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SEE MAGAZINE (Edmonton) April 24,2003
Thea Varvis

THE ROWDYMEN

Rockabilly captured Jason AlIen's heart at the tender age of six, when he discovered the King's early years in his mom's giant Elvis collection. Growing up on a steady diet of rockabilly, Allen (vocals/ guitar) formed The Rowdymen in 1997 with musical compatriot Rob Zaporzan (bass / vocals). After replacing original band members a couple years ago with Dwayne Dueck
(guitar / steel/ vocals) and Ken McMahon (drums), the foursome have set off to make music based on the early rockabilly sound of the legendary Sun Studios (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, etc.)"That was the coolest thing that's ever happened in my life... it was like a church almost," describes AlIen of his recent visit to Sun. "We ended up playing a show [in Memphis] that was only about maybe four blocks from Sun, which was really, really cool-just thinking Johnny Cash or Elvis or Jerry Lee might've walked down the street in front of where we were playing." The Rowdies have recently released their sophomore album, Rubberneckin', which contains nine roots rockabilly numbers penned by the group and two covers originally recorded by musicians from their hometown of Winnipeg. Allen explains, "There used to be a really good rockabilly scene here, first of all in the '50s and then there was another explosion in the '80s with the Stray Cats and all that."
To pay homage to the latter wave, the Rowdymen cover a Gene Pyrz tune that Allen remembered seeing performed in a bar. As for the original outbreak, they cover "She's a Square," by Ray St. Germain, who actually joined the Rowdies in the studio to sing along to his 1959 hit. "He actually recorded the song 43 years [ago] or something," says Allen. "And he remembered all the words, that was the one thing that surprised me. I wrote them all out for him thinking, well, if I wrote a song 45 years ago I wouldn't remember the words, but he remembered them all."

Thea Varvis