“Let’s be honest,” says Schooley. “Part of the appeal is the step-right-up, freak show novelty aspect. But I wanted to transcend that, to actually make music that was listenable even if you weren’t watching me play it. There are a lot of one-man bands around, and most of them do well live, but can’t make a record that you actually want to listen to. So I’ve tried to work on the musicality of it, rather than just make it a joke. Hell, I could strap the drum to my back and go make balloon animals outside the children’s museum if that was what I was going for.”

Armed with an electric guitar, drum kit and harmonica, Schooley lays down noisy, dirty tracks that blend blues, garage and rockabilly. “I love old time acoustic blues and country music, like Charlie Poole, Uncle Dave Macon, Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton. I try to interpret that in a modern, electric context, like if Link Wray or Hound Dog Taylor were trying to play that stuff.”

Schooley attributes his singular choice of genres to several factors, the first being when he “hear[d] Hasil Adkins and realiz[ed] such a thing was possible. The second would be my first band practicing in the basement of the house I was living in at the time, giving me a chance to fool around on a drum kit when nobody else was around. That started me playing drums and guitar at the same time. After that, it would be my first band breaking up right after we recorded our second album, then my next band going through three bass players and having an alcoholic drummer.”

That fortuitous mix of inspiration, opportunity and adversity eventually steered Schooley away from the more traditional bands he worked with in his earlier days. After several years of solo playing, he’s come to feel right at home in the one-man band set up. “You get lost in your own world, wrapped up in all the different things going on. You forget the world for awhile.”

But even for a pro like Schooley, that kind of on-stage solitude has its drawbacks. “The one thing I miss about playing with a band is interacting with the crowd. I used to be all over the stage, running and jumping around and making an ass out of myself. Now I’m trapped inside the one-man band apparatus.”

Not too surprisingly, the market for rough, one-man, blues-country fusion projects is something of a niche, which means much of Schooley’s touring and promotion is self-financed. “I’ve never made any money touring. Ever. I’ve always had a day job and saved up my vacation time for the touring. I never had any delusions that I was going to ‘make it big’ in any way, so it seemed like a wise idea to hold onto my health insurance.”

Although he’s completed well-received tours of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, he downplays the romantic notion that he’s the proverbial overlooked American artist who’s big overseas. He prefers to think of his foreign appeal as making good use of precious time off from work. “Even if you are working hard and doing a show every night, it seems more like a vacation if you’re doing it in Berlin than, say, Cleveland or Portland,” Schooley explains. “If you’ve only got maybe two or three weeks a year to tour, would you rather do it in Europe where you get paid well, get fed and have a nice place to sleep at night? Or in the States, where it’s baloney sandwiches, begging for a floor to crash on, and watching a shady bar owner take all the door money and give you jack squat?”

Including seven-inches and compilations, Schooley has recorded with more than a dozen indie labels, the latest being Switzerland-based “blues trash” mavens Voodoo Rhythm Records. While admitting that the lack of funding and distribution can be frustrating, he finds some upsides in working with more specialized labels. “It’s nice that if people find out about one act, they may check out the rest of the roster and find out about your stuff too. There’s strength in numbers that way. Especially with Voodoo Rhythm, it’s kind of a family.”

“Most of the guys who run these small labels, like [label founder] Beat Man with Voodoo Rhythm or Tim Warren with Crypt, they are generally nuts. They are not great businessmen or savvy entrepreneurs. They are mental cases. But personally I’d rather have somebody who likes the music and who is a bit off than somebody who is all business and has no creative spark. That’s what killed the music business. Commerce completely displaced art.”

Which isn’t to say that money is no issue. Schooley sees music’s step into the internet era as a potential financial death blow to self-supporting independent musicians. “I get emails from lots of people who have downloaded my record. It’s nice that they heard it, I guess, but it used to be I could finance recording the new record from the sales of the last one. I honestly don’t know how a lot of the smaller labels are going to keep it going.”

But even in the bit torrent era, people have to pay to see live music. Schooley’s one-man band hook will always draw a crowd, thanks at least partially to the unpredictable nature of his shows. “I think part of the entertainment value for the audience is seeing that yes, indeed, it is live, and there are fuck-ups. I think people are tired of everything being extremely slick, professional and lifeless. I guess it’s my punk rock sensibilities coming through, but I’d rather have the spirit there with some rough edges than have everything be perfect but sterile. I am an amateur, not a professional.”

Check out John Schooley and His One-Man Band at www.johnschooley.com.

- Ira Brooker

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