Vic Victor can trace his rockabilly roots back to the most enlightened intellectuals of the ’90s: Beavis and Butt-Head.
He was watching the show when he saw the video for Reverend Horton Heat’s ‘Psychobilly Freakout.’ “I thought it was just really cool,” Victor recalls. “The video was weird and the guy played a big violin.”
When Victor picked up the Reverend Horton Heat album at the record store, “It changed everything for me,” he says. “I started getting into the ‘billy culture and the hot rod culture. I started cuffing my pants and slicking my hair back.”
That rockabilly/psychobilly culture became the backdrop for his band the Koffin Kats, where he sings and plays upright bass. But it wasn’t the only inspiration.
“Once I started writing my own music and had my own band, I found my own way. I realized that lifestyle wasn’t totally for me because I didn’t fully believe in rockabilly. It was just another form of music. I didn’t want to dedicate myself to one specific form of music.”
“Ever since I’ve been a musician?–and just a fan of music–I’ve gone from listening to a Metallica album to a Tom Waits album to a Stray Cats album. Dedicating myself to one style of music has never been what I’m about or what Koffin Kats is about.”
The band has always tried to let those varied influences come to the surface of their music. “I never want to put out the same album twice,” Victor says. “And within the album, there’s always something that the ‘billy side, the punk side or the metal side, can dig. We play music that’s all across the board. We’re basically just a mutation of all the music we like, all put together–stylistically and musically.”
Koffin Kats are also known to throw in a surprise or two, like on their new track “The Devil Asked,” which is more Black Sabbath than Tiger Army. “It’s cool that we’ve been able to make straight-forward, rockin’ records, but it’s also cool to be able to include some songs that people wouldn’t expect from us,” Victor says of the song. “It’s going to be one that people either love, hate or just don’t get.”
“If someone has been a fan of our discography, they’ll realize we’ve done stuff like this on other albums where something comes out of left field. It breaks up the monotony of the record. I don’t want to write something where 30 minutes later, you think you’d been listening to the same song over and over.”
As the band’s sound has evolved, Victor’s lyrics have also matured. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve put away writing the off-the-wall science fiction lyrics of the first few records,” he says. “I wanted to write songs about situations I’ve been in or or situations where people can just say ‘I’ve been there.'”
The lyrical turning point came after Victor penned “At the Bar,” a song about a fictional character wasting his life at the bar and watching relationships fail. “I’ve had so many people come up to me and say ‘Man, I’ve been there,'” Victor says. “It’s rewarding to hear people say that they can relate to something that you wrote. I don’t consider myself to be any better than the next person, but to have someone say that they appreciate that you write really pushes you in a new direction.”
Now Victor writes about what he knows best, and the band’s new record, “Our Way & The Highway,” is drenched in alcohol (see “It Happens Every Night,” “The Bottle Called,” “Booozincrossanation,” among others).
The band’s show in Salt Lake, however, will be slightly less, er, spirited.
“We’re playing an all-ages show, so the booze won’t be flying around [like usual], but we definitely try to make every show as much as a party as we can,” Victor adds. “We want to have a good time and want to give [the fans] every bit of their dollar’s worth.”
