This interview/show preview is entertaining as hell. It’s a crib-note version of the Devils’ history with some colorful imagery and not always on the accurate side (Honor Marine Band harmonica, anyone?). Enjoy this 1993 entry from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
DEVILS PITCH AN INCENDIARY SOUND MIX
By Robert J. Hawkins, Arts Writer
Sept. 9, 1993
Pulling a high-noon gig at Cal State Fullerton in the hot sun, dressed in black, sucking up heat and that acrid film that passes for oxygen near Los Angeles, Lester Butler is whipped but unbowed.
It is not like last year, when he and his heat-seeking blues band, the Red Devils (who perform at 7 and 10 p.m. tomorrow at Street Scene ’93), were flying on high-octane media fumes from their 14-song marathon session with Mick Jagger. And cutting their own debut with Def American bad boy Rick Rubin. And holding court at the King King Club on Monday nights and road-warrioring around the country.
No, it’s not like that.
For one, the album “King King,” named after the band’s home base (a club at Sixth and La Brea in Los Angeles), has come and gone, and even Butler is tired of most of the cuts. ” ‘Goin’ to the Church’ is still a fave,” he says of his own tune — a fresh engine sitting atop an old Canned Heat chassis. He likes a few more, but that’s last year’s news.
“We’ve got a whole new slew of material that we’ll get sick of in another year,” he says with a laugh.
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