Contrary to what the mass media would have you believe, there is more to the resurgence of rock than the Hives, the Strokes and the White Stripes. The Killers are one of the bands outside the media glare that are well worth checking out.
Named after Jerry Lee Lewis and their home in Lee County, Alabama, the two-piece Killers play an extremely contorted version of punk blues. Although heavily influenced by early John Lee Hooker, Hound Dog Taylor, Skip James, the Stooges, Pussy Galore and the MC5, they also lean on Fat Possum artists such as R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough to inform their musical sensibilities.
Guitarist front man Chetley “El Cheetah” Weise uses an A/B switch and two amps to split the high volume bass/ treble sounds he emits. Instead of selling his soul to the devil to play the blues, Weise dropped out of a Ph.D. program at Auburn University to pursue music full-time. Drummer J.R.R. Tokien (a.k.a. the Tokien One) adds flavor by posturing and wisecracking like a Sammy Davis lounge lizard character when he’s not beating out savage sounds behind his drum kit. The title of their Estrus debut release, The Essential Fucked Up Blues, best sums up their sound.
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2002.