Danny B. Harvey is a household name in the world of Rockabilly music. He is not, however, known in heavy metal circles, unless you ask a guy named Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead. Lemmy would smile big and tell you all about Danny. Not only does the Great Moled One know of Danny’s musical past, he also plays in a band with him called HeadCat that celebrates the music of the 1950’s.

Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats is also a Headcat. The band recently released a new album titled Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk on Niji Records, the label run by Ronnie James Dio’s wife, Wendy Dio. The album truly meshes the styles of Motorhead and the Stray Cats. It does sound hard to believe but it is the truth.

Lemmy sounds great pounding his Rickenbacher bass and snarling the classic lyrics of such songs as “Crossroads” and “Let It Rock.” Slim Jim pounds the skins while Danny adds his unique style of guitar over the top. Headcat have to be heard to be truly appreciated, as they are a cool band with cool ass daddy-o style. In fact, the two coolest of the cool songs on the disc are “American Beat” and “The Eagle Fly’s on Friday,” both written by the band.

In the interview that follows we discuss how Headcat came to be, what the crowd is like at a HeadCat concert and the songs that make up Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk.

Danny: I met Lemmy back in the 1980’s, as he is a big rockabilly fan. In 2000, Slim Jim and I were going to produce an album that was a tribute to Elvis. We called all of our friends from all different kinds of musical backgrounds. We found out that both Johnny Ramone and Lemmy were huge Elvis fans. They both agreed to be on the album. I talked to them on the phone and we figured out the right key for their songs and the right tempo. We would then cut all the music and then the guest would come in and record his part. When Lemmy went to sing “Viva Las Vegas” it was in the wrong key. So Lemmy said that the three of us should just record some songs with just the three of us. We did the songs for the Elvis tribute and Lemmy said, “We should do a whole album” and that is how the band was born.

Danny: We made an album called Fools Paradise and, slowly over the years, we started playing more. We defined our sound and, now, we have made this new album.

Danny: It’s great. I have known Jim a long time. I had met Lemmy, like I said, back in the ‘80’s, but I really didn’t know him. Lemmy is really an old school guy in the studio. Usually guys will do an album and the drummer will cut the drum tracks and then he will go home and the guitar player will come in and do his part next. Lemmy wanted all three of us in his studio during the entire process. After the drums were done, Jim would sit around and read the newspaper until it was time to do the backup vocals. It was a lot of fun. Everyday we went into the studio and hung out and made an album. We were in the studio an entire week. We decided what songs to play and we hung out together. We ate meals together and it was really a lot of fun.

Danny: It is. At the same time, Lemmy is always sober in his mind. He likes his Jack and Coke but he handles it. We were in there drinking at the same time with him but no one ever passed out in the corner or anything like that [laughter].

Danny: Jim’s great. If you asked Jim then he would tell you, growing up, his favorite band was the Rolling Stones. With HeadCat we are not doing anything terribly different than the Stray Cats. We are not doing anything that different than what Motorhead does. As Lemmy says, “Its all Rock n’ Roll.” I always liked Motorhead because they played simple music; they just played it really loud.

Danny: We were in Green Bay and a magazine called Rock Forever was interviewing Lemmy. I was in the room when the interview was going on. Lemmy goes, “You should change the name of your magazine to Rock n’ Roll Music Forever, kids. Everything we do is all Rock n’ Roll.”

Danny: Lemmy drew that logo. At some point, that drawing with the cat became our t-shirt. Lemmy added that on the bottom of our t-shirt. It just means that we are playing Rock n’ Roll and that we are real and true. This album is the most fun I have had in a long time. I hope we get out there on tour soon. We really want to get the word out and get people to hear the album.

Danny: When it comes out on vinyl it will really look great. It is going to come out on vinyl; I’m actually waiting on a copy for myself. On the CD, there is a ring like someone put a coffee cup down on it. On the vinyl copy it will have a watermark on it so it looks like a little stain.

Danny: Lemmy came in with the lyrics. He said he had written them the night before and he thought maybe we could do something with it. We put the headphones on and Jim started playing a tom-tom beat. I put the chords on it and it really came together quickly. We had the whole thing in a half an hour.

Danny: About three or four years ago, we tried to add some slow blues to the set so Lemmy could play his harmonica. We did “New York City Blues” by The Yardbirds and, slowly, over time, we changed the arrangement. It became such a different arrangement that it was a different song. Lemmy said, “We need to add some words to this because this is our own song.” It evolved over three years.

Danny: If you saw The Lemmy Movie then you know that Lemmy loves the Beatles. He said that the Rolling Stones were known as the bad boys but they came from art school. The Beatles came the Liverpool working class.

We went into the studio and Lemmy said that he always wanted to record that song. We went online and we got the chords and we found the lyrics and printed them out. We worked it all out in the studio. Slim Jim’s son actually played the cowbell on that song. Lemmy really wanted the cowbell in the recording because he really loved it. T.J. played the cowbell along with us so that we could hear the cowbell in our headphones while we were recording it. The song is played on a twelve-string guitar and we didn’t have one in the studio. I ended up playing the part in two different octaves and making a fake twelve-string.

Danny: That was a lot of fun. The only one that wasn’t fun was also the one that took the longest to do; it was “I Ain’t Never.” The version we wanted to do is on a Dave Edmunds album that is really hard to find. I said, “That’s a Webb Pierce song.” We found his version and we cut it. The first mix we did had the background vocals way too loud. We were going to take the song off the album right before we began mixing the album. When we took it off then the album was too short. We agreed to put it back on the album if the producer would come in and mix the song again. At the last minute we got a mix that we all liked.

Danny: We did “Let It Rock.” When we played live we used to play “Living in the USA” and “Bye Bye Johnny,” which is the sequel that Chuck Berry came out with a couple of years after he came out with “Johnny B. Goode.” We really tried to pick songs that were less obvious.

Danny: Jim has a great drumbeat on that song. We took the arrangement from Cream but they really stretched it out a lot. We wanted to make it as simple as it could be and really nail it. We just went in and drove it like that.

Danny: We did more shows last year; we did almost a month. This year, we have two European dates but we want to do a full tour. This is a great year for Lemmy because of his movie.

Danny: Our live crowds are really diverse. We are playing a lot of 1950’s songs but because of Lemmy they kind of sound like Motorhead. We get punks in the audience because they love Motorhead. We also get a lot of metal heads that love Lemmy. We get rockabilly crowds; we get all these people from all kinds of backgrounds and they all like it. They all like it because it is loud. Everyone seems to like their Rock n’ Roll really loud. One time I told Lemmy, “No one ever leaves our shows.” He goes, “Knock on wood.”

Danny: I did tour with her. If she ever comes out of retirement then I would likely be her guitar player. On Memorial Day, I played with her in Washington D.C. We played in front of the Washington Monument facing the Lincoln Memorial. I played “Living in the USA” that day. What is funny is that I played that same song the night before with Lemmy at the House of Blues. I am probably the only person in history to play that song with Lemmy and Nancy Sinatra one day apart [laughter]. The funny thing is that Nancy wanted to play it but she needed the lyrics. I had a DVR of Lemmy singing it and she sat there with a pad and pencil, listening to Lemmy while she copied the lyrics down. She didn’t say what she thought of it. I didn’t want to ask. Nancy actually likes all kinds of music. She probably liked it.