Letting Loose the Demons
Insite Magazine / February 2000

By Phillip Crandall

 

 

It was less than a fifth but enough for now.

 

Tom Miller Demon lifted the familiar flask of Jack Daniel's, analyzing its contents.

 

The emptiness represented the blood, sweat, and tears of a show just days before. Filling each of five shot glasses with the whiskey, the bassist pinched the glass he would soon bottom-up. Guitarist/Vocalist Joey Demon and Percussionist Evil Evan Demon followed his lead, leaving Skibo Demon, the Harmonica player, with the glass that was nearly overflowing.

 

As each picked up his dosage, Guitarist/Vocalist Vini Demon stepped forward, raised his poison and began the homage.

 

"Here's to Robert Johnson, and all those who came before us. Help us to play your music."

 

Soon, each Demon began praising the names of the men who have influenced their blues stylings, some whispering with shut eyes while others nodded their heads in agreement.

 

The spirits of blues past entered the room as fast as the whiskey was downed. And I couldn't help but wonder, "What the hell is gonna' happen next?"

 

Vini and the Demons had warned me they are, "...serious as fuck," and I believed them. They knew their traditional blues musicians. They said all the right things about playing to and with the audience. They spoke of their ritual shot-taking before a performance. I was impressed.

 

Their "darker side of traditional blues" was incredibly powerful and soul wrenching and their taboo topics came across with a comfortable uneasiness.

 

"A rather sweet blend," Vini Demon roars, with the aftertaste of Jack still fresh.

 

"Sweet... a little bite... it's about standard," Tom Miller Demon adds.

 

"Jack Daniel's is a very consistent product, but you can really tell the difference between one bottle and the next. Sometimes, it's got some ass-bite on it, and other times it's sweet."

 

After only a hand full of shows, the band, with its smooth, ass biting style has a devout following and a huge collection of empty Daniel's bottle.

 

"There's a synergy that develops between the audience and the band," Vini Demon explains. "It all works together in an emotional train that rides right over you... everyone has these experiences."

 

Skibo Demon goes on to tell stories of audience members dancing, crying and standing still, shocked, at that same time throughout a performance.

 

"When you play, you play like it's the last day of your life and you put everything into it," Skibo Demon says. "The audience feels it... you feel it... and you finish a set and go, 'Oh my God, what did we just do?'"

 

During a performance of Willy Dixon's, Hoochie Coochie Man, Skibo Demon lets all hell loose on his harmonica. He rocks back and forth in fits of rage that evoke feelings behind each pounding note he produces.

 

Joey Demon got his own howling and growling in on vocals during Hoochie Coochie Man. Confident and relaxed behind the mike stand, Joey Demon creates ideal compliments and embellishments between his vocal stylings and guitar playing, making the style seem all his own.

 

"We do the songs as if we wrote them," Joey Demon said. "Like they were written for us to do."

 

Throughout the set, Vini Demon proves to be the presence all the music revolves around. At times, he rocks in his chair, playing an effortlessly smooth lead, and stopping mid phrase to take the cigarette from his mouth as his heroes of the past had.

 

He sees his performances in a bigger picture, and entertains on each level.

 

"The way you play it, the people involved, the night, the mood of the evening, how much Jack Daniel's you've had, who died, and who had a baby... it's all alive," Vini Demon said. "We are trying to play this music so people can hear it and experience it because it's pretty fucking deep."

 

The band takes on Freddie King's, Some Day After Awhile, playing it as a tribute to a friend who recently passed away. Each Demon, self absorbed in their own emotion, gives it their all the entire way.

 

"Music is a great tool to allow people to bring out buried, deep seeded feelings and emotions that they have," Tom Miller Demon later explained, "In an atmosphere where it's safe to do that."

 

"When we play someone else's song, we believe these people are in the room with us," Vini Demon said. "As long as someone's in your mind and in your memory, they won't die... whether there is a physical presence, a spiritual presence, or whatever."

 

"We are not getting possessed," Joey Demon clarifies, "But we are being pushed to do things we didn't think possible."

 

"These are our heroes," Tom Miller Demon says. "We are holding all of these people who wrote this music... up on a pedestal and we're saying we want to speak your words the way you spoke them then and keep them alive today."

 

-- INSITE MAGAZINE - FEBRUARY 2000