru. You can say that.

The first record you owned?

I got a CD player and went out and got three CDs at the same time—DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, I think that album with Parents Just Don’t Understand, R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People and U2’s Achtung Baby. So I obviously had a bunch of random brothers and sisters and neighbors influencing my taste at that time.

Your worst experience on the road as a musician?

Fourth of July, we were in Little Rock with a bunch buddies, other bands. We’re hanging out and someone’s like, “Hey, let’s go pool hopping.” That’s when you go to a gated pool and jump the fence and swim for a couple minutes and take off. We’re at this apartment complex and we see this dude with a huge telescopic lens taking pictures of us from the top floor. The guy comes down and starts freaking out. “Get out of here! I’m going to kill you!” We’re like, “Chill out There’s 15 of us, one of you. You can join our party.” He takes off. Ten minutes later he shows up with a full-on ninja sword and starts chasing us. The last guy to try and jump over the fence and get away from him, this dude swipes at him and cuts him from -shoulder blade to hip. He needed 30 stitches. Then the guy just vanished. In his apartment they found tons of cats, ninja equipment and photo equipment. From what I’ve heard from my friends in Little Rock, they’ve never seen him again.