He’s a hefty backwoodsman type with dark, merry eyes, a thick black beard, working man’s suspenders, worn pork-pie hat, and a booming Hoosier-country drawl that howls to the heavens or digs deep into the earth.
Josh “The Reverend” Peyton is the driving force of Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, a family trio featuring vocalist/fingerstyle guitarist Peyton, his washboard playing wife, Breezy, and his younger brother/drummer Jayme. Peyton’s music is straightforward, rough-hewn country blues with a punk rock stomp and a folk heart. He writes about what he knows — the people, the places, the problems, the potatoes — and says exactly what he means, coloring his simple truths with humor to keep things light.
“I find that when I’m the most honest and the most truthful, it seems like people respond the best to it,” Peyton told me in a recent interview from his Indiana home. “And for me, it makes it that much easier to play the songs, when I don’t hold anything back.”
The wild romping “Mama’s Fried Potatoes” was penned while Peyton was on tour and pining for a favorite comfort food [quality video below]. “Your Cousin’s on Cops” relates the amusing but too-true tale of seeing his wife’s cousin get busted on TV. Peyton says the song has taken on a life of its own at the band’s live shows. “I had no idea that people’d be so into that song. It’s kind of a silly song but at the same time, you know, it’s a true song — her cousin was on Cops.”
