The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band Announces New U.S. Tour Dates

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band are no strangers to the road, and have been on tour almost continually since since the group was formed over a dozen years and some 3,000 shows ago. Today they have announced a new run of tour dates, and have dropped a hint about a forthcoming musical project. “We gearing up for a huge world tour, and we have some massive news coming,” writes the Rev. “It’s never been more busy or more exciting for us as a band.” See below for a full list of dates.

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band are the world’s greatest practitioners of classic country-blues, featuring the foremost finger-picking steel guitar player in the Rev, and the sensational rhythm and vocal accompaniment of “Washboard Breezy,” Rev’s wife of 15 years, who has played by his side since the band’s inception and is known for setting her washboard on fire, Jimi Hendrix-style, as part of the group’s dynamic live performances. A devotee of what he calls “front porch blues” since he was 12 years old, Rev and the band have followed their lifetime immersion in and devotion to this music with pilgrimages to its birthplace of Clarksdale, MI, and the Chess studios in Chicago. A student of Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Furry Lewis, Bukka White and Mississippi John Hurt, Rev’s style has been honed through studying with the late David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Robert Belfour and T-Model Ford.

Rev and Breezy make their home in Bean Blossom in the hills of Southern Indiana – the adopted home of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, which features his memorial park along with national forests in what began as an artist’s colony. “Most of the people here can both paint a picture and skin a deer,” laughs Breezy. The twosome – along with drummer Max — live and breathe the music and culture, but that doesn’t mean they’ve turned their back on modern civilization.

Rev is even a bit of a YouTube star, featured in a pair of viral videos, one that features him playing (and shooting) a guitar made from a 12-gauge shotgun, the other in which he chops wood with one fashioned out of an axe.

“This is the easiest-going and happiest times we’ve ever had as a band,” says Breezy. “I’ve never felt there are limitations to what we can do musically,” adds Rev. “I always believed if we played, real, from-the-heart, handmade music with reverence, and in earnest, we can continue doing this as long as we live.”