Black Joe Lewis will have you know he's not a revivalist and that Passion Pit wasn't a good idea

The sheer abundance of music necessitates the application of labels and categories to differentiate one genre or band from another. It’s not that Joe Lewis doesn’t realize this. It just makes the practical outworkings of Black Joe Lewis more difficult than it should be.

While most bands would treasure tour dates with Passion Pit, such tour pairings only confuse listeners and fans as the old soul of Black Joe Lewis fails to jive with modern musical trends. Lewis is a throwback, not a revivalist. And he’s quite clear on where he stands concerning current movement that link to such endeavors. Thus, the eight-piece collective are an historic square peg in the postmodern musical hole.

Still, Lewis says he’s glad to make music and ultimately, all he can do is push himself to be better. That is exactly what he believes about the band’s latest, Scandalous, and we couldn’t agree more. Spoon’s Jim Eno pushed and twisted the right buttons and knobs, because Scandalous pioneers a beautiful fusion of colors and sounds into what could easily be one of the year’s best when all is said and done. Whether some get it or not, we’re glad Lewis pushes through the labels to stay true to his calling.

SSv: The album releases at South by Southwest and you did that with the last album. Is that on purpose?

Joe Lewis: It’s perfect timing because there’s so many people around when the record comes out. So we’re doing it again at the same time. It just kind of took off, so staying busy and hitting it hard is really cool. It felt like it really works this way.

SSv: How was that for you the last time around? Was it not a big deal because you’re from Austin? How was your first South by Southwest?

Joe: Oh, it’s always around. I don’t really like it since it’s so hard to get around. You have extra security everywhere, so I avoid it as much as possible. I stay at my house. So it’s not that big of a deal when you’re from here.

SSv: I want to talk about Scandalous, obviously, and I’m curious what you wanted to do when you’re finishing the cycle for Tell ‘Em and start to think about recording this latest?

Joe: I feel that the quality of this album is higher. Everybody is growing. Everyone is better at what they do after 10 years of playing. I feel that the songwriting and really the whole thing has just evolved. The songs are better. We feel like we’re more of a rock and roll band, but we don’t want to be classified as a rock or a soul group or whatever. So we try things like we do now that we can just play all different types of music. That’s what we listen to. We’d like to have that recurring with everything we put out.

SSv: In what ways have you gotten better in the last couple of years?

Joe: I think my singing is better. The songwriter, as I said, and the lyrics and the depth of it all is a lot better. My guitar playing. I just think I’m a better musician overall since we put out Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is.

SSv: You had tours with people I wouldn’t have paired you with over the last couple of years and there’s all these descriptions of the band out there. Do you find that people don’t know what to do with Black Joe Lewis?

Joe: Oh, yeah. I think so. A perfect example is when we went out with Passion Pit. The crowd just didn’t get us. The one thing we figured out that the late teens and early twenties college girls don’t like us. [Laughs] That was kind of brutal, but we’ve always prided ourselves on being able to play to any crowd. Even if everyone hates us — okay, maybe I’m exaggerating.

You do get funny looks and shit. When we started this band, we always tried to play anywhere. Every town has their hipster scene or the hip clubs, and we’ve played in all of those in Austin. We play with everybody with bands across all different spectrums or groups. Now as we go along in the career, you realize that you can’t win everyone over. It’s funny. You just have to have fun with it and you can’t worry about that stuff, you know?

SSv: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. What does that do for the band to have a resolve to get through a pairing that doesn’t work well or a crowd that doesn’t jive?

Joe: Sometimes it get you down and it can be demoralizing a little bit. Sometimes you can’t help it. But everyone goes through it a little differently. I went through my phase where I was like, ‘Ah, fuck it. Who cares.’ Then I was like, ‘This sucks having to go out here and play again.’ Then you think it’s someone else’s fault. Some of the guys hated it. Some of the guys just rolled with it. You just have to laugh at it. Everyone is different. Just because they don’t like you doesn’t mean anything personal.

I still want to play those tours, because I do want to play to everyone. I want to give everyone a chance to like it or not. So I’m good with it. You have to let people do what they will and like what they want. I’m just going to keep playing and hopefully people will keep coming to the shows.

SSv: So what have you found about the crowd that does dig what you do?

Joe: We have all types of fans. Sometimes we’ll play shows and think, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of old people out there.’ [Laughs] Then we’ll have gigs where you have young fans or a mix of all of it. That’s what it was like when we started playing. There are people who are more into rock and roll who dig us. A lot of times, we’ll play the blues circuit gigs and they’ll think we don’t belong there because they want to hear Keb Mo or something modern stuff. We play old soul. So we get all kinds of people and we hope someday everyone will like us.

SSv: Do you think there’s a musical awakening of sorts — that you’re tied to this old soul and that you can wake people up to what’s going on? I just remember talking to Robert Randolph and he worked with T Bone Burnett on this last album and he said, ‘I really hope I can help awaken people to the archives of music.’ I didn’t know if that was similar for you in some ways?

Joe: There’s definitely some of that. Honestly though, we just play the music that we like to listen to. We have our favorite guys and I think we just get influenced by what we listen to musically. Everyone talks of the soul revival, but honestly can you listen to James Brown and then listen to a modern soul band and tell me that’s the same? It’s not the same shit. It’s totally different. It’s this polished stuff and overly produced shit. It’s just too soon.

I just don’t see a revival of anything going on right now. I just see a bastardization of old soul music. That’s how I see it. If you want the blues, go listen to Hound Dog Taylor. I don’t want to rip on anybody, but you can’t listen to some of these modern bands and think it’s the same thing. It’s not. So I do hope I can get people to go back to the older stuff and bring the good stuff back.

SSv: Does that mean that you hate being lumped into the revivalist movement?

Joe: Yeah, although I guess I also don’t care. We sound like one thing to someone and another thing to someone else. I do realize that you have to categorize stuff to make distinctions between things, so I feel that we’re not a revival group but if people say it, it’s whatever to me.

SSv: Is that an idealized statement? When you say you don’t care? I would imagine a person’s art is so personal to someone that it can’t be completely true that they don’t care what another person thinks or how they categorize it.

Joe: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I do care a little bit, but you can’t let it run what I do. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing. If someone says you’re a country or bluegrass band, what can you do about it? You can’t worry about it then.