The Cash Box Kings

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Rock And Blues International: The subjects for this album are a bit more different than when you did “Download Blues.” It’s a little less modern other than when you mention Facebook on “I Can’t Stand You.”

Joe Nosek: That’s right. That one is very up to date and current. It’s Oscar and Deitra Farr poking fun at each other and the counterculture of Facebook. They’re always giving each other the business and don’t let up. They’re actually friends. Their Facebook posts and jabs at each other were so funny, that we’ve got to make a song out of this.

Rock And Blues International: It was hilarious.

Joe Nosek: I wish I could’ve recorded the songwriting session we did over Zoom. We did a lot of songwriting over the pandemic on Zoom. Man, just being in the middle of those two, cause they thought it was method acting, staying in character while we were writing the song. I was dying. I wish I had the outtakes from that. We could’ve made a whole album from that.

Rock And Blues International: You’ve got a couple of songs on here that you were the primary songwriter on, “Hot Little Mess.” I really like that one. Tell me a little bit about that one and the inspiration behind it.

Joe Nosek: I really think that what created the inspiration was that that one was a little New Orleans, early New Orleans R&B, but also kind of… I was going after a vibe, some of those blue-eyed R&B singers from down there, Bobby Chiles and Jimmy Donley. That was kind of the musical inspiration and the topic itself is someone that a lot of us have encountered. It is based off of someone I knew, a beautiful girl, lots of fun, kind of captivated a room from the time she walked in the door, but she also had other issues that she brought through the door with her as well. It just made any long-term relationship or bringing her home for Christmas probably unlikely.

Rock And Blues International: Evidently not quite the girl you wanted to bring home to meet your parents…

Joe Nosek: That’s it… not quite the girl you want to bring home to mama. But I’m hoping some day it could happen, but she needs to fly right to bring her home to mom. That’s what that one is all about.

Rock And Blues International: The other one was “She Dropped The Axe On Me.” Now that’s a very interesting song as well.

Joe Nosek: That one goes back to “We Straddle The Fence.” We like Chess Records… their kind of Blues is kind of our home base. We branch out to a lot of American styles and that one is definitely one of those Sun Records Rockabilly sides. And so I think I was kind of going for something in that vein, a Rockabilly-Country thing on Sun Records. That’s where the musical inspiration for that one came from.

Rock And Blues International: Well, you’re even digging further into the past with songs like “Nobody Called It The Blues.” What started that one off?

Joe Nosek: Well, Oscar and I noticed that during the pandemic unfortunately we had spent more time on social media and Facebook. It was interesting to see the whole social justice movement unfold after George Floyd died. We were kind of surprised at the reaction of some people who are Blues fans, but didn’t really understand the roots of Blues music or it’s original story. Coming out of the slave plantations or the horrific violence or conditions that African-Americans had to try to survive in when they got here, slaves. And after this music came out and people out there saying you shouldn’t be talking about politics or race. Leave it out of the music. How can you leave it out of Blues music when it’s one of the original forms of protest music in this country? But I think with that song, the message is that Blues came about as a way for people making that music to survive, the visceral racism that they faced and the violence and hatred and the subjugation. They found power and they found hope and I think we really intentionally thought about how we wanted to open and close that song. It opens with kind of a field hollar going back to the days when slaves would sing with music in the fields and then kind of tell them the story, the message that the song details, and then ending with a Gospel church call and response between Oscar and the young vocalist Cameron Webb. It conveys a feeling of hope and also conveys the fact that Oscar and Blues artists of his generation are trying to pass this music on to a new generation of musicians, especially AfricanAmerican musicians so that the message and the history of this music isn’t forgotten and carries on.

Rock And Blues International: Well, I think that a lot of the younger audiences don’t really know the history of the Blues. They just know the feel and don’t know where or how it originated. It was the inspiration for a lot of people a long time ago.

Joe Nosek: Yeah! That’s the thing too. We had a song on the last record called “Bluesman Next Door.” It was Oscar basically saying there’s a lot of people out there saying they like the Blues and will be very friendly face to face in a club, but if they saw us in their neighborhood, they’d probably call the cops. And the fact that there’s a lot of people who’s knowledge of the history of the Blues doesn’t go past Eric Clapton, John Mayall, The Stones, and the British Invasion bands that first started playing it and the artists that they inspired, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and then more modern day artists like Joe Bonamassa. For Oscar, it was important and he really didn’t want the roots of this music and where it came from forgotten. From the Blues, Muddy Waters had a baby and they called it Rock And Roll. They gave birth to Rock And continued on next page