Jesse James Dupree of Jackyl

by Greg Prato

Despite grunge and alternative bands ruling radio, MTV, and the charts circa the early '90s, there were a select few rock bands that managed to score hits during this time - including Jackyl. Led by larger-than-life frontman Jesse James Dupree, Jackyl scored four Top 40 hits on the Mainstream Rock Chart in 1992 alone, including "The Lumberjack" (for which a popular MTV video was shot, featuring Dupree's formidable chainsaw skills), "Down on Me," "I Stand Alone," and "Dirty Little Mind," while their self-titled debut was certified platinum.

And Jackyl has continued rocking ever since (their seventh studio album overall, Best in Show, was issued in 2012), while Dupree reached an entirely new audience as a cast member of the reality TV show, Full Throttle Saloon. During his chat with Songfacts, the singer discussed songwriting, his admiration for vocalists such as Steve Marriott, and how he came to pen a song with AC/DC's Brian Johnson.
Greg Prato (Songfacts): How do you find that you do your best songwriting?

Jesse James Dupree: It comes one of two ways. Either I have a lyric idea and I sit down and start coming up with some music to go with it, or vice versa. So it starts with one or the other.

But I do my best writing when I'm on my motorcycle. This last Jackyl album, Best In Show, probably 75 percent of that I wrote the core parts of those songs in my head tooling across Interstate 80 heading to Sturgis or something.

Songfacts: What would you say is your favorite Jackyl album from a songwriting standpoint?

Dupree: Well, that first album's always special [1992's Jackyl], because you're coming from such a desperate place at that point. People always try to analyze why a band's first album is so key and stands out. It's because you're coming from a place in your soul and your pocketbook and your belly. You're hungry. So one thing leads to another and it manifests what are great first records.

That's one thing that we did touch on with the last two albums that made a big difference. I think the last two albums are very, very consistent with each other. Moonshine and Dynamite Collide are both in line with the first album as far as the attitude, the grit, the overall "Jackyl" of them. But the key to those, we played them live before we recorded them. We actually took them out on the road and got the audience's approval before we put them on record.

Back in the good old days (i.e. the pre-internet era), musicians could test out new material in front of an audience, and not fear it being automatically widely bootlegged. Pink Floyd played Dark Side of the Moon live for about a year before they recorded it; Led Zeppelin performed several songs from their Houses of the Holy album a year before it was released (as evidenced by the release of the live recording How the West Was Won in 2003, which saw the band already playing such Holy material as "Over the Hills and Far Away," "The Crunge," "Dancing Days," and "The Ocean"). And while opening for Neil Young in the summer of 1993, Soundgarden premiered several tunes from their '94 classic Superunknown album (live recordings from this tour - of "Fell On Black Days," "Kickstand," and "My Wave" - would appear as B-sides on later singles).
Songfacts: Many bands say that if they get the opportunity to test out new songs in front of an audience, that definitely helps improve them.

Dupree: It does. I don't think I'll be into recording again without being able to test the songs out live. We're playing "Screwdriver" and "My Moonshine Kicks Your Cocaine's Ass." We play "When Moonshine and Dynamite Collide," and encore with "Favorite Sin." We're playing five, six, or more songs off these last couple of records right along with all the stuff you want to hear off the first couple of records, and the set doesn't lag. People sing along with every one.

If you went on the Jackyl Facebook page, you'd see the crowd of 10+ thousand in Kansas City this past Saturday night. They say there's a YouTube clip that one of the people that came to the show posted of "My Moonshine Kicks Your Cocaine's Ass," and when that first chorus hits, I just throw the microphone out there and there's 10,000 people screaming so loud it scared the hell out of me.

Songfacts: Who would you say are some of your favorite songwriters?

Dupree: Well, I grew up loving Wilson Pickett and Joe Tex and James Brown - a lot of the black soul singers. I love Steve Marriott, not just a great songwriter, but a soulful singer.

The late/great Steve Marriott fronted two renowned rock bands: the Small Faces and Humble Pie. Whereas the Small Faces are best known for such psychedelic pop hits as "Itchycoo Park" and "Lazy Sunday," it was as the singer/guitarist of Humble Pie that Marriott truly came into his own, as such classic rockers as "Stone Cold Fever" and "30 Days in the Hole" showcase his soulful and powerful vocals. Sadly, Marriott (cited as a favorite singer by Ozzy Osbourne and Paul Stanley) died on April 20, 1991 at the age of 44, when his house caught fire.
There are some great songwriters. I spent a week over in a castle in the south of France, one of those invitational things when you go over and you write songs with people you wouldn't normally write with. And I wrote with Desmond Child, I wrote with Trey Bruce. You know, Desmond Child's written songs for Aerosmith, KISS, Celine Dion, Ricky Martin - he did "La Vida Loca." I wrote with him, and I wrote with Trey Bruce, who wrote Randy Travis' country hit, "Look Heart, No Hands." Carole King was over there, Jack Blades, Mark Hudson, all these great songwriters that I wouldn't normally have written with. Hell, I even wrote a song over there with Desmond Child, that was on a boy band record called O-Town that sold three-and-a-half million copies.

So there's great songwriters. But as far as artists that write for themselves, I was always partial to the Steve Marriotts and getting over into the Wilson Picketts and James Browns.

Songfacts: What was that song that you wrote with Desmond Child for the band O-Town?

Dupree: Well, you ain't going to hold it against me?

Songfacts: No - go ahead!

Dupree: It's called "Love Should Be A Crime."

Songfacts: What are some memories of writing specifically that song and also writing with someone like Desmond Child?

Dupree: I was a little shy. Every day you'd wake up in this castle. There were 30 people over there, with no phones, no TVs, no Internet, no nothing. You just have to write. You wake up and they assign you to work with somebody that's there in the castle - you don't know who you're going to be writing with. So you go in and you deal with everyone in the castle and you don't come out until you've written a song. Every day's a new experience.

The day I was in there with Desmond, he was initially trying to convince me to write a Jackyl song, and I said, "I write Jackyl songs all day long. I'm over here to write different stuff to have fun and stretch out and see what I'm capable of." So we sat there for about two or three hours. We had a bunch of good ideas, but nothing was great. And then I had this open tuning that I had been playing around with. And I don't know for sure, but I think it's close to the tuning that Jimmy Page uses on "The Rain Song." I was just trying to figure out the tuning that he was using.

On Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song," Jimmy Page utilizes an uncommon guitar tuning, known as "open page" alternative guitar tuning Dsus2, which is D-G-C-G-C-D, rather than a standard tuning of E-A-D-G-B-E. This would be only one of many Zep tunes to feature an uncommon tuning on Page's instrument (others include "Bron-Yr-Aur," "Friends," "Poor Tom," "Kashmir," and "Black Mountain Side").
So I went down to that tuning - an open tuning - and I started strumming around. And the next thing you know, within about 30 minutes, we had written "Love Should Be A Crime." And then I forgot about it. Because I thought, Well, nothing will ever come of that, because it was such a pop-y song. Then about six months later, I got a phone call from my publisher letting me know that it was on a record, and that first week out of the gate the record sold 130,000. So I was like, Yep, that's me! [Laughs] Well, then, my publisher called me said, "You wrote a song called 'Love Should Be A Crime'?" I said, "No, that's not me." And they called back a couple of days later and they said, "Man, we traced this back to you, you sure you didn't write it?" And I said, "I don't know what you're talking about." And they said, "Well, it's on a boy band record that sold 170,000 copies," I said, "Oh, yeah, that's me."

Songfacts: You mentioned Steve Marriott before - who are some of your favorite singers, as well?

Dupree: Well, Steve Marriott was just God. Such an unrecognized singer in the big scheme of things. People that love music and know rock history know exactly what he was. It's just a shame that every 15-year-old kid that wants to be a singer these days doesn't realize the strength and the power of Steve Marriott. It's just such an extraordinary talent. He's kind of a white male Tina Turner. The guy was just a badass.

Songfacts: I agree. I'd say probably my favorite Humble Pie song is "Stone Cold Fever."

Dupree: Oh, yeah, man, and "Black Coffee." He was just great. And then of course Brian Johnson and Rob Halford are great. One of my biggest trophies ever was when this disc jockey in Kansas City was doing an interview with Rob Halford, and it was a show we were going to be playing together on. Rob Halford said that he loved my voice and he loved the fact that I had a strong voice. That to me was like winning the damn Grammy. You've got to be talented as hell for him to even recognize you.

Songfacts: Let's discuss a few of your songs, starting with "The Lumberjack."

Dupree: Well, before we had a record deal I had a chainsaw that we would just mess around with, cutting stuff up in venues that we were playing. I didn't really do anything with it. I would jam around during different songs with it, just competing with the guitar player. But John Kalodner - the legendary John Kalodner - signed us to our record deal at Geffen. When he signed us, he goes, "You've to keep that chainsaw in the show."

We had a show in South Carolina, and I left from Atlanta, Georgia. I was riding up to South Carolina, and on the way up there I just kind of wrote that song. I had it all in my head. We got there, and there was a bass guitar right when I walked in the door. I picked up the bass guitar, figured out what key I was doing it in, and told the band that we were going to kick off a three-chord turnaround in A. And it's been "The Lumberjack" ever since.

Songfacts: What about "Down On Me"?

Dupree: "Down On Me," was at a party. Again, before we ever had a record deal, and we were hungry. I just had a child, my first son, and he was colicky and wasn't sleeping at night. I'd come off the road because I thought I needed to get a real job, since I was a father. I was at a party, and the singer for Kansas, Steve Walsh, was there. There were a lot of people there talking to me, talking about the band that I'd been in, that it was a good band and they loved us, but we weren't going to be playing as much, since I had a kid.

Steve Walsh was sitting in on part of the conversation, and he goes, "Yeah, we should write together some time." I took him serious, I thought he was a real guy. But when I followed up with him any time after that, he wasn't really serious about getting together. But I'd written "Down On Me" because I thought it would be a good Kansas song. The way I heard it produced in my head was kind of like Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is." I could hear all of Steve Walsh's big harmony vocals he could have put on there. And then he just blew me off. So I just put it to the side.

And then when we finally got signed to a record deal, John Kalodner again wanted to hear everything that we had, so we worked that song up. I didn't feel right singing it, to be honest, because all I heard in my head was what I thought Kansas should be doing with it.

And then ironically - and this is a total true story - we were doing preproduction for that first record, and we had played that song. Kalodner loved it, and I was surprised that he loved it. And I swear to God on my kids that within an hour of that going down, Steve Walsh walked into the rehearsal room that we were at in Atlanta, just totally coincidentally out of nowhere. He said hello to John Kalodner, and John was going, "Look, guys, this is the legendary Steve Walsh. Look at this, can you believe it?"

And so Walsh ends up leaving, and Kalodner goes, "That's pretty cool. Steve Walsh comes in here and says hey." And I said, "Yeah. You know that song that you said you liked? The 'Down On Me' song? I wrote that for him and he blew me off." And Kalodner goes, "You know what the moral to that story is? You've got a hit, he don't." And we just took it home from there.

Songfacts: What are some memories of working with AC/DC's Brian Johnson on the song "Locked and Loaded"?

Dupree: Oh, man. There's no words that can explain it. Brian had invited me to come down to his house and write some songs. I went down there and we had some beers in his pub. We had written part of "Locked and Loaded," but we didn't have all of it. Then we ended up getting caught up in the drinking and some other stuff that we were going out and doing that night. It was just, for me, such a big thrill to be hanging with someone that's such a big influence and such an icon in rock and roll.

It took me a couple of weeks before I finally figured out where I could go with the song musically and such. I called him and I said, "Hey, we're going to cut that song that you and I were working on." And to my surprise, he goes, "Well, I'll be up there tomorrow." He dropped everything and flew in and we finished writing it in the studio while we recorded it.

Songfacts: Would you say that your involvement and appearances on the Full Throttle Saloon TV show has brought new Jackyl fans on board?

Dupree: Oh, anytime you get a couple million people plus a week, dial them into a TV show that's your own, it changes things. I mean, we've been very, very blessed. I just feel lucky to be able to share some of Sturgis with the people that can't go. It's so far from anywhere, 1,700 miles from anywhere to Sturgis, it seems like. But for every one person that goes, there's a thousand at home that get to go vicariously through what we're doing, and it's a big part of what the band has built over the years.

I'm an avid motorcyclist and I ride out on tour every year. Roman, the bass player, he and I ride together, and we're very serious about it. We do a lot of charity motorcycle rides throughout the year with radio stations. But yeah, the TV show's been a blessing on every front.

February 5, 2015. For more Jackyl, visit jackyl.com.
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Comments: 1

  • Erica from OhioI may be telling my age here, but I bought that O-Town CD and Love Should Be a Crime was my favorite song on there.
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