JACE EVERETT

June 28, 2011

Wants to do “BAD THINGS” with you

By Leslie Terhorst

“When you came in the air went out. And every shadow filled up with doubt. I don’t know who you think you are, but before the night is through, I wanna do bad things with you”; You know the song, now meet the artist. Jace Everett is the singer/songwriter of the hit theme song entitled ‘Bad Things’ for HBO’s ‘True Blood.’ Revolt In Style was fortunate enough to secure Jace for our 09’ BOO-FEST. I had to find out a little more about the man behind the song. Here’s what I found out.

RIS: How did it come about that your song was chosen for ‘TRUE BLOOD’?

JACE: Alan Ball the creator of the show, is an ITunes junkie when he’s writing. When he’s working on a new project, he tends to take a break and drop $100 on iTunes. It was one of the times that he came across “Bad Things”. It had been on ITunes since 2005. He then sent the song to Digital Kitchen for them to use it as a placeholder for the opening credits. I think they tried to replace it. But, I don’t think they tried very hard; they all seemed to fall in love with ‘Bad Things’. They thought it was a really good fit. So they decided to stick with it.

RIS: They chose wisely. I think ‘Bad Things’ sets the tone for the show. What do you think of the show?

JACE: The think the show is great. I’m not sure if a lot of people get all the humor, and irony, and the tongue and cheekiness of the show. I think Alan is paying homage to the genre, but he’s also poking fun of the genre, all at the same time. When it comes to ‘Bad Things’, everyone talks about how it’s a dark, brooding, and sexy song. Yeah, it has all that, but its also pretty tongue and cheek, and intentionally over the top. I think Alan picked up on that immediately, which made me really happy. Dark humor is kind of my thing. It started out a violent song, and I turned it into a love song. Just like the show, the song has the duality, which is what makes the show fun to watch, and the song fun to listen to. I ‘m a very lucky man to be apart of the ‘True Blood’ family.

RIS: You have had nearly 4 million hits on myspace for “Bad Things” how do you put that into perspective?

JACE: You mostly think “goddamn” I wish I got paid for that. In introspect it’s great. I was the number one Americana Blues Artist for most of this and last year, on myspace. Which is cool and exciting, because it has lead up to opportunities to talk to you, and perform at your event.

RIS: ‘Bad Things’ has also been nominated for a 2009 Scream Song of The Year Award, what do you think about that?

JACE: I think it would be kick to win. I just told people about it, and said if you dig the song vote yes, if you don’t that’s fine to. I am up against some pretty powerful bands. I’m not going to worry too much about it. The fact that I was nominated is fun. Whatever happens; happens. But, It would be great to win.

RIS: Now your new album ‘Red Revelations’ seems to have more of an Americana, Bluesy, Rock-a-Billy sound compared to your self-titled 1st album, which had more of country flair. What do you attribute that to?

JACE: The first album was Sony Nashville. I wanted to do more stuff like ‘Bad Things’ and they wanted me to do more song like the ones on the album that I didn’t write. I was just coming out of a divorce, I was young, and I didn’t even expect to get a record deal. So I just went with it. I’m a little older and a little wiser now. This new record is not a rejection of all that. It’s really a synthesis of everything I love. Which are rock, blues, country, soul, atmospheric cinematic type stuff, and rock-a-Billy, putting in all in a pot and coming up with my own Everett gumbo if you will. It’s all about not locking myself into one particular thing.

RIS: So I read, ‘True Blood’ inspired some of the songs on your new album?

JACE: Well two of the songs I wrote, were directly inspired from episodes in the first season. I wrote 3 or 4 of the songs on the record before True Blood happened. But, some of the songs I wrote with Chuck Prophet, one of my co-producers on the album. He brought in a couple song ideas that were inspired by ‘True Blood’; the show really got his juices flowing, so we finished those together. Then there are two songs that I wrote, that were very much created because of ‘True Blood’. The first is ‘Burn for You’; I wrote that after a show in the first season. It’s the episode where Bill runs out into the sun, because he wants to save Sookie. And then ‘Damned If I Do’, I really tried not to write anything about vampires; because I thought it might be a little too cheesy. But, ‘Damned If I Do’ could easily be a song about a love affair between a vampire and a human, if you get into the lyrics, or it could be about two college kids. I just tried to leave it open for your own interpretation.

RIS: You’re playing for us on October 31, at our 5th annual BOO-Fest, what can we expect to see?

JACE: I’m tall for my age. I don’t know. I’ll let you know when it’s over. I never know what to expect. We are going to give you a possibly even creepier version of what we do. It’s Halloween after all.

When would there ever be a better time to see this guy perform, than on Halloween. Trust me, you do not want to miss this incredible opportunity, live and in person. Are you kidding me? See you there.