The Shaky Gallows House Band

The Band, The Myth, The Legend

Born over a crooked game of poker and a jug of moonshine, the Shaky Gallows House Band have been spreading the gospel of loss, love and redemption since 2002. The band's core is 'Shakes' and ‘Mean’ J.D., a couple of ragged troubadours with souls overflowing with unremitting darkness. Lately, the line-up has also featured Hammerin’ Hank McCoy on drums and Eugene Jackson on bass, as the SGHB set out to bring their troubled songs of sin and redemption to dilapidated venues in outlying towns.

Twice arrested, but never charged, the SGHB have earned the reputation of being a dangerous band. They've taken on music labels and their greed, politicans and their corruption, and women and their lyin' ways.

'Mean J.D.': You either get the Gallows or you don't. There's no middle ground here. If you don't, that's fine, just turn off the album, go pick your kids up from soccer practice and enjoy tonight's episode of American Idol. For those that do, we'll be here leading the charge, fighting the good fight and sharing our flask.

'Mean' J.D.

He ain't pretty, and can't really carry a tune, but 'Mean' J.D. fronts the Shaky Gallows House Band with a voice that has been described as the wrath of God on a cold winter's night. Part prophet, part pusher, he is an enigima wrapped in a riddle, served on a bun of sarcasm, with a side despair.

Thoughts on the SGBH...

"We've come along way since the early days. It seems like we've played every cheap gin joint on the outskirts of every small town. We've fought the law, the man, and the bottle, and not necessarily in that order. We're not great songwriters, and hell, we can barely these instruments, but the music is honest and unflinching. As long as Shakes and I don't kill each other in a classic gunslinger shootout outside of a dusty old saloon, we'll keep writing, and keep singing. Cause that's what we do."

Shakes

Like a tumbleweed blowing through a bad dream, Shakes strums an old guitar, picking his two chords—he used to have three, but he got tired of one of ‘em and shot it just to hear it die—behind JD’s calls for revolution. With a mean streak the size of New Hampshire, he finds his inspiration in cheap wine and wicked women, with an occasional nod to the sky. The line between the bottle and the bible is like a razor’s edge, and Shakes has cut himself more than a few times; listen close enough and you just might hear the blood dripping off the strings.

'Hammerin' Hank McCoy and Eugene Jackson

Hank McCoy (right) joined the SGHB after seeing the boys perform at a small club in Louisiana. The crowd, unaccustomed to the band’s take no prisoners style and frequent sarcastic remarks about the area's women, quickly turned ugly. Thankfully, McCoy hid the boys in the back of his 1984 Buick Skylark, amongst empty bottles of hooch and girlie magazines, and smuggled the boys past the roadblocks and out of town. As they say, the rest is history, and ‘Hammerin” Hank McCoy has been beating the skins for the SGHB since.

 

He may not be a complex man, but Eugene Jackson (left) can keep the time as well as anyone with a mild intellectual disability. His bass lines tend to be simple, yet functional, while his clappin' is soulful and honest. They say you should never pick up a hitchhiker near an asylum, but “they” never met Eugene Jackson.