The Royal Crown Revue, the godfathers of modern swing who slithered up like a vision from a Raymond Chandler novel out of the vibrant L.A. rockabilly and post-punk scene of the late Eighties, have been just a little busy lately. |

In the midst of mid-wifeing a growing swing music scene, they've placed songs in two movies -- The Mask and Flubber, recorded two excellent albums for Warner Bros. (1996's Mugsy's Move as well as the recently unleashed The Contender), played on a track on the new Bette Midler album, appeared at The Playboy Jazz festival, composed the original theme for WB Network's 1998-99 season, and to top it all off, had one of their songs in a national ad campaign for Acura. A lot of activity? You bet, but the one thing that they have continued to define themselves as is a hard-working road band.

"The main thing for us," comments guitarist James Anchor, "is that we make our living as a traveling band. That's the only way we can really get people's attention, to go into their town and scream at them."

One secret to RCR's success is its willingness to boldly take swing music where swing music's rarely -- if ever -- gone before. "When we first started touring in the late Eighties," says Anchor, "the Seattle thing was just starting to take off, so you can imagine how we looked when we came into a town. But it made sense for us to take any clubs or venues that would book us. There have not been too many times that we've been scared, because we're used to winning over audiences in odd situations." How odd? "How would you like to tell 15,000 people that it's OK to swing a little bit before they rock out to Kiss?"

He's referring to Royal Crown Revue's two opening gigs for the cartoon metal band's blockbuster reunion tour last year. "The first couple of songs were a struggle," remembers Anchor, "but in the end, during Daniel Glass's drum solo on 'Hey, Pachuco!,' they went crazy. That's when we also started doing the 'Purple Haze' signature at the end of our sets. For the Kiss fans." (Laughs)

"That's the thing that gives me heart about this band and this kind of music," continues drummer Daniel Glass. "If you present this kind of music to people in a way that they understand, which is loud and hard, then [swing] is perfectly acceptable as listening music. That's one of the things that make us a good band, I think. We've had to work really, extra, extra hard to convince people and to get people to understand that swing music played by guys in zoot suits was cool, not something for their parents or whatever."

In the five-odd years the band has been together, they have grown through these experiences, and brought that to the table when they went in to record The Contender with producer Ted Templeman [Van Halen]. "I think what they were doing on this record, was sort of setting the bar a little higher for the music," says Templeman. "It was like, 'Okay, there was jump blues, there was swing ... let's make something completely different. They're moving ahead, instead of saying, 'Let's cut that hit single that's going to get us in the swing groove, man.' They're so unique, and that's what originally attracted me to Royal Crown. Because when I first saw them at The Derby, there wasn't any Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, you know?"

But now there is, of course, along with innumerable other swing outfits. The vets in Royal Crown Revue aren't about to jump ship now that the deck is over-saturated with zoot suit daddies, but their work for film soundtracks suggests they're ever-willing to test uncharted waters. "What we'd really like to do," confesses Anchor, "is score an entire film." For the time being, though, another album, gig or tour will do just as nicely, thank you.

"If you would have told me ten years ago that we would have a recording contract," says Anchor, "I would have laughed in your face."

MATTHEW GREENWALD (October 8, 1998)