Page 16 - BiTS_08_AUGUST_2021

BiTS: There’s pictures of all of the band on the front of the album drawn by somebody, a colleague

or a friend, I guess?

HD: Yeah, it’s an artist that I hire by the name of Les Toil, and he is famous for doing pin-up
paintings of plus-size women. He’s done a couple of our album covers prior to this and he’s just
terrific. He’s very creative and we had the idea of making this album cover a tribute to Salvador
Dali.

BiTS: Yes indeed. The Persistence of Memory, all the melted watches and all the rest of it. Do I take
it that the images on the cover are accurate of people in the band?

HD: Yes.

BiTS: They look like them, do they?

HD: Yes, they do.

BiTS: But I guess you don’t really have a pink poodle.

HD: No, I don’t have a pink poodle [laughs]. I have two cats. No pink poodle.

BiTS: [Laughing] A bit of artistic licence.

HD: Yes.

BiTS: Tell me about making the record. It was done
live in a gig, yes?

HD: Yes, it was a gig we did out in Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, a couple of years ago at this
place called the Studio Winery. It’s also a
recording studio, so the proprietor just hit the
record button when we started the gig, and
unfortunately, he forgot to hit the record button
for the second set, so this is just pieces of the
first set and it’s a gig that we’ve done before.

They really like us there and we have great
audiences there, so we thought it would be a good
thing to look into in terms of putting it out as an
album. Steve Jarvis, one of our guitarists, who’s also kind of
our de facto producer, took the recordings and zhooshed them up and balanced it out and made
radio-friendly.

BiTS: There is a fabulous version, in my opinion, of ‘Stormy Monday’ on the album. It particularly
relates to me because the name of one of my blues radio programmes is Wednesday’s Even Worse,

which of course, is a line taken from that song. Is that one of your favourite blues?

HD: Yeah, definitely. I love that song. I love performing it. It also helps to showcase the guitarist,
which is good and it’s a song that I’ve done with other bands, and I just really like it.

BiTS: What is it about the blues that attracts you, Halley?

HD: Well, it’s a very easy song form to play with because it’s based on 1-4-5. It really speaks to my
vocal strengths and it’s something you can do forever. It’s not necessarily for the young crowd,
although the young crowd do like it, but as I get older, I find that it’s a comforting song form and it