A ringing endorsement from one of rock's biggest stars never hurts. Especially if you're a musician like Dexter Romweber, who falls into the category of "grossly underappreciated."
During the 1980s and '90s, he led the rockabilly band Flat Duo Jets. The scrappy guitar-and-drums combo never achieved mainstream success — despite a 1998 release titled Lucky Eye on the Geffen imprint Outpost — but made a significant impression on The White Stripes, among others.
The documentary Two Headed Cow offers viewers an intimate look at Romweber and puts his accomplishments into perspective. Jack White appears in one of the film's first grainy shots. "Dexter Romweber was and is a huge influence on my music," White says. "I owned all of his records as a teenager and was thrilled at the fact that we were able to play together recently on tour. His attitude towards music is remarkable. And his songwriting, along with his love of classic American music from the South, be it rockabilly, country or R&B, is one of the best kept secrets of the rock 'n' roll underground."
The doc also features Cat Power's Chan Marshall, Neko Case and Exene Cervenka (of X) praising Romweber.
"[White] is always talking about me," Romweber says from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C. "He talked about me to Charlie Rose and Terry Gross (host of NPR's Fresh Air). I think he tries to help musicians who have influenced him; I'm not the only one."
Interestingly, Romweber's biggest influence is Benny Joy, a rockabilly singer from Tampa who also falls into the category of grossly underappreciated. Perhaps best known for his 1958 single "Crash the Party," Joy became bigger in England than in the States, although many rockabilly connoisseurs rank him alongside more successful contemporaries like Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. Romweber, 41, discovered Joy's music while he was a teen living in Venice, just a few cities south of Tampa.
"Last year, me and my friend went to Tampa and hung out with Benny's nephew," Romweber says. "Benny was a huge influence on me, I gotta say he's definitely my favorite artist.
"I used to listen to his dark songs and get stoned before school and think about the girls I was crazy about," he continues. "Benny's 'Hey High School Baby' really spoke to me. There's an intense, darker element to Benny's songs than [what other singers of the period offered]. His music was my soundtrack in school."
While growing up in Venice and then Chapel Hill and Athens, Ga., Romweber was a notorious wild man. "I was looked at as a real oddity, wore jet black eyeliner, dark hair and played this old Southern music," he says. "People were too tripped out to really say anything, but looking back, I was a pretty radical guy, just considering what everyone else was like. I started smoking weed at 12. I have since quit pot, but back then I was really into drugs and music, dark Southern music."
Bob Dylan reportedly once said that he liked the classic documentary about him, Don't Look Back — he just wished it starred someone else. It's a sentiment Romweber can relate to. There is a scene in Two Headed Cow where he goes into detail about why he had a falling out with Flat Duo Jets drummer Chris "Crow" Smith, who has since been replaced by Dex's sister Sara, formerly of Let's Active.
"I had some problems with the documentary; there were some lines the producers just wouldn't take out," Romweber says. "I admitted Crow had ripped me off for some money, and I feel terrible about it. I wished it hadn't happened.
"To be honest, though, things couldn't be better. Playing with my sister Sara is phenomenal. It's been almost 10 years since [Flat Duo Jets] broke up. There were a lot of hard times, but now things are working out."
This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2007.