James Mathus really likes to play his guitar. It doesn't seem to matter with whom — his buddies, his wife, Buddy Guy — just as long as he gets to play.
"It's really all the same thing. I love collaborating with my friends, but I don't really differentiate," he says. "I put everything I've got into anything I'm working on, you know?"
A perusal of his discography might lead one to believe that Mathus hasn't taken a day off since, oh, about 1994. He and his wife, vocalist Katherine Whalen, have helmed the acclaimed, eclectic ragtime/jump-jazz outfit Squirrel Nut Zippers since '95. The group released four full-lengths, toured incessantly and appeared on just about every late-night variety show that features live music, until the birth of Mathus and Whalen's first child forced them to take some time off in the spring of last year.
"We just had to slow things down when the baby came, got off of the road. So we're sort of on a break," explains Mathus, "but I believe we'll get back together at some point."
What Mathus calls a break, some people call a full-time job. Even while the Squirrel Nut Zippers were going great guns, he found time to play on two CDs by songwriter Andrew Bird, and record a benefit album for the daughter of blues pioneer Charlie Patton under the moniker James Mathus and His Knockdown Society. And since SNZ have gone on hiatus, he's contributed to the latest North Mississippi Allstars album. Mathus also played on a track with guitar legend Buddy Guy. And last but not least, he reconvened the Knockdown Society to record a new disc's worth of swampy, stomping electric blues. The resulting release, National Antiseptic (Mammoth), has kept Mathus and friends on the road an average of 20 days a month since it came out in October.
"It's really where my focus is right now," he allows. "It's on the front burner."
All of Mathus' myriad projects share one common trait — a deep and abiding reverence for traditional American rhythm & blues styles. Not the blues as channeled by young white English outcasts; not the blues as spiced up and prettified by crowd-pleasing Texas bar bands. But the blues as refined by homeless Delta balladeers, as toughened by Chicago winters, as stolen by Appalachian immigrants for the seminal country sound — this is the vibe that suffuses Mathus' gritty, soulful playing and songwriting.
"I've never really listened to too many of the imitators. Led Zeppelin, British bands that picked up on the blues, the Rolling Stones. I've never really listened to too many of those types of groups," says Mathus. "I've actually listened to the original records, but it ends up sounding like me somehow, I guess because I'm not from that era."
Brought up in rural Mississippi, Mathus began to play music at the ripe old age of 6, learning country, gospel, rockabilly, blues and soul styles from assorted relatives. While he eschewed music for most of his teen years in favor of back-breaking Mississippi River barge work, the guitarist's early 20s found him relocating to North Carolina and founding the Zippers with Whalen. Ironically, SNZ incorporated many of the sounds he'd studied as a youngster, as has everything he's produced since, though Mathus reckons his love of older roots music is as much a product of nature as nurture.
"I think it's my own deep-seated interest. I was definitely given a good beginning in where I was raised, but I've always been drawn to it, the history, the things that came before," he says.
Mathus does admit that certain Delta-spawned contemporary sounds inspire him:
"I'm more old-school, definitely," he says. "As far as contemporary musicians, there are quite a few on Fat Possum and Rooster Blues, those two labels, over the past 10, 15 years. The artists they've been putting out have been a big influence on me. The guys they brought out of Mississippi, that no one had ever heard. R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T Model Ford."
National Antiseptic ably showcases Mathus' singular interpretation of those old and new influences. Stylistically diverse, the disc is nonetheless saturated with that thick 'n' swampy backwoods sound, albeit filtered through a vibrant, somewhat dissonant modern-day personality. Shades of manic, spastic peers like The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or Southern Culture on the Skids bleed through, though the Knockdown Society seems utterly devoid of both the former's arty pretense and the latter's gimmickry. The record is basic but full, fleshed out with touches of Farfisa, baritone sax and mandolin — the gnarly guitars and roadhouse attitude belie any semblance of a radio-friendly production, however, relying only on organic hooks and irresistible rhythms to make the tracks stick.
While comprising mostly Mathus' original tuneage, National Antiseptic does contain a few obscure covers, revved up and rabid; the full-band, full-volume treatment of some of his favorite songs is something the guitarist has wanted to do, but do right, for quite a while.
"That was just stuff from the repertoire that I've tried to put together — songs that I've long admired, and always wanted to do but never found the band to do it," he says. "I was always looking to put together a band to do those songs, plus the stuff that I come up with. And now, I've got this really versatile group."
The Knockdown Society's touring lineup — filled out by Squirrel Nut Zippers bassist Stu Cole, drummer Nate Stalfa and Hammond B-3 wizard Patrick Smith — is now fully broken in. They're currently bringing their rollicking, fresh-but-familiar electric-blues sound to clubs nationwide, at least until Mathus needs another break — whereupon he'll undoubtedly show up on three or four more records. According to the guitarist, they're also less interested in re-creating National Antiseptic's songs than seizing the live moment in an attempt at something unique every night.
"We do a lot of songs that aren't on any of the CDs. I just try to play what's sounding best with the band, not necessarily sticking to what's on the records," Mathus says.
"We definitely have a real spontaneous, improvisational approach to what we do. We try to get the psychic music going on." Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at scott.harrell@weekly
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2001.