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Jim Heath doesn’t quickly forget the people who told him “no.”

Heath, better known as “The Rev” in Reverend Horton Heat, says his band has been written off and talked down to by record company executives, tour managers and rockabilly haters since they shot out of Dallas in the late 1980s and cut their first record (Smoke ‘em If You Got ‘em) on the Sub Pop label in 1990.

“We’ve always managed to do stuff that people said we couldn't do,” says Heath, who’s known on the stage for his colorful tuxedos and the orange behemoth that’s his signature Gretsch guitar. “That’s a bit of adversity that in some ways has kinda been good for us.”

In addition to a love of touring, which Heath calls his “artform,” that chip on its shoulder has kept Heath’s punk-a-billy trio rolling through more than 25 years on the road and ten studio albums.

Their 11th is due out this year from Victory Records. Heath says the album is on pace to be a return to old form for the band and a turn away from the calmer country sound of 2009’s Laughin’ & Cryin’ with the Reverend Horton Heat.

Reverend Horton Heat will play Monday night at The Waiting Room in Omaha.

But first, Heath spoke to Hear Nebraska about how songwriting can still "feel impossible,” how he deals with uppity fresh-faced bands and how he sees his patented rhinestone tuxedo as his uniform.

Listen to the extended interview with The Rev here:

Hear Nebraska: I had read that with the new record with Victory, you guys were leaning toward a more edgy sound, the harder stuff where Reverend Horton Heat started out. Why did now feel like right time to go a little harder and a little edgier?

Jim Heath: Well, the last album really leaned country heavily, so I just kind of figured it was time. And our crowd is rock ‘n’ roll.

But it’s all sorts of things. That being said, this album coming up is going to have two of maybe the best country songs I’ve ever written. But it’s still a Reverend Horton Heat album with all its kind of quirkiness and different kinds of stuff. We’ve got some straight kind of rockabilly stuff and some surf kind of stuff, garage rock stuff and some heavier stuff to.

But compared to our last album, which — like I said — leaned so much country…

HN: Two of the best country songs you’ve ever written? You sound excited about that. What do you like about them? What makes them great country songs?

JH: Well, they’re pretty authentic-sounding and they’re funny and they’ve got funny, good lyrics. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m misguided, but I think they’re gonna be good.

HN: You’ve been on a lot of labels since you’ve started. I’m sure some were great experiences and others were alright. But you’ve sounded excited about this move to Victory. At this point in your career, what do you guys want from a record label? Independence? Collaboration? Good suggestions?

JH: Basically just more promotion and promotional ideas. I actually got to meet with (the Victory reps) for the first time last night face to face. We were in Chicago and they’re based out of Chicago. But basically promotional stuff and getting our new songs out there, so we can play them live and keep this thing going.

But, really, what I want from a label is enthusiasm. If they’re enthusiastic about promoting us, then that’s good.

HN: You need them to be as excited about what you're doing as you are?

JH: Yeah exactly. But anyway, man, that’s just the business side.

One thing about Reverend Horton Heat is that my artform is playing music. And there’s so much about music that … recordings are just a technology. Being a recording artist to me is like being somebody who works in an IT department. Music is a live experience. If you think about it, our greatest musicians in history never even made a recording.

Mozart. I don’t think there’s a recording of Mozart anywhere.

HN: That feeds pretty nicely into something I wanted to ask you, Jim. Because I’ve read in several interviews that you say playing live music and touring is the artform you know. So this Victory record by my count will be your 11th studio album. Where does the drive to keep making the records come from? Is that a means to fuel continuing to be on stage? Are you competitive? Do you want to top what you’ve done before?

JH: Oh yeah, we’re competitive, so that all plays into it. Our sense of competition, but also our sense of fear or sense of desperation.

HN: Desperate that what? You guys might not be able to do what you do anymore?

JH: Yeah, you know, fear. What if all of a sudden we can't do this next week? We’re still fighting and in some ways that’s what life is. It’s a constant battle, albeit I’ve got a pretty comfortable battle. I get to ride around in pretty plush tour bus and lay around and play guitar.

But it’s still a ton of work. People can't imagine how much work this is to pull this off.
But, you know, I enjoy it. I love to do this.

HN: It’s interesting that you describe it as a battle. I had seen that — this is going way back in time — that when you first, back in Texas, decided you wanted to do rockabilly, you described it as getting kind of a bad rap. And you called it “the kicking dog” of music. Can you explain what drew you to that? Did you see it as a challenge? Are you the kind of guy who likes underdogs?

JH: Oh, yeah, I like underdogs. But my thing with rockabilly was the energy. It’s really high energy. The lyrics commonly are comical and funny. But also, they can be dangerous. So in my mind rockabilly was the first punk rock. It’s got this reckless abandon about the music and the style of singing. It’s somewhat crazy music. The energy: that’s what rock ‘n’ roll is. It’s high energy music.

But unfortunately, I think it got lost. They started calling every rock ‘n’ roll. And it was really like, “Well, no, this is some kind of neoclassical music or folk music with psychedelic guitars.”

It’s really not rock ‘n’ roll. To me, rock ‘n’ roll is Jerry Lee Lewis banging straight eights on the piano. Or Little Richard playing straight eights. Or a Chuck Berry song or Eddie Cochran.

HN: When you think about what you guys do and have done for two decades as a battle, do you — in some sense — think of you guys as underdogs?

JH: Oh yeah, sure. Reverend Horton Heat has been the underdog our whole career! You know what I mean? I can remember sitting in a person’s office and we wanted to book a national tour, but we didn’t have an album out. But we were already playing nationally and playing gigs in all these various places across America.

And they said, “Well, listen, without product, you’re gonna die out there. I’m not gonna book you because there’s no product.”

I said, “Well, OK, adios.” And we went out and booked ourselves a whole national tour. We’ve always managed to do stuff that people said we couldn't do. That’s a bit of adversity that in some ways has kinda been good for us.

HN: And that persists to this day?

JH: Yeah, a little bit of adversity is not a bad thing. You know, people are always saying, “You’re just this little rockabilly thing.”

I’ll never forget an A&R girl said — she was some overpaid, over-titled person with some major record label — “You guys just need to be on an independent label.”

And I said, “Well, thanks, Miss Expert.” And within a year, we were on a major label.

HN: I like the way that you talk about genre. A lot of artists don’t have much use for it, which I guess is a subjective thing. But I wonder as you guys tour hard and write music new music all the time — it seems like folk punk or folk-infused punk is a big thing right now — as these musical trends pop around you and become identifiable, do you guys ever stop and think, “We’ve seen a lot of these trends come and go” or “We’ve been doing this the whole time”? What do you make of these musical waves that come up around you?

JH: Sometimes it can be cool, but by and large, it’s something that gets largely ignored by us. Because we don’t sit around reading Rolling Stone. We’re more apt to read our little trade publications. Or Mix magazine maybe. But really more like Hot Rod magazines. So all of these bands get really big and successful and we don’t really know about it. And it’s not because we don’t like it. It’s just because there’s so much that pops up.

But when it does get a little funny is when some of these bands cop an attitude toward us. And you’re like, “Whoa, man. Why does this guy have an attitude toward us?” Come to find out, they’re the new big thing and then five years later they’re basically…

HN: Gone?

JH: Yeah, they’re done.

HN: Do you ever stop when something like that happens and it’s kinda like, “Well, you can talk to us in twenty years and we’ll see where you’re at.”

JH: Yeah, I don’t dwell on stuff like that, but every now and then the situation comes up where we’re like, “Yeah, well we’ll just see.” (Laughs).

Because, like I said, we can be competitive, but I don’t focus a lot on that. A lot of times, I see these young bands get big and everything and sometimes they’re really good bands a lot of times it’s a really good thing. Like a lot of these new rhythm and blues bands that don’t have a DJ. And they’re not playing samples. They’re playing real guitars and real drums and real Hammond organs.  And it’s good, soulful music. That’s cool. It’s all good.

HN: Talking about success and you guys being recognized, you know, it was a long time before you guys found commercial success in the sense that your songs were getting on shows and commercials and video games. When the call from those companies came down in the mid-’90s and late ‘90s, how did that feel? Was it affirming to what you’d been doing? Or did you see it as an added bonus to what you’d planned to do anyway?

JH: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if we necessarily overthought it. When something like that happens and you’re just like, “Oh yeah, cool! Tony Hawk! We’re gonna be on the Tony Hawk video game.”

Honestly though, a lot of that stuff comes up and we don’t even think about how big it is or what it means, we just kind of do it. And then all of a sudden, everybody’s talking about it. “Oh, you guys were on Redneck Rampage, man! That’s the greatest video game ever!” Sure, alright.

The thing is, too, that you get used in some of these movies and TV shows and, man, one thing that I have learned is to never make a big deal about it. Because they’ll call you and want to do it. And you’ll work out how much you’re gonna get paid and, “Wow, this is cool!” And then the movie comes out and it’s only in the movie for like seven seconds.

And then they don’t pay you. And you have to keep calling them. And finally they pay you. So if you go in thinking it’s a big deal… it’s better to kind of slowly acclimate to that water than dive right in.

HN: So you kind of have to think about it as a bonus. Because otherwise you might wind up disappointed.

JH: Yeah, there’s a lot of disappointment in the world of TV and movies. That industry has a lot of eye-in-the-sky ideas they're trying to hook everybody on to. And then 99 percent of them don’t work out.

About the only thing that for me is kind of cool is that where I live not that many people in the neighborhood care about Reverend Horton Heat. It’s a lot of middle-aged guys with kids. We had one of our songs on Guitar Hero and so I’d meet this guys in the neighborhood and they’d go, “Reverend Horton? Whatever…”

And then a couple weeks later, I’d run into them at the store and they’d say, “Reverend Horton Heat! I told my kids. They know all about you, man! You’re on a video game called Guitar Hero. Did you know that?”

Yeah, I knew that. (Laughs).

In that respect, people can kind of relate to me a little bit more. In general, your general, run-of-the mill American citizen doesn’t give a crap about Reverend Horton Heat or even music.

HN: Couple more here: When you were talking about the new country songs that are slated to be on this new record, you talked about how important it was that they had some funny lyrics. Some authentically funny lyrics.

If I can jump back to 2004 and the Revival album, there are some songs on there about the passing of your mom and “Indigo Friends” about friends with substance abuse issues. When you do write more serious songs like that, people might see it as a departure from what you usually write about, do you see it that way? Or does it all fall under the umbrella of what Jim wants to write about?

JH: In some ways it can be. This new album does have some serious songs on it. And some songs that are not meant to be zany, funny kind of things. That can be a departure.

But for me when I’m writing a song, I just have to think of something that would be interesting to write about or something that I believe in. And it kind of leads you down its own road. Sometimes songs for me, I have very little control. We could very well do things that are a departure for us and that’s really good.

We’ve got our Reverend Horton Heat platform and style. So tweaking that a little and working in that realm, it’s still good to try new stuff.

HN: When did you figure that out? When do you figure out that it was important to go where the songs want to take you? Did you know that all along or was that something you’ve had to trust over the years?

JH: Well, it’s something you have to trust. I also think that you can overthink and underthink a song to death at the same time. But every song is different. Some I’ve written in fifteen minutes and others I’ve working on for years and then at the last minute, I rewrite them.

There’s a song on our new album that this is the fifth set of lyrics. Totally different titles and everything.

HN: Over how much time?

JH: Twenty years maybe. I’ve got some songs like that that are hanging around. It can come really easily and really hard all at the same time. Writing a song is really crazy.

For me, it can seem impossible. So I’ll go into our little rehearsal place, our studio, and I’ll have some lyrics and a title, but no idea what music it should be. I’ll be in there plunking around on my guitar. I’m sitting there playing a G chord, the same one of been playing since…

I’ll sit there, nothing will happen and it’ll be hours.  And then all of a sudden, I’ll poke around a little and hit on something new and unusual that matches the lyrics and I’m playing a new song. It’s just bizarre how you keep noodling until something happens.

HN: Even for someone like The Reverend who’s been writing songs for more than two decades, you still find yourself thinking, “This is impossible” before hitting something? You still have those lows and highs?

JH: Yeah, and the one good thing about having all this experience doing that is that I know if I stay there and keep at it and don’t give up, something good will happen. And I think that’s the hardest thing for younger musicians or people without much experience to understand about writing songs.

HN: Let me quickly bring up: I’ve read the story of when your old acquaintance suggested the name “Reverend Horton Heat” to you, but now in 2013 what resonance does that persona have for you? What would be different if you guys were just billed as Jim and Jimbo and Scott?

JH: Well, it’s definitely part of who I am now. But I’ve never really gone whole-hog overboard into the whole trying-to-be-a-persona thing. That being said, maybe The Reverend is a little bit more loud and gregarious and maybe Jim Heath is a little more laid back and at least somewhat level-headed. But then again too, maybe not. (Laughs).

Honestly the stage wear is something that really helps me. That’s pretty cool. I don’t always wear the flaming tuxedo or rhinestone tuxedo, but I’ll always wear something nice. That kind of gets me into this mindset, like, “Time to go.” Like a racehorse in the gate ready to start running.

And the fans know, when I walk out there wearing a rhinestone tuxedo or something, the fans know that I want to be there and I mean to be there and I’m going to do the best that I can. Whereas just walking out there in jeans and a t-shirt can imply that, “Well, I’m here … whatever.”

Chance Solem-Pfeifer is a Hear Nebraska staff writer. He would only tell The Reverend he couldn’t do something, unless he really wanted to see it done. Reach Chance at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.