Jesse Dayton On ‘Beaumonster,’ Business And New Album With Samantha Fish

Growing up just west of the Texas/Louisiana border in Beaumont, Texas, singer, songwriter and guitarist Jesse Dayton was introduced to a variety of sounds at an early age, an awareness encompassing everything from rock and country to Cajun zydeco.

An embrace of the storytelling that defines both the country and gospel music traditions informs the narrative voice at the heart of his first book Beaumonster, a memoir paired alongside an album of the same name which traces his musical history via a collection of ten carefully curated covers.

That early appreciation for diverse sounds has come to define a unique musical trajectory that’s impossible to pigeonhole, one featuring work alongside country legends Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings as well as punk icons like X and Social Distortion.

In film, Dayton is perhaps best known for his work with Rob Zombie, appearing as singer and guitarist in the fictitious band Captain Clegg & The Night Creatures in Zombie’s directorial take on Halloween II, supplying music for the characters Banjo & Sullivan in The Devil’s Rejects. In 2013, Dayton would strike out on his own, writing the screenplay for his directorial debut Zombex, a horror flick starring Malcolm McDowell, Sid Haig, Lew Temple and Corey Feldman.

In Beaumonster, Dayton spins tales with wit and candor, writing from the heart and without a ghostwriter. Looking back on his time in music, on stage and as a radio host, director and actor, the memoir finds him pondering lessons learned during a colorful career driven by a uniquely keen eye on the business side.

“There’s no shortcuts. People do get lucky sometimes – but they usually don’t stay lucky for the long game. You have to grind. And you have to put in your 10,000 hours,” said Dayton over the phone last week. “There’s a thousand reasons not to try stuff. So my big thing is, put your 10,000 hours in and stay open to the possibilities.”

Prepping the release of his new album Death Wish Blues, one recorded with blues rock guitarist Samantha Fish and produced by Jon Spencer (now available for pre-order via Rounder Records ahead of release on May 19, 2023), Dayton returns to the road this weekend, launching a tour with Fish on Saturday, April 29 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, a lengthy outing which runs into October, including a June run in support of Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy.

“Playing with Samantha Fish is as creatively fulfilling as anyone I’ve ever worked with,” said Dayton. “We wrote all of these songs together. The press comes to me a lot like, ‘Oh, you’ve done so much!’ But they don’t realize that I’m learning every bit as much now as I was learning playing with Glenn Danzig or Willie Nelson. Samantha is inspiring to work with, man.”

I spoke with Jesse Dayton about his approach to the business side, maintaining a diverse brand, the importance of storytelling and what he learned from Johnny Cash. A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity follows below.

Jim Ryan: You mention early in the book your appreciation for both the gospel and old country music traditions. Something I feel both of those genres have very much in common is great storytelling. As we continually gravitate away from the album, I feel like sometimes that gets lost today. How important is the idea of storytelling to you whether you’re acting, directing, writing, performing or anything else?

Jesse Dayton: It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Townes Van Zandt song or a Martin Scorsese script or a Hunter S. Thompson book or a Basquiat painting: if it tells a story, it’s gonna suck people in. So, for me, everything is based on how good the story is. And even a great lead guitar part has a beginning, a middle and an ending – like a story.

Ryan: In addition to growing up along the Texas/Louisiana border, another location that really comes to inform your work seems to be Austin, Texas. You write so eloquently in Beaumonster about the 80s music scene in Austin – the worlds that collided there and the acceptance that allowed it to happen. What made that scene so special?

Dayton: Well, everyone wasn’t trying to become famous. That’s what made it so special. Everyone wants to become famous now and they think there’s some shortcut. And there’s never a shortcut. There’s luck. And there’s timing, sure. That has a lot to do with it. But no one in Austin was trying to “make it” like everyone in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York were.

People in Austin were trying to figure out who they were. And, in doing so, you had these incredible characters. So you would go out to shows at the Cave Club or Antone’s or Black Cat Lounge or the Continental Club and you would see guitar players who were not trying to sound like everybody on the radio. They were just playing from their hearts.

So that kind of influenced my whole approach to success. It was like, “What do I really want out of this? Well, I’d like to live in a nice neighborhood in Austin. And I’d like to be able to say no to all of the uncool stuff that I get offered a ton of money to do.”

Ryan: In the book, you tell great stories about working with each of The Highwaymen: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. But I was particularly intrigued by your description of Johnny Cash. You write about his spirituality – specifically, the lack of cynicism he had come to by that point later in his life. Looking back now, what did you learn in those moments with him that sort of continue to serve you?

Dayton: John would walk into the recording studio and he seemed like he was buzzing at a higher frequency than the rest of us (and he wasn’t buzzing like he was in the 80s if you know what I mean). He had a spiritual aura around him. And he seemed like just a sweeter, kinder, gentler person because of it.

And I see that happen all of the time. When people get older – and they’re so tired from raising kids and working, those are the real heroes of the world. The thankless jobs, the thankless parents. A lot of times, life becomes so exhausting that people lose that little kid inside of them. And once you lose that little kid inside of you, you stop having fun and you start picking up on cynicism.

But Johnny Cash just seemed like a kid in the candy store when he walked into the studio. A big smile on his face. “What are we gonna do today? This is gonna be incredible!” You were just like, “Wow!” And I was a kid then too. So I was really blown away.

He was an amazing guy. June would walk into the studio and he would walk over to her and give her a kiss like they were 18 years old. He’d go, “I’ve missed you so much today.” It was more romantic than the movie.

Ryan: There’s definitely some themes that emerge from the book that are applicable to handling any business, creative or otherwise: 10,000 hours, paying your dues, knowing your worth. How important are those ideas to the success you’ve achieved on your own terms?

Dayton: There’s no shortcuts. People do get lucky sometimes – but they usually don’t stay lucky for the long game. You have to grind. And you have to put in your 10,000 hours.

The philosophy behind all of this stuff, is that if you can keep an open mind about options that come into your life, there’s no telling what can happen. Most of my friends from those scenes that we talked about, they’re like, “No, I just play country. I just play blues. I just play punk rock.” There’s a silly kind of childish loyalty to those things. When, in reality, you go over to their house and they’re sitting there playing the guitar and it’s like, “Wait, you’re playing jazz chords!”

The big thing is leaving yourself open to opportunities, you know? I hadn’t seen Samantha Fish in years. She walked into a club I was playing in in New Orleans and said, “I always loved your playing. Do you want to make a duets record?” Then a year later, we’re in Paris at a beautiful hotel doing press for our new record. Like one year later to the day almost exactly.

There’s a thousand reasons not to try stuff. So my big thing is, put your 10,000 hours in and stay open to the possibilities.

Ryan: Another person who seems to have influenced your business sense is your wife Emily Kaye. What has she taught you about your approach to the business side?

Dayton: I got lucky on that one. Because I married into a Jewish music business family. She grew up having very different conversations with her family than I did. So I immediately got schooled.

Emily worked for A&M Records. She worked with Soundgarden, Monster Magnet, Social Distortion, all of these artists. Her career has been every bit as fascinating, if not more so, than anything I’ve done.

She taught me all about ownership of songs. “Ownership is freedom,” is what she used to tell me. And I learned a lot from her father Chuck Kaye who passed away during COVID. He was a big music mogul. At the end of the day, they would always tell me that the hang is like the most important thing – because the money comes and goes.

Ryan: Almost a mantra that you come back to in the book a few times is, “Embrace the struggle, son.” How did everything we’ve talked about sort of prepare you to adapt to today’s quickly changing industry landscape amidst digital upheaval, COVID upheaval and all of these things?

Dayton: I think as human beings we do better when we’re struggling, you know? You look at all the records that we really love – as soon as those acts stopped struggling, those records weren’t that great. That’s why we like so much early music.

So, if you figure out a way after you become successful to still put some sort of struggle in your life – whether it’s running five miles or whatever it is, some type of discipline – it really creates better output and better art. I think I learned that from my father. He was a military guy, a business guy and just an overall bad ass.

But I think you have to embrace the struggle. Because a lot of people just kind of give up. I could tell the musicians that I started out with who were gonna give up. I could just tell. I knew. They’re complaining about staying in Motel 6’s and driving eight hours in a van to the next gig. They had a car note.

I always kept my overhead super low when I started out. So I was never really hurt by the fact that I was struggling and wasn’t making much money. I didn’t have a car note. I had a couple of roommates or a cheap pad to crash at. I was living like a student. Now, this philosophy has become like the number one philosophy you hear by “influencers” on Instagram. I was like, “Oh yeah, I did that too. I just didn’t know I was doing it.”

I’m not doing it anymore! But I am learning how to give myself struggle – so I don’t lose my edge.