Brian Setzer is looking forward to a summer full of motorcycle riding, and when he’s not on his bike he’s amped up to hit the road with the Stray Cats. While that might not sound exactly newsworthy, it was only a few months ago that the 67-year-old guitarist couldn’t even tie his shoe, much less work a throttle or a vibrato bar.
Last October, Setzer was forced to cancel the Stray Cats’ fall U.S. tour as a result of a debilitating autoimmune disease that left him unable to play guitar – or do much else.
“It was the strangest thing,” he says. “It started about two years ago, around the end of 2024, and before you knew it I was having trouble holding a toothbrush, a fork. I couldn’t button my pants. There was no pain, but my hands just wouldn’t work. Of course, there was no way I could play the guitar, which was pretty scary.”
The three-time Grammy-winning guitarist sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic – a block away from his home in Rochester, Minnesota. “When my doctor diagnosed my condition, he told me there was no real cure, so it wasn’t a slam-dunk that I would see results,” Setzer says. “But his plan A was to get me playing again.”
As for plans B and C, he laughs and says, “I don’t know what they were. I’m just glad plan A worked.”
Treatment for Setzer’s condition took nearly a year, during which time he received infusions at the Mayo Clinic. “It’s easy to feel bad about yourself, but I remember lying in bed at the hospital and right next to me is a guy with cancer,” he says. “At that moment, you realize how lucky you are, and you become pretty grateful. I didn’t have anything that bad. At least what I had was thought to be treatable.”
Little by little, Setzer made progress, and his ability to play came back – so much so that he gave the go-ahead for the fall tour. Sober 14 years, he was curious about an energy drink called kratom that he saw in a smoke shop, so he tried one… and another.
“Big mistake,” he says. “I got hooked on it. They advertise it as safe, and yeah, it gives you a lot of energy. You feel like mowing the lawn that you’ve been putting off. But it totally messed up my immune disorder, and my hands went back to the bad state they were in. I was in a tailspin. I messed myself up and had to clean up.”
He entered Minnesota’s Hazelton Betty Ford Clinic and underwent a 30-day rehab program. “It’s one of the best places around,” he says. “If there’s anybody out there dealing with similar problems, I recommend it. So I took care of that demon, cleared everything out, and then fortunately the AI [autoimmune] went into remission.
“I feel 98 percent now. I don’t want to say 100 percent because the darn autoimmune thing could strike again, but right now I’m feeling really good, and I’m playing as well as ever.”
He laughs. “So let’s talk about some other things!”
Ahead of the Stray Cats tour, the band is issuing a new single, Stampede, and a cover of Eddie Cochran’s Teenage Heaven. When did you record those?
About three or four months ago. In this day and age, I think you need to go out on tour with a new song or two. Making albums now is hardly worthwhile; you’re only making records for your fans and yourself.
Plenty of artists have already decided they’re done making albums.
Yes. I can feel that way sometimes because when you’re making a record, I mean, it’s not for free, let’s face it. So when you’re just about break even paying it back, it’s frustrating. It absolutely is. So I feel the only time to really make a record is to accompany a tour.
I love what you did with Stampede. It’s like a revved-up Bo Diddley.
Yeah! It’s from an instrumental song by a band called the Scarlets. I heard the song and thought the guitarist was so good. I said, “I want to play that!” There wasn’t enough of a song there, but I loved the riff, so I basically wrote a song around it. And the B-side is Teenage Heaven, an older song by Eddie Cochran that’s been covered a lot.
Your soloing on that song sounds just as fluid as ever.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
Let’s talk about the band. You guys formed in the ’70s, and you kind of seemed like a real gang. What’s it like being with the same guys as mature men in your 60s?
That’s pretty interesting, and you’re absolutely right. It starts off as a gang; you’re all three hanging out, and you’re in the back of the van and you’re looking for cool threads to wear. All of that changes. You grow up, you get married, you have children and you move apart. I think what it is now is just a longing, not to recapture the past, but to just keep the sound we have alive.
I’m telling you, when I get on stage and I hear that guitar sound no-one else really plays… Except for me, I don’t know anybody else who plays a Gretsch through a Fender Bassman. That sound is so unique, and I want to keep it alive.
And then I turn around and I look at [drummer] Slim Jim Phantom over there, and he brightens my day. You know what I mean? It really makes the whole thing worthwhile, but at the same time, it changes.
The band had a pretty notable breakup in the 1980s. Are all the troubles you guys had water under the bridge?
Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, the kinds of things you go through in a band – it’s like being in any kind of relationship. You have to learn how to deal with other people, and that takes time. Any rows we might have had are long gone.
It could have been from drinking too much alcohol one night – who knows? There are so many things people fight over. They fight over nothing! So you learn to talk things out and get over it. The music is so good, and that’s what’s important.
You mentioned your Gretsch guitars. If you were somehow banned from using Gretsch 6120s, what would you play?
That’s a great question because I want to segue to this… I recently bought a ’59 Flying V and a ’59 Les Paul. I bought them because, fortunately, I had the money saved up, and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Now, the Les Paul is a beautifully built guitar, and it plays beautifully. I cannot fault it. The only thing is, it’s not my tone. It’s not my particular sound. I couldn’t bring it on stage or even record with it. It’s just not me, even though it’s a joy to play.
But let me tell you about the Flying V. It sounds like the Gretsch. I kid you not, man! I played a Gretsch and then played the ’59 Flying V, and I couldn’t tell the difference. The only other guitar that could take the place of the Gretsch would be an older Flying V. It sounded so similar – I couldn’t believe it. It had the balls, it had that twang. The Les Paul doesn’t have it, but the old Flying V does. It’s the weirdest thing.
No chance you’re going to take the V on tour with you though, right?
I’m afraid to take it out. It’s worth so much money.
Is there any new gear that has impressed you recently?
You know, I’m of the mind that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Bassmans have worked over the years so darn well. The only thing I do now is, I turn the cabinet around because I want the band to be the same volume. The Bassman is so loud.
A lot of the tweed amps from the ’50s are too mushy-sounding for me. When I fingerpick or do something complex, it just gets lost in the mush. But the Bassmans from the early ’60s, they’ve got those rectifier tubes, and they really tighten up the sound.
I do have a new echo unit that I’m really impressed with. It’s an Echo Fix [EF-P2 Spring Reverb pedal]. The people who make these have copied the Roland Space Echo, so you can bring it out on tour without worrying about it breaking down. I’m really impressed with it, because they’re copying a piece of machinery that actually worked.
Here’s something I haven’t seen you talk about. In 1989, the Stray Cats were on tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan. What do you recall about that experience?
I recall that the crowds hated us. [Laughs] They hated us! They were only there to see Stevie Ray, and they didn’t give us a chance. It wasn’t an easy tour for us, I can tell you that. I loved listening to him. I remember thinking, “How does he get that sound?” Only he get could get a Strat to sound like that.
One night he called me on stage, and he handed me a Strat and put it over me. I thought, “Oh, great! I’m finally going to see what this is all about.” There were rumors that he had amps underneath the stage and he had them mic’d up in the basement – all sorts of stuff.
So I played it… and it sounded like me. I didn’t sound like Stevie Ray. I mean, his guitar even felt like mine. The action was the same, the volume he played at, the amp he played through. I was like, “Well, this is interesting. Stevie sounds like he does because it’s all in his hands.”
He was phenomenal. He was so fluid, and he played the blues differently every night. Besides us getting booed off the stage, it was a great show.
Did he ever come backstage and talk to you about the crowd reaction?
Not exactly, but I used to go back and see him all the time. I remember he flew in different kinds of exotic foods he liked. He was going through the throes of alcoholism, trying to keep off the booze. I know what that’s like. It was a tough time for him, but he was a great guy and a great guitar player.
Are there any new, young guitar players you’ve noticed in the last couple years? Anybody in the rockabilly world who’s impressed you lately?
Who’s rockabilly? I don’t even know! I mean, rockabilly is really only alive for us. Where would you even go to hear rockabilly? There’s not much around, right? You know how I hear new players? I go on YouTube and the Carter Vintage Guitars page. There’s a guy named RJ Ronquillo. Fantastic player. Marcus King is another. Great player. He’s a rockabilly guy.
It’s interesting how the Stray Cats have dominated the rockabilly market all these years. Years ago, during the height of punk and new wave, did your friends and families think you guys were crazy to seek fame and fortune in England?
Oh, sure, especially when you consider that we were getting really popular around New York. My dad and Jim’s dad came to a show and they said, “You want to go where? Why would you leave this?” We had the whole thing. We’d go into these towns, and we had girls coming to the shows. We were making money.
In England, the guys want to be me. They want to be Scotty Moore. They want to be Cliff Gallup. Here in America, guitarists want to be Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. It’s just how it is
Going to the U.K. was our real break. The music scene and the people we encountered understood what we were doing. I always said the British musicians wanted to be the American guys, and the American guys wanted to be British guys.
In England, the guys want to be me. They want to be Scotty Moore. They want to be Cliff Gallup. Here in America, guitarists want to be Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. It’s just how it is.
Where does Jimi Hendrix fit into all this?
Oh, he’s a unicorn. Jimi Hendrix is from Mars. He doesn’t figure into any of these battles.
In a recent Guitar World interview, Keith Richards said he “laughed his head off” at the Sunset Strip shred guitarists. What did you think of them?
I don’t laugh at any guitar player. I mean, I have very varied tastes, and I like all styles of music. So no, I don’t laugh at shredders, but it would be good for them to step outside the box and put on a blues record. It wouldn’t kill ’em!
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
