Diablogato whistles past the graveyard
on a ‘Jet Black Night’.
Over the past several years, Diablogato has existed as a collaborative band where each of its four members contribute equally to the overall vision, songwriting, and storytelling.
So it makes sense that as the Boston rock and roll brigade watches the world burn, an invitation is extended for everyone else to join in and drift into the “Jet Black Night” – all that’s needed is a little white noise and anesthesia.
Diablogato embraces a new era for the band as they unleash “Jet Black Night” to the streams via Rum Bar Records, with its Shawn Marazine-directed video premiering on BlankTV – Wednesday, October 19.
For a band that’s always existed on the outskirts of whatever’s popular at the moment – misfit outsiders rolling on their own dime and bar-hopping through punk, rockabilly, twang, and whatever other circles come and go as time passes on – this new single and video showcases a grittier, more grimy stomp-along sound as it canvasses newer avenues of southern blues and classic rock. However it’s labeled, the voodoo smoke emanating out of the Diablogato cauldron grows thicker as the days grow darker and our optimism gets dimmer.
“I think how people interpret the song is totally subjective, but it was a product of the pandemic, the national and global shit storm we had been living through the past couple of years, in my mind at least,” says drummer Jesse Mayer. “I don’t know if ‘Jet Black Night’ is romancing the apocalypse or whistling past the graveyard – probably a little of both. But that’s always been our style.”
That style has been crafted without a single fuck given since 2014, and while “Jet Black Night” marks Diablogato’s first new music since 2019 album Old Scratch, it’s both an extension of past endeavors and a fist thrust forward. And it’s the first taste – both aurally and visually – of a new album set for release next summer.
“We are stepping away from the traditional rockabilly and punk stigmas,” says vocalist and guitarist Drew Indingaro. “We are venturing into a wide range of styles and landscapes to write with. ‘Jet Black Night’ takes some hints of ‘70s Aerosmith, ‘80s Blasters, ‘90s Cramps. We are currently working on several new tunes that are pushing our branches into new areas where we can experiment with our sound. We felt that this song set a footprint in the direction we are starting to head into. We want to expand our sound together and see where it takes all of us.”
Diablogato is: Drew Indingaro: Vocals & guitar Charlie MacSteven: Guitar & backing vocals Jesse Lewis Mayer: Drums Johnny Custom: Upright bass
Right now, that direction is into the night and deep within the trenches of the “Jet Black Night” music video, a New Orleans-inspired romp starring familiar collaborator Ben Pease, reprising his creepy scumbag role of “Clayton Sawyer” from Diablogato’s “Blasphemy” video, who seeks to understand his dark future, and Tara Feely, cast here as a local gypsy woman who knows what just what dark future holds. It’s a little Twin Peaks, a little Outer Limits, and even some Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure thrown into a visually intoxicating and dizzying presentation that provides some shadowy sights to a certain possessed sound.
“She sees the darkness in him and decides this world is better off without him wandering this reality,” Indingaro notes. “And sends him into the ‘Jet Black Night’ within the mysticism of her crystal ball, where we the band already reside, the land of Diablogato.”
It’s a place Diablogato knows all too well. And now they want everyone to come join the party. After all, as the song goes, they got the white noise and anesthesia. And everyone else has a little soul.
“With all the crazy in the world that we have such little control over, we are trying to rally our fellow people into the darkness together,” declares Indingaro. “Because no matter how much despair and disaster we face, together we are not alone in the darkness facing it – into the ‘Jet Black Night’.”