PEYTON continued from 17 were years ago,” he says. “Rural culture in America is dying out, but it’s alive and well here. “I love the history of Brown County and all southern Indiana. I think it’s a very unique place to live, an awesome subculture. I’ve argued this with a buddy of mine from the Ozarks. I said, ‘Man, people have heard of the Ozarks. They have no idea what goes on in southern Indiana!’ They don’t know what we’ve got going on here and they don’t understand the culture or the way we live. “There are tons of artists and musicians in Brown County,” he adds laughing, “and most of them know how to skin a deer!” Roots music is, at heart, about community and about family. The core of community for the Big Damn Band is southern Indiana. “It means a lot to me—when we play a show close to home and I see a lot of folks I know come out. It means a lot to me to know that the people at home appreciate the music that we do.” This drives him to make every album better than the last one, every show the best that it can be, which is
18 Our Brown County • March/April 2013
Breezy, Reverend Peyton, and Aaron Persinger
one reason why audiences respond so enthusiastically to the band. “Apart from that there’s not much more you can do,” he shrugs. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band will end the winter touring Canada before welcoming spring in Texas, the Midwest, and Europe with their Big Damn Blues Revolution Tour. They’ll pass through Bloomington at the Bluebird on April 5 and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis on June 1st. You can find an itinerary of the tour at <www.bigdamnband. com> and follow their adventures through Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, and be sure to have a look at their YouTube channel <www.youtube.com/user/ ReverendPeyton>. “If I wasn’t able to do this tomorrow,” Peyton says, “I would just hope that people would remember that we always played music that we are proud of, tried to stay true to who we were, and tried to stay true to our Hoosier roots.”