Daddy Long Legs Are Preaching Their Own Gospel on The Blues. Amen.

Daddy Long Legs pummels audiences with rootsy rock n roll, country blues. It’s a night ride on a runaway train through Northern Irish punk, God’s country revival meetings and Quatermass’ pit. The band is named after the lead singer, who has carried the moniker since high school. “It was my nickname back then and later down the road when I wanted to do my own project it seemed like an appropriate choice and lends itself to the blues very well.”

Doesn’t he sound polite? His blues harp isn’t. Part of his stage act plays the harp in his mouth ‘cigar style’, with no hands, while cranking it up on the guitar. Did I mention he sings while doing all this? “Well I’ve always hated those racks” he tells me. “They’re really awkward to play with, so when I would be writing songs on guitar I just started jamming it in my mouth to get in key. After a while of doing this I realized I could hit the notes and now it’s become a big part of our live set.”

He reckons that learning to play the harmonica basically became an unhealthy obsession for him. “I would play for 12 hours a day trying to imitate the greats like Sonny Terry and Little Walter until I began to develop my own style. It’s really addictive once you start going and I haven’t put it down since.”

We’ll call him DDL from now on, but there are two other running dogs in the band. There’s Murat Akturk on guitars and backing vocals, and Josh Styles on drums – or to be more precise – “One maraca, one mallet. Kick drum, floor tom, snare and no cymbals.”

They came along to the Wilko Johnson gig in Belfast, before playing their own midnight special show in the city. As they watched Wilko pounding it out up there, they talked to someone wearing a t-shirt  featuring local punk legends The Defects. How do these New York City townsmen know The Defects? Akturk explains, “We were all raised on Punk Rock and are avid record collectors. I still have some Defect’s singles I found back in the 90’s.”

Styles continues, “Once you explore the more well-known band’s catalogs you start digging deeper and discover more great stuff that existed from the same time period. We love Protex, Rudi, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, The Outcasts. The list goes on and on.”  Indeed punk, way beyond Northern Ireland has been a massive influence. “Punk rock has had a big hand in shaping us as the musicians we are today. It gives us an extremely different perspective of playing the blues. We’ll never lose that energy and the attitude we’ve had since we started our first bands as kids.”

For Styles “The most important thing we took away from it (punk) is that passion, pouring your heart into your performance. Always being honest to yourself and your audience is what it’s all about and trumps any musical limitations.”

But Daddy Long Legs are a jumping hotbed of genres and styles. For DDL it was Howlin Wolfe. “I’m very influenced by his style of singing, harp playing and stage presence. He was one of the first blues greats that I got into in my early 20’s and from there I started listening to Charley Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson. “

Styles talks about the New York Dolls. “When I was fourteen I saw a bootleg video of them playing on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert – The moment I saw Jerry Nolan I knew I wanted to be a drummer…”

For Akturk it’s Chuck Berry “I got into him through the countless bands that covered him, and listening to Chuck immediately altered my guitar playing. That was probably around the time I first moved to NYC as a teenager and started touring, playing in punk bands, and after Chuck Berry, I quit everything to start my own Rock’n’Roll band. Chuck is still the king.”

And then there’s the gospel. You can hear the revival meeting zealotry agitating through the band’s sound. DDL claims responsibility for that. “I’ve been a big fan of Gospel music for many years now. There’s a lot of soul stirring savagery, wild singing and playing and some very fast tempos. I put a lot of those elements and ideas into my song writing too so old gospel records are a great source of inspiration for me.”

DDL has written a lot of songs, but Styles and Akturk have collaborated on many. Akturk told me how the song writing works “DDL can be a prolific writer compared to me! The way it usually works is when DDL or anyone comes in with an idea, we all work on it together to flesh it out- and sometimes an idea or riff will just spontaneously happen during rehearsal. If one of us has any bits and pieces, we can count on the rest of us to bring in something to finish a song.”

In May they released Daddy Long Legs Rides Tonight, recorded live in Brooklyn. It’s their third album and I wondered why they had decided to go down the live recording route. “We’ve always felt like our live performance and the energy we get from the crowd is where we truly shine” says Styles, “so when Billy Miller at Norton Records proposed the idea to us we jumped at it!” You can hear Kim Fowley introduce them on the live album.  “It’s the last record he ever appeared on” DDL informs me.

All three of their albums though are laced with classics from deep inside the heart of blues. Classics like Tommy Johnson’s “Big Road Blues” and Lead Belly’s “Bourgeois Blues.”  Both are obvious quality examples of their craft, but how do they choose? “Yeah, It’s hard to choose and there’s a lot of great stuff we riff on at rehearsals that never make it to record.  Before we start working on a new album we look at the material we have and if something else seems like a good fit, tempo or vibe-wise, we go with it.”

They’re based in New York at the minute – so what is on offer in the music scene there? “There’s a lot of great stuff happening but also a lot of mediocrity,” DDL tells me. “The Rockabilly’s stick to their scene. The Garage Punks do the same and the same can be said for the Folk/Roots Music scene in general. In a way we’re the one band in NYC that transcends all those barriers and you can see people of all backgrounds coming out to our shows.” He recommends Blind Boy Paxton and Feral Foster as stand outs though. Akturk recommends The Piggies and Willy Gantrim.

Music they are listening to from beyond present day NYC is a very mixed bag. With DDL on The Flamin’ Groovies, Dr. Feelgood, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Styles on Ramones, and Akturk “really into all the records coming out of Jamaica.”

To keep them 3-dimentional for you, here’s what they do when they ain’t playing:

DDL – “Eat, sleep and work various odd jobs until the next tour comes around.”

Akturk – “I’m a bartender- it gives me the freedom to take off and tour whenever I need to.” 

Styles – “I DJ 45s, watch horror movies, and look through people’s garbage.

So if you’re in the NYC area and hear a strange noise at your bins tonight, best not to shoot on sight. K?

Video credits:SevenNightsToRock,DADDY LONG LEGS, FANCY! TV, TheDrivesessions

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http://www.nortonrecords.com/