Play it to me, Hollywood Blues

‘That’s a pretty girly cigarette there,” Shay Youngblood says, chiding bandmate Hank Fontenot in the upper-register, barely containable voice he skids on before laughing out loud. “Just because it’s got a white filter,” Fontenot says, shaking his head, content not to jab with a comeback as he savors a lazy drag.

Fontenot works at an instrument outlet store within walking distance, so for geographical purposes I am sitting in a Burger King, trapped in one of those small swivel seats welded to the table, interviewing Hollywood Blues. It’s an ironic, corporate setting for Youngblood, Fontenot and Evan Hendrix, among the youngest, most unabated rock’n’roll acolytes in the city, the kind that would rather produce a single (with b-side) on 45-rpm vinyl than release a full-length CD anytime soon.

On top of opening slots for touring bands at the Spanish Moon, Hollywood Blues had been playing a steady series of “house shows” (which are exactly what they sound like), and I wanted to meet these wild men everyone’s trespassing to see. MySpace and YouTube are littered with video evidence from these crime scenes of DIY rock. Hot, sweaty crowds press in on the trio in low-ceiling living rooms. Jagged guitar riffs and glass-smash cymbal crashes rattle the walls. Somewhere off camera, across town, a landlord shudders. Hendrix and Fontenot usually take off their shirts, a ceremonial rite for this, the undisciplined worship of early Stones records throttled by the undying intensity of three Joe Strummers with no great cause or creed other than playing rock’n’roll the only way they see fit.

225 is the band’s first feature interview, and it comes on the eve of a hiatus. Hendrix would spend the spring semester in Paris before returning this month to relaunch the band. I tell them I’m not interested in writing played-out prose on the origin of the name Hollywood Blues, and Hendrix seems visibly relieved. He and Youngblood appropriated the name as high school pals growing up in Alexandria, where they wrote most of the band’s current set list.

“The perfect band you conceive of in high school, that’s totally what this is for them,” says Fontenot, who first drummed behind Hendrix’s bass and Youngblood’s guitar last year. “It was awesome for them to come to the table with all these songs.”

Hendrix couldn’t find a drummer in Alexandria so he and Youngblood came to LSU in search of one. A Baton Rouge native, Fontenot had been a guitarist for The Kenmores and other local bands until he found a tossed-out drum kit on State Street. On a whim, he decided to try it out. After one practice session Hendrix knew Fontenot’s minimal pounding style—more Ringo Starr than Keith Moon—was perfect for Hollywood Blues. And what resulted were songs of dissatisfaction, like “Purgatory Blues,” “Oh Lord” and “Kiss That Girl,” which have stirred up the local indie rock pool and gotten some of Baton Rouge’s notoriously stand-still music fans to shake their moneymakers. “If your music doesn’t make you want to dance or move just a little bit, then what are you doing?” Hendrix asks. “Seriously.”

Describing Hollywood Blues as retro is insufficient because by its very nature the term implies the musicians aren’t genuine. The thing is plenty of Baton Rouge bands before them have been disingenuous with dopy costumes, hardcore poses or alter egos. Hollywood Blues refuses all of it. Fontenot lays down two rules: Be a rock’n’roll band and be genuine. The band members are up-front about who they are and are all the better for it.

“There’s no trickery,” Youngblood says. “A lot of bands you see live are pulling something over on you, like waiting to say ‘Ha we got you!’ Or there’s some kind of intellectual irony. Irony in music is something that should have died a long time ago.”

Hollywood Blues has just signed with Baton Rouge-based Decimal Records

for limited edition releases on vinyl and CD. The band will play a few local shows before embarking on an 18-date U.S. tour next month. myspace.com/hollywoodbluesband