Jesse Dayton
Jesse Dayton may have grown up in rural Texas listening to old-fashioned country records, but he’s no stranger to stage makeup or fake blood. After fronting a couple of rockabilly bands and laying down guitar lines on Ray Price and Waylon Jennings records, Dayton embarked on a solo career in 1995. Since then, he has played honky-tonk music with tinges of reverb-drenched rockabilly and collaborated with roots legends such as Willie Nelson. But he also has taken an unexpected turn: scoring horror films for Rob Zombie. The metal singer turned filmmaker chose Dayton to pen and perform tunes in The Devil’s Rejects, resulting in a cameo in Zombie’s Halloween II and an opening gig for Zombie on tour. Dayton’s grit and rough edges fit Zombie’s horror films perfectly, and his twangy, sometimes campy, rockabilly still stands strong on its own.
