The Cooters: Oxford Town article by J.D. Mark

Oxford’s Cooters celebrate the release of their second CD The Moon Will Rise Again tonight at The Longshot.

Drummer Mikey Namorato, guitarist Gentry Webb, and bass player Newt Rayburn of the Cooters grew up together in Oxford and have been playing in area punk bands like Dead Fish, Nightmare on Sesame Street, and the Backwoods Mississippi Anarchy Orchestra since their high school days in the late-80s. Webb and Rayburn formed the Cooters in 1993 when the friends took the aliases Raw and Neuter Cooter. Namorato, also known as Judas Cooter, joined a year later and the band started developing the hard rock sound Rayburn describes as “heavy metal bluegrass in outer space.”

The Invasion of the Cooters was released in ’96. The band’s debut disc featured the Cooters playing an aggressive style that mixed together each of the band members’ varied influences. “I’m definitely into the rock’n’roll and punk rock thing,” said guitarist Webb. “Newt’s more into metal, and Mikey’s tends to like rap. It all crosses over, but we all have our preferences. If you ever see Mikey driving around in his thug-mobile you’ll hear the booming bass from whatever rap album he’s listening to.”

Namorato’s obsession with hip-hop comes out in his rhythmic drum style, Webb’s rock’n’roll leanings color his blues-based guitar solos, and Rayburn’s interest in progressive metal bands like Voivod inspire the band’s epic instrumental arrangements. In 1998, the Cooters began work on recordings that focused on the band’s instrumentals at Memphis’ famed Ardent Studios. These sessions would eventually become the band’s new album the Moon Will Rise Again, but not until the band weathered a series of setbacks.

In the nine years the Cooters have played, the band has featured a series of other musicians, including local guitarist and artist Jeff Allen and Brad Boatright, who now plays with the Oregon band From Ashes Rise. “The band is really us three, but we’ve done some stuff with other people because we like to experiment,” said Rayburn. “We’ve tried to add people permanently, but it just didn’t work out. We just think of it as collaborations.”

The Cooters’ most extensive collaboration came in 1999-2000, when the band developed an album’s worth of material with singer/guitarist Max Hipp. After Hipp left the band during a recording project, and due to drummer Namorato’s legal problems, the band took a break through most of 2001. “It definitely had an effect on us,” said Rayburn. “It delayed this album coming out. We’d put it on hold when we were working with Max. When we decided not to continue with Max, it came to the forefront and it happened really quick.”

The band had already finished a version of the Moon Will Rise Again, circulating CD-Rs and making it available for download, when they went to Hattiesburg to play a club show in late 2001. In the audience was Tim Romanowski of T-Bones Records, the label behind rapper Afroman’s underground success. T-bones offered to distribute the Cooters’ new recording and the Moon Will Rise Again finally sees its official release today.

“It’s pretty experimental,” said Rayburn of the new record. “We really wanted to do something different. It’s kind of a concept album, from the flow of the sounds to the experimentation with the songwriting. This is just the three of us; this is how we sound. There’s a lot of creative voices in this band and I think it makes our stuff a lot different from most bands.”

The Moon Will Rise Again kicks off with a 10-minute, three-song instrumental suite. The first part “Cootersaurus” begins with a jazzy shuffle, but soon accelerates to precision breaks that show the influence of Metallica’s fragmented style. “Purge” and “Purge Reprise” continue with vague, demonic vocals under pounding, heavy instrumentation. “The first three are meant to be heard as one song,” said Rayburn. “We started playing those songs early on. Tyler Keith, our original drummer, helped us develop ‘Purge’ and it’s taken on a life of its own over the years. We’ve played these songs for up to 30 minutes in practice, just seeing what we could come up with. When Mikey came in, we refined it. We have other recordings of it, but it was something we wanted to do at Ardent with a big sound.”

The Cooters mixed influences of punk, metal, and rap come together on the next song on the album “Soul Food,” where Memphis saxophonist Jim Spake joins the band on Black Sabbath-inspired riffing. “We just wanted to experiment with horns over heavy metal,” said Rayburn. “It’s just kind of a joke about eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day.”

“For years and years, Newt’s been on my ass about eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s,” added Namorato. “He says every year I don’t, we have really bad luck. So, he wrote a song about it. Now, I make sure he sees me eating them, because I can’t say that we didn’t get bad luck from that.”

Other highlights of the Moon Will Rise Again include the Sonic Youth-inspired dissonance of “Dare to Defy” and “Punch Yer Neighbor,” a tongue-in-cheek tale of comic book violence. “Punch Yer Neighbor” also features Webb’s most extended soloing, showing him an expert at an endless supply of metal guitar runs. “The Cooters Theme,” a staple of the band’s live shows since their early days finishes the album off with a mix of Webb’s metal guitar and a country rhythm section under distorted vocals.

After developing so many songs with Hipp singing lead since writing the material for the Moon Will Rise Again, the Cooters have begun to develop their songwriting in a different direction. “After Max left, we didn’t know what we were gonna do,” said Namorato. “I’d never been a singer, but I knew somebody had to step up and help out.”

One of the band’s new songs features Namorato singing lead and plays up the band’s hip-hop influence. “‘Drama Mama’ always brings a smile to our faces,” said Namorato. “We wrote the music and there was a good breakdown beat, so I wrote the lyrics about how we really feel about Oxford.

“I’ve reached a point where I’m just not gonna deal with all the drama in this town. There’s a lot of people in this town that waste a lot of time on things that have no purpose. You focus on this kind of stuff and you take time away from your real mission. We just want to focus on trying to make a living at playing music and all the drama just interferes with it.”

The band has recently made a positive contribution to their hometown by performing at two benefits for the construction of a city skate-park. “I want to support it,” said Namorato. “If they build it, I’m gonna skate there and I think it would provide something constructive for kids to do. Since the Hoka shut down, there’s really nothing for the young kids to do in Oxford. All they’re gonna do is get in trouble.”

From the Cooters earliest shows, Rayburn, who is also a graphic artist, has featured slide shows along with the music. At tonight’s CD release party at the Longshot, the band will take their performance a step further, featuring surprise guest musicians in addition to their multi-media display.