Some of you may remember Switchblade Jesus from one of our Fear Candy CDs last year. Well, since then the guys have been pretty busy, casually getting signed to Ripple Music and planning a split release this year.

If you like Down, Clutch and Black Label Society (and to be quite honest, who doesn’t?) then you NEED to check out this band. I had a quick chat with them to get the important facts such as do they prefer beards or bandanas (the answer being “beards all day, although bandanas keep the sweat out your eyes when you’re rocking the fuck out”) and what 2015 holds for them.

The band consists of Eric, Billy, Jason and Jon, they had a shared interest of heavy drinking and heavy music, they started jamming together for fun and after loads of positive feedback they decided to take it to the next level. When I asked how they would describe their sound I was told “It’s 4 piece equivalent of a herd of elephants slamming into a brick wall …. a loud alcohol fuelled heaviness laced with fuzz, and slight hallucinations of tube amps piercing your mind.” OK then, sounds intriguing!

Listing Kyuss, Red Fang and Terrorizer faves Orange Goblin as influences it’s no surprise that their music has struck a chord with people all over the world, and the band love playing live. If all goes well they’ll be playing a European tour this year, we’ll keep you posted!

Pour yourself a whisky and get stuck in…

WORDS: Amy Harris

WHO ARE THEY: Switchblade Jesus

WHERE ARE THEY FROM: Texas

FOR FANS OF: Orange Goblin, Red Fang, Kyuss

LATEST RELEASE: ‘Switchblade Jesus’ (2013)

WEBSITE: Facebook

Introduce yourselves and tell me who does what in the band.

“Eric Calvert – Lead Guitar/Vocals

Billy Guerra – Guitar

Jason Beers – Bass

Jon Elizondo – Drums

“We’re just 4 guys that started a band to drink heavily and make loud noise, apparently people dug it so we decided to take it to the stage and here we are, talking to Terrorizer.”

How would you describe your sound?

“Alot of people say it’s a mixture of Clutch and Down also Orange Goblin, Black Label Society and Fu Manchu are mentioned a lot… Heavy Blues/Thrash/Groove… we like to tell people its 4 piece equivalent of a heard of elephants slamming into a brick wall… a loud alcohol fueled heaviness laced with fuzz and slight hallucinations of tube amps piercing your mind.”

Switchblade Jesus by Switchblade Jesus

What can you tell us about your debut album?

“Right now our self titled album is available on vinyl through Bilocation Records in 3 different versions, Transparent Green, Marbled Smoke and Standard Black. The Trans. Green sold out in 2 weeks and also all of our CDs are sold out so we are sourcing that out at the moment. You can find everything on our Bandcamp site. The follow up will be available early/mid 2015″

Do you have any plans for tours or shows?

“We’re always playing or touring, this second it’s just been centred around Texas and surrounding states as a few of us just had some hatchlings and in the South family is important so we wanna be close, but in 2015 we’re planning our 1st European tour with some great buds of ours out of Houston called Funeral Horse. Which can be difficult because when its a place you don’t know your asking for favors and sourcing out to people who don’t know you, but that’s what we’re trying for, so if it works out, amazing.”

Influences/Heroes?

“Influences range from Sabbath, Zeppelin, Hendrix to Melvins, Clutch to Pantera even to the greats as Muddy Waters, ZZ Top and Bo Diddley. If it’s got a groove, we dig it.”

Beards or bandanas?

“Beards all day. Bandanas help keep the sweat off your eyes when rocking the hell out though.”

Tell me a playlist of 5 songs you all love as a band.

“Clutch – Burning Beard

Misfits – Teenagers from Mars

Kyuss – Gardenia

Melvins – Copache

ZZ Top – Jesus Just Left Chicago”

Why ‘Switchblade Jesus’ as a name?

“First off if where we live is the Body of Christ, Jesus would be walking around with a switchblade. But the name actually came about because of a bar fight where a friend of ours that looked like Jesus had a knife on him and kind of just rolled out from that.”

Reactions from fans?

“Amazing reaction honestly, especially from Europe and overseas. We didn’t really know how well this would turn out but man we love it. One of the best things we heard was on Twitter from a guy that said “one day I’ll put together a band like Red Fang and Switchblade Jesus” He was from Portugal… that was awesome and also sitting here and talking to you.”

Drunk anecdotes?

“Hahaha, so many. So so so many. A few favorites are, after Chaos in Tejas in Austin with Kylesa, Orange Goblin and NAAM we left the venue and started walking, one us saw a party happening and started to join in, come to find out it was a Pride Parade and his drunken ass was the Belle of the Ball. Another was a BBQ/Biker Rally, we got so smashed before and the heat didn’t help, but we didn’t see the stage till it was too late which was a broken flatbed covered in plywood, we had to get a buddy who roadies for us now to hold Jon from falling off the back because the stage was so narrow.”

Aspirations?

“To keep having fun, kicking ass and own the world. We love writing so the continuation of making music till we can’t pick up an instrument. Also playing live, we have fun while we play and our live shows prove that, what’s the point if your not having fun. We’d love to meet every fan, have a drink with them and give’m a high five and say thanks for dig’n the hell out of us.”