If you love your blues music whilst listening in your car with the volume turned up loud, Jed Potts & The Hillman Hunters have a lot in common with their motorised namesake and may be just what you need.
Their album Swashbucklin’ highlights that the Edinburgh-based band know how to throw a party, and aside from local gigs, every once in a while, they get out and play a festival and have opened for the likes of Ian Siegal, The Nimmo Brothers and The Hoax.
Formed in 2008, alongside Potts on vocals and guitar, is bass player Charlie Wild and drummer Jonny Christie.
“After college I formed Jed Potts & the Hillman Hunters, explained Potts “With Jonny and our original bassist Pauric Logue, who was eventually replaced by current bassist Charlie Wild. Most blues music these days, or even music in general, is recorded in a pretty sterile way. In other words, every instrument is recorded separately, with vocals and solos added on top. Our music was recorded almost entirely live (including vocals and solos) with everyone playing together. There’s a lot of mic spillage and roughness, which adds to the excitement.”
Out now is single ‘Won’t Be No Use’ and you can check out the video for it right here at RAMzine. It sets a moody blue representation of what to expect from the album Swashbucklin’,
“The name is very much in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the band; it’s very important that we weren’t named after an American car, which would be a much more obvious and cliched option,” Potts explained. “Although we play very American influenced music, we don’t try to portray ourselves as American with our branding. We’re snooker and cups of tea, not pool and bottles of Jack Daniels. When drummer Jonny Christie and I were playing as a two-piece in college, we were called The Holbay Hunters. (The Holbay Hunter was a special type of Hillman Hunter but when I formed what would become The Hillman Hunters we decided on the Hillman name.”
That’s not where the car references end though; the album artwork which is a pastiche of an old British tax disc on the vinyl label/CD face, and the JPHH badge on the grill of the car is in a colour known as motoring club yellow. Thus, the band is revealed as being part blues innovators and part piston heads.
Not one to stay idle, aside from fronting The Hillman Hunters and theSwashbucklin’ album being available now on the Wasted State Music label, Potts also plays with other popular beat-combos like The Blueswater (also featuring Charlie Wild, but on guitar), Swampfog, and The Katet among others, and on occasion has played guitar for the likes of Blues N’ Trouble, Maggie Bell, and Brandon Santini.
