← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' a Walk with Buzz Knight: Lee Rocker Shares Stories of Music, Fame, and Rockabilly Revival with The Stray Cats
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- [00:01]
A
Taking a Walk I'm Buzz Knight and this is the Taking a Walk podcast. Now, if you've got something to say, use the Talk Back feature on the I Heart app and send me a voice message. React to the show, share your thoughts. Tell me who you'd like to take on your ultimate dream walk. I'm listening. Welcome to the show. My guest today is a man who helped put rockabilly back on the map and kept it there. As the upright bass player and co founder of the Stray Cats, Lee Rocker helped build one of the most visually electric and sonically explosive acts in rock and roll history. Formed in Massapequa, Long island in 1979, he and Brian Setzer and Slim Jim Phantom, they took their pompadours and their passion across the Atlantic to London, where a rockabilly revival was just catching fire. And the rest, as they say, is music history. It's like Rock this Town, Stray Cat Strut, Runaway Boys, they became anthems. And now the Cats are back with new music and a full cross country summer 2026 tour. Lee Rocker is next on the Taking a Walk podcast.
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A
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A
Taking a Walk Lee welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. It is so great to have you on.
- [02:31]
C
Thanks so much Buzz.
- [02:33]
A
So take me back to Massapequa. Before the spark of rockabilly hit you, what was the first impact of musically that you recall hit you and connected you with a life of music?
- [02:48]
C
I'd have to say that really goes way back. I'm from a musical family. Both of my parents were classical musicians. My mom was a clarinetist and music professor at a place called Hofstra University and my dad, Stanley Drucker was a clarinetist also. He was a gentle prodigy from Brooklyn, New York, who went on at a very young age to become the solo clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic, a position he held for 61 years. So music goes way back. My grandfather before that was on vaudeville as a saxophone player. So music's kind of the family business. I mean, rockabilly isn't, or wasn't, I should say. But music was always something I grew up with from being a little kid, like lying in bed every night. I heard rehearsals and clarinets and saxophones and pianos and lessons being taught. So I was immersed from day one.
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A
So it's fascinating thinking about Massapequa at the time when the spark hit when some teenagers decided to go down the direction of rockabilly. What was that calling when everybody else was listening to disco and the New Wave?
- [04:17]
C
Me, Brian and Jim were kind of renegades. And we listened to all different stuff. We all lived in the same neighborhood within a couple of blocks of each other. And, you know, as you said, disco was on, but there was rock and roll. It was the 70s, but there wasn't really rockabilly. And we started to. Well, for me, I stumbled on it really through the blues. I was totally getting into blues and Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. And somehow I found that music. And that led me down that pike to rockabilly music, too. Presley, Sun Sessions and Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. I remember my grandfather had some Johnny Cash records. And we kind of bonded over, I think, maybe being misfits a bit and also finding this music together from a pretty young age.
- [05:14]
A
So you made a decision to pack up and head to London in 1980. A big leap of faith that, frankly, most people, no less, most bands never take. What gave you guys this confidence to take that on and do that?
- [05:33]
C
I could be funny here and say something, but I honestly. I think the honest answer is that we started the band and things really started to take off even before going to the UK. I mean, we were teenagers. I was 17, but we were playing at a corner bar out on Long island or a couple of them. You know, we'd have every Wednesday at one place and at every Saturday at another. And really quickly, it went from being, you know, the couple of drunks at the bar the first week to the next week being 50 people to the next week being 100. And that happened out on Long Island. We started to go into New York City and do play at Maxis, Kansas City or CBGB's. And the same kind of. Same kind of thing. Kept happening to the point where we're really getting a line a block long full of people to see us. And I guess it built our confidence and to try things. We were also super young and hadn't never thought anything through very well. But that was parent. I mean, that was obvious. That was right in front of your face. So in the summer of 80, we started to talk about it a few months before. We started saving up money from these gigs. Paying, I don't know what it was, 50 or $100 or something, maybe something around there anyway. And we bought literally four airline tickets. Three in the band and one for my upright bass. Slim Jim put a snare drum in his suitcase, Brian carried his guitar and we flew to London and landed and pretty quickly realized that we hadn't really thought this through very well. Probably a statement that is universally told in rock and roll, but we hadn't thought it through very well. We started sleeping in Hyde park and all night movie theaters and going to the venues that we had read about in the Melody Maker and the Enemy. These were British rock and roll newspapers of the day and we would get them in New York. So we had a little idea, oh, there's this club, there's that club. And we just started to show up and ask for a gig. And one thing led to another. We met people. We met some really interesting folks, you know, from. From Ronnie Lane and you know, everything kind of snowballs, like being shot out of a cannon. But that same thing that happened around the New York area happened in London and again really quickly. We landed in June and we were virtually homeless. And by July or August we were playing pubs and rock gigs with a line down the block. What a story.
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A
My God.
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C
Yeah, that was great.
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A
The upright bass is such a physical instrument. That's the understatement. It has its own stage presence. How did you develop your relationship with it? And those that are watching this and seeing the video, part of it can see in the background there's a beautiful upright bass. How did you develop the stamina for working that instrument and the demands that it makes on you?
- [09:06]
C
Yeah, no, it is a very different thing, you know, and just going back to the beginning there, he's talking about parents and classical music and all that. The only rule we had growing up was you took lessons and learned how to play an instrument. I started with cello, so like an upright bass, four strings, different music, of course, and all that, but, you know, a lot of the same things. Discovered rockabilly and blues and fell in love with the Sound of an upright bass, a double bass. And yeah, it's a super physical instrument for me. I really am one with it. It's a physical connection. It's a whole body thing. You're holding it in front of you. That vibration goes through your entire body and it's like an all immersive thing. This is almost hard to put into words, but I'm one with it and I feel like it puts me dead center of the band and the music and the upright bass. For the Stray Cats and for rockabilly, it's really that. It's the engine, it's the motor that runs it. You've got. Of course, every element is so important with rockabilly music because in. In general there is drums, upright bass and one guitar. So that I occupy a huge spot there in the middle, halfway between the guitar and the. And the drums.
- [10:38]
A
Well, that was really where I was heading in terms of this deceptively simple sound that is rockabilly. The frills are not really there, but yet it's fresh after decades. And in fact, I remember when it hit the scene with you guys, what was so cool about it. I was across the water from where you were in the Danbury, Connecticut area at a station called I95 when the stray Cats burst on the scene. And it was. It was so different, yet it was so, you know, of. Of a different era. But it was, it was brilliant in terms of the differentiation at the time that it had in the musical landscape. Did you feel that when you were breaking out with the band?
- [11:27]
C
Yeah, I mean, it. It just propels music in a different way and, you know, and I don't feel like it's something. Although of course it was done earlier than the electric bass. But I think it's just a powerful, rhythmic, foundational sound. To me, it's just the coolest thing ever. You know, I mean, I've. I've played bass now every day of my life for. I hate to say how long, but, you know, definitely at least 50 years.
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- [13:38]
A
Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast. So let's play something we call the Fast Five here real quick. Five quick questions. First of all, first concert you ever attended?
- [13:51]
C
Deep Purple at the Nassau Coliseum. I don't remember the years. It was in the 70s. I was in junior high school and Cold Turkey and Savoy Brown were the opening bands.
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A
First instrument you ever bought and what did it cost you?
- [14:11]
C
An electric bass. I think it may have been a Korean company called Livewire. And it was a burgundy SG looking electric.
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A
First record you wore out as a kid.
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C
Ooh, it was definitely Beatles. It may have been, you know, my Sister's Hard Day's Night or something.
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A
First time that you knew the Stray Cats were really going to make it
- [14:43]
C
in London after we were there for a month or two playing a place called the Venue. And that day and at that show, everyone converged on it, from Dave Edmonds to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts. So the whole Rolling Stones were in the front row and that kind of felt like, man, we've already made it.
- [15:12]
A
First thing you do when you get off stage after a great show, take a deep breath.
- [15:17]
C
Really. I'm not one for rituals and I just kind of pretty quickly return from the journey.
- [15:30]
A
So you recently released Stampede and a cover of Eddie Cochran's Teenage Heaven. The first new music in six years. What brought you back into the studio and what do those songs mean to you?
- [15:46]
C
Well, you know, despite what a lot of people think, I never think of the Stray Cats as having broken up. We started it in 1979 in my dad's garage and now it's 2026 and we've taken breaks. You know, there's been stuff in the Press. Oh, they broke up. This reason, that reason, whatever. But we were playing these last few years a lot more frequency with a lot more frequency and loving it and just felt like it was time. Like, let's cut something again. Let's do this. The band's sounding too damn good to not at least cut a couple of songs and let's tour more and let's get out there and have a blast, really.
- [16:30]
A
So after being away from it and then getting the band back together, does it pretty easily pick back up where you left off?
- [16:40]
C
Completely and. And kind of amazingly, I guess. You know, you just pick right up. I mean, it's, you know, just a cliche to say it's like riding a bike. But we know each other so well musically, you know, for. For our entire lives. We kind of move as one musically in a lot of ways, it's a conversation in some ways. I always think that Brian and I and Jim, we're almost more like a jazz trio, or certainly not playing jazz, but where it's almost freeform, where we just listen to each other and we move with it and the songs are never the same way twice. And being a trio, you get an incredible amount of freedom to vary and move things around. So, yeah, it's just get out there and do it. It's not a band like you're drilling a rehearsal on an arrangement. It just doesn't happen that way. We just get out there and rock.
- [17:49]
A
I described the music and the concert experience in one word, joyous. What does it make you feel as an artist when you could feel that joy that's radiating from the audience as you're performing?
- [18:07]
C
It's the greatest. It's the greatest feeling. I mean, it's what you do it for, really. And I think that rock and roll and joy and fun and having a good time, you know, it's really important. There is so much that goes on in life for everybody, you know, and I don't, you know, without getting into whatever in the world is happening. I love great rock and roll as an escape for everybody. And maybe escape's even. Not even the right word. So I don't think it's an escape, but it's an experience and. And happiness and fun and joy and having a good time are maybe more important than anything else. And if the music can do that for people and for us, then it's done a really great thing.
- [19:04]
A
Ryan says he's healthy and strong again. Slim Jim has called this the greatest rockabilly show on earth. And of course, he's not wrong. So what makes a Stray Cats live show different from anything else out there?
- [19:19]
C
I think what we do is truly unique. I just don't see anybody else playing this music in this way. And I think the combination of the three of us, it's an indescribable thing. I mean, I can't think of any band that's treading the same ground as us at this point. And we certainly have roots from Johnny Burnett Trio and Perkins and Early Presley. But I think we've brought our own stamp, our own sound and our way of doing it together. And when it comes to the Stray Cats, the three of us, Brian, Jim and myself, I really think that the three of us, one plus one plus one adds up to more than three.
- [20:13]
A
Tell me your view. When you see an artist such as Bob Dylan, who has amazing respect for music on so many different levels and so many different dynamics as an artist, his respect for it, including rockabilly, how. How do you take that when you see somebody like Dylan, you know, adding, if you will, to the overall category today?
- [20:40]
C
Personally, I'm a huge, huge Dylan fan. And just what an incredible talent and a person who has obviously gone his own way from going electric and the pushback that he got over that. And I do know he's a rockabilly fan. I remember meeting him backstage a number of years ago, and one of the things he said was, you know, whatever they say, don't give a about it. Just do what you want.
- [21:13]
A
That's amazing. I love it. The tour kicks off July 24th in Las Vegas. It winds through California, the Midwest, Ohio. It wraps up in the New York area. You're covering a lot of ground. What are you most looking forward to about spanning the country?
- [21:33]
C
I'm looking forward to getting out and rocking with the boys and getting back to what we do best. And I do believe that we've been having such a good time doing it and everyone's happy and healthy, that I'm hoping that there's going to be more to follow this as well.
- [21:56]
A
And then when you come to the New York area, Westbury, Atlantic City, Morristown, do those particular areas carry a different weight, given that everything started there in Long island or on Long Island? Sorry.
- [22:15]
C
Yeah, right. You can't really get in it, but you can get on it. Going to Long island is always special for me growing up there, you know, And I. I do live in New York City some of the time. I split my time between New York and California. I'm a New Yorker at heart. So when I get back there and back to the East Coast, I just feel like I'm kind of in my. In my natural habitat. This thing that just a vine that, that I takes over.
- [22:53]
A
Any particular venues over the years that have been really the type of venues or specific places that you just love?
- [23:02]
C
Well, just thinking back to the early ones, you know, Maxis, Kansas City and CBGB's and those, those crappy rock rock joints that kind of, you know, were the center of the bullseye for the so many years thinking back were those. I haven't done the Long island show, which is at Westbury, or the New Jersey show in Morristown that I remember, but there is a venue that we've played that just really moves me, which is Pier 17 in New York City. And standing on that, walking out and standing on that stage and the Brooklyn Bridge is there behind you and you see Brooklyn on the other side and you're looking up the river at Manhattan. That kind of just sends a shiver down my spine.
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A
A striking view.
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C
It's unbelievable.
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A
Yeah. Well, in closing, Lee, I ask every guest this question. It's the dream walk question. Who would you take a walk with? Anybody, living or dead, who would it be and why and where? Maybe
- [24:16]
C
that's a great question. And as far as someone who was a friend who's gone and musician would be Carl Perkins. I miss Carl. I spent a lot of time with him. We recorded together, toured together, had a lot of laughs. I mean we, we even all did the soundtrack to Porky's Revenge. So I would love to spend a little more time with Carl and just sort of be in his presence. He was in my mind, he was the king of rockabilly. He really crystallized a lot of things on a lot of levels for me and we had a beautiful friendship that I Church
- [25:05]
A
Lee Rocker New music out from the Stray Cats a tour. My God. Thank you for sharing all this on taking a walk and giving us the joy of rockabilly and the Stray Cats.
- [25:16]
C
Thank you, Buzz.
- [25:19]
A
I'm Buzz Knight and thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now please check out our companion podcasts produced by Buzz Night Media Production Productions with your host Lynn Hoffman. Music Save Me Showcasing the healing power of music and comedy. Save Me. Shining a light on how laughter is the best medicine. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts Spotify and are part of the Iheart Podcast Network.
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D
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