All of this has been taken from my wonderful uncle, Frank Farrar.
The band started in 1979, which was front man Brian Setzer's idea.
Lee Rocker: Me and Jim were in bands... roots type music
Brian Setzer: Back when I was 12 years old, All kinds of bands were in. I alwayz did rock and roll. I probably alwayz did "Johnny B. Goode"-- it was the first song i ever learned.
I got interested in rock'n'roll and rockabilly through i guess my parents, 'cuz they listened to like Elvis and Hank Williams.. '50's do-wop really,
And then we just discovered Eddie Conchran and Gene Vincent on our own. They certainly weren't a poplular breed-- parents didn't put on Eddie Cochran or Gene Vincent-- we kind of discovered that...
And we said, 'why isn't anybody doing this type of rock'n'roll anymore-- it's ridiculous, it's American. People have exploited the hell out of the blues, rockabilly's more fun. And we said, 'LET'S DO IT!!'
And i think the look came about as rebillin really 'cuz everybody had long hair at the time, so I cut mine short, greased it up, bout a big, baggy suit, got an earing and all that.. just to be a rebel. So I'd look at everybody and think i was really cool.
Lee: We were just doing like corner bars with a couple of hundred people every single night for a couple years. So we just figured we'd sell everything and go over to England and see what happens, really-- there wasn't any plan involved; we just up and went. We lived in Hyde Park-- under the bridge. We lived like trolls-- all night movie theatres.
Setzer: You can't expand too much without moving away from rocabilly-- whatever you wanna call it, rock'n'roll... Lee: We're modernizing the music that they played then. You can do as much with that as you can if you had 10 synthesizers and a big drum set. Just cuz you have more doesn't mean you can do more. I mean "Runaway Boys" is as different from 'Rock this Town' as night and day.
Lee: It's not very limited. People tend to think that but it really isn't.
Brian—it’s kind of like, you know when the stones first came out they took blues—and they were a strict blues band all they did was blues covers and with us in the beginning, when we went to England, all we did was rockabilly covers. And they kind of expanded and stayed in the blues format. I’d like to think we could do the same with rockabilly.
Lee--- We were always a cat band, the Tom Cats, or Bob Cats. We used to change it like every weekend. And the weekend we moved to England, I thought of Stray Cats. And they put it on the first album so we couldn’t change it.
On the logo…..
Brian--- My first tattoo. I designed it with a tattoo guy. I wanted a cat’s head with a pompadour. He said well I don’t have anything like that so we sat down, drew it out, got it right, and inked it on me arm.
On rock life…
Brian--- It’s not what anyone thinks it is.
Slim Jim Phantom--- It’s living on a bus with 10 animals.
Lee--- And now we’re traveling more hours.
Brian--- When you’re on tour, that’s all you can really do. Unless your hobby’s reading--- you might set a chance to do some reading.
Brian--- After a show you’re roaring to go. That’s t he problem--- it’s the next morning that kills you. You quit when someone’s hands are aching. Someone complains first: ‘I ain’t doin’ one more ------ song.
