\u201cIf you open your arms to the world, it\u2019s amazing what will come back atcha,\u201d drawls East Texas native, singer\/songwriter\/filmmaker\/author Jesse Dayton, who has a bunch more homespun wisdoms where that came from. A veteran of more than 30 years as a musician, Dayton was discovered as a young teenager playing \u201ca toilet dive\u201d in his hometown of Beaumont by legendary club owner Clifford Antone, who booked him into his famed Austin venue, then immediately shifted him over to the honky-tonk Broken Spoke, where the likes of Willie Nelson, George Strait and Ernest Tubb have had residencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first got to Austin, everybody else sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughan, but I sounded more like Jerry Reed. I didn\u2019t think I was cool, either, because this was before every punk sported that image of Johnny Cash flipping the rod.\u201d Equally steeped in Texas\/Louisiana blues, old-school country and punk-rock, Dayton is the music world\u2019s best-kept secret, hiding in plain sight as a guitarist for Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Ryan Bingham and L.A. punk pioneers X, as well as touring alongside Social Distortion, the Supersuckers and John Doe.<\/p>\n
After releasing 11 studio albums and an EP as a solo artist, Dayton\u2019s new album, Mixtape Volume 1<\/em>, is a series of 10 cover songs he thoroughly makes his own, reinterpreting and revisiting them in a brand-new way. On the first track and single, Jackson Browne\u2019s \u201cRedneck Friend\u201d, Dayton takes the song to a place where it would be equally at home on the first two Eagles albums or as a Rolling Stones collaboration with Gram Parsons. He transforms Neil Young\u2019s \u201cHarvest\u201d into a country plaint complete with pedal steel guitar and hurdy-gurdy piano, while offering a majestic take on Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind\u201d. Brought up on his older sister\u2019s Laurel Canyon folk records, the FM album rock and punk he listened to as a teenager plus the array of country acts who used to tour through Beaumont \u2013 including Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, David Allen Coe, Conway Twitty, Hank Jr., and George Jones \u2013 Dayton has managed to create a genuine hybrid that takes alt-country and Americana in new, exciting directions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world doesn\u2019t need another outlaw country singer covering Waylon Jennings,\u201d he says of his stylistic mix. \u201cEveryone where I was growing up had no idea Neil Young wrote Waylon\u2019s \u2018Are You Ready for the Country?\u2019 or that George Jones\u2019 \u2018Bartender\u2019s Blues\u2019 was written by James Taylor, a stoned junkie at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Turned on to the music\u2019s possibilities by attending an early Clash\/Joe Ely tour, Dayton transforms the U.K. punk icons\u2019 \u201cBankrobber\u201d into a kind of Bo Diddley shuffle, just as The Clash similarly turned Bobby Fuller Four\u2019s \u201cI Fought the Law\u201d into a three-chord rave-up. He relocates the roots of ZZ Top\u2019s \u201cShe\u2019s a Heartbreaker\u201d on the Texas\/Louisiana border with some sawing Cajun fiddles, while AC\/DC\u2019s \u201cWhole Lotta Rosie\u201d gets the harp-honking Jimmy Reed treatment. The Cars\u2019 new wave ditty, \u201cJust What I Needed\u201d, is reimagined as a George Jones honky-tonk lament, while Bruce Springsteen\u2019s \u201cState Trooper\u201d combines Johnny Cash gravitas, Jim Morrison\u2019s dark bravado and the Boss\u2019 own New York punk duo fave Suicide\u2019s doom-laden theatricality into a compelling whole.<\/p>\n Although he tours nearly 250 days a year, Dayton keeps the home fires burning in the same Austin house he bought thanks to earning 75% of the publishing royalties from writing songs for the soundtracks of three Rob Zombie horror flicks, including The Devils Rejects<\/em> and Halloween 2<\/em> (performing a cameo as Captain Clegg, a roll he revived nightly as the support act on Zombie\u2019s U.S. tour that year).<\/p>\n Dayton\u2019s own career path includes such Zelig-like moments as being recruited by iconic producer Huey P. Meaux to record with zydeco star Rockin Dopsey at Houston\u2019s famed Sugarhill Studios; recording his debut album, Raisin\u2019 Cain<\/em>, with Doug Sahm, Flaco Jiminez and Johnny Gimble, topping the Americana radio charts. He went on to record with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Bush and Glen Campbell.<\/p>\n Dayton has more than 50 songs licensed to film and television, writing and directing what he calls a B-movie Roger Corman monster flick, Zombex<\/em>, in New Orleans, featuring an eclectic cast including Malcolm McDowell, cult actor Sid Haig, Walking Dead\u2019s<\/em> Lew Temple, Corey Feldman, Slayer\u2019s Tom Araya and X\u2019s John Doe, who promptly asked him to sit in for Billy Zoom, recovering from cancer treatment, on a 40-city tour. His next project is writing his memoirs and short stories for a book to be published next year, and he just finished playing guitar on Guns N\u2019 Roses bassist Duff McKagan\u2019s new solo album.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be honest with yourself about who you are,\u201d he says, explaining his longevity as a performer. \u201cIn terms of surviving, you have to pay attention to the macro as well as the micro.\u201d Active politically \u2013 he\u2019s played several benefits for fellow Texan presidential candidate Beto O\u2019Rourke (once a punk-rock guitarist himself) \u2013 Dayton had an intense one-on-one with President Bill Clinton after playing his inaugural ball with Lucinda Williams.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m scared to death about what\u2019s happening now, so I remain vigilant,\u201d he says. Jesse Dayton has come a long way from the backwaters of his Beaumont hometown, encouraged by his parents to escape the stranglehold the oil industry-dominated region has on the town\u2019s inhabitants.<\/p>\n