Players

Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats tells us how his new solo album, Gather Round, was crafted in the back of an Airstream trailer. “It’s one of my most personal records,” he says...

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ockabilly bass is alive, well and thriving in the hands of Lee Rocker, Stray Cats bassist and solo artist for the last four decades and counting. After 11 studio albums with the veteran trio and even more of his own, he’s the most successful player of Fifties-indebted rock bass currently performing, but that doesn’t mean he takes anything for granted: his new album, Gather Round, was recorded in novel circumstances, as he tells us.

How has the pandemic been for you, Lee? 

It’s been a crazy year, but I think we’re gonna be all right at the end. I’m an optimist, so I’m looking forward to the future. I hadn’t done an album of original songs in a few years, so for Gather Round, my wife and I went out on the road in one of these Airstream vehicles. We covered 6000 miles in 20 states, because it was an escape –a way to keep it together.

Like being on tour without the concerts?

Exactly. I’m so used to going from one place to another, and mapping it out and having that kind of tour mentality, that it took on a little bit more normalcy than it would have otherwise. I wrote a bunch of songs while doing it. A couple of songs were written before we went out, but the vast majority of this record was written on this road.