If you want a group where the personality of each member stands out, Diablogato is glad to engage. Scally-capped singer Drew Indingaro roars while fellow guitarist Chuck MacSteven rattles hollow-body rockabilly licks. Johnny Custom balances on top of his acoustic bass like a surfer on his board, while Kim Kendricken blows a baritone sax. And Jesse Mayer, aka Jesse Von Kenmore, bashes a drum kit affixed with Diablogato’s three-eyed cat logo.
“It’s one of the things I hated about grunge,” says Mayer, the real veteran of the band, going back to late-’80s rockers Shake the Faith. “Be entertaining or be gone.”
For its part, Diablogato mashes together rockabilly, garage-punk and gothic Southern soul without singular allegiance. “We’re not those things, and that’s exactly what we are,” Mayer says, citing such wide-ranging inspirations as the Replacements, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and X. “If you’re not ripping off Little Richard,” he adds, “you’re doing it wrong.”
Diablogato unleashed its self-titled debut last year and recorded two new songs for vinyl release this fall: “Take the Ride” (after Hunter S. Thompson’s line “Buy the ticket, take the ride”) and “Paint the Devil,” which Mayer suggests as Diablogato’s best song yet. “Chuck had the old expression ‘Don’t paint the devil on the wall,’ and I was like, ‘It’s cooler if you do.’ And it comes out as the story of a guy who’s gonna blow his brains out in a motel room,” he says. “It has every element of other Diablogato songs. It’s got the rockabilly, but it’s also got the creepy.”
It’s also kicked up a notch onstage, where the black-clad combo flashes serious tattoos, including that crazy cat logo on Mayer’s neck. However, the drummer—a classic-car nut along with bassist Custom—counters, “You put us in the room with a bunch of hot-rodders or punk-rock people, and everybody looks the same.”
Listen Up!
By Paul Robicheau | Photo Credit: Duncan Wilder Johnson (DWJ Creative) | July 21, 2017
Diablogato
If you want a group where the personality of each member stands out, Diablogato is glad to engage. Scally-capped singer Drew Indingaro roars while fellow guitarist Chuck MacSteven rattles hollow-body rockabilly licks. Johnny Custom balances on top of his acoustic bass like a surfer on his board, while Kim Kendricken blows a baritone sax. And Jesse Mayer, aka Jesse Von Kenmore, bashes a drum kit affixed with Diablogato’s three-eyed cat logo.
“It’s one of the things I hated about grunge,” says Mayer, the real veteran of the band, going back to late-’80s rockers Shake the Faith. “Be entertaining or be gone.”
For its part, Diablogato mashes together rockabilly, garage-punk and gothic Southern soul without singular allegiance. “We’re not those things, and that’s exactly what we are,” Mayer says, citing such wide-ranging inspirations as the Replacements, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and X. “If you’re not ripping off Little Richard,” he adds, “you’re doing it wrong.”
Diablogato unleashed its self-titled debut last year and recorded two new songs for vinyl release this fall: “Take the Ride” (after Hunter S. Thompson’s line “Buy the ticket, take the ride”) and “Paint the Devil,” which Mayer suggests as Diablogato’s best song yet. “Chuck had the old expression ‘Don’t paint the devil on the wall,’ and I was like, ‘It’s cooler if you do.’ And it comes out as the story of a guy who’s gonna blow his brains out in a motel room,” he says. “It has every element of other Diablogato songs. It’s got the rockabilly, but it’s also got the creepy.”
It’s also kicked up a notch onstage, where the black-clad combo flashes serious tattoos, including that crazy cat logo on Mayer’s neck. However, the drummer—a classic-car nut along with bassist Custom—counters, “You put us in the room with a bunch of hot-rodders or punk-rock people, and everybody looks the same.”
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