By Peter Lindblad
Preaching the gospel of the “Man in Black” is Jay Ernest’s calling. That realization came to the leader of the Church of Cash, coming March 21 to the Vivarium in Milwaukee, in an unlikely place.
While living in Hawaii from about 2007 to 2010, starting up a Johnny Cash tribute act was the last thing on his mind. He was touring with another band all over the world, but when he’d returned to the island of Oahu, gigs dried up. They’d play maybe once every four months.
“Because, as you can imagine, the island is not that big. You don’t want to overplay,” said Ernest.
Sitting around doing nothing made him crazy, though.
“So, I found an Irish bar in downtown Honolulu,” said Ernest. “And it’s an Irish bar in Chinatown in downtown Honolulu. So, it’s a very interesting cultural confluence there. And I was one of those acoustic guys in the corner that played for hours that everybody ignored … you know, one of those guys. And so, I would play everything I wanted to play. I played Irish music. I played some country music, some Men at Work, some ‘80s stuff – whatever I wanted to play to try to keep entertaining. But every time I played Johnny Cash, people put down their beers and stared. And they would often say, ‘You sound like Johnny Cash when you sing.’ And I thought that was just the greatest compliment.”
The similarity was so noticeable that when Ernest went back home, he knew he had to learn more Cash songs.
“And I opened up the book, and I started playing through the songs,” said Ernest. “I quickly realized I knew all these songs already because my dad has been playing these 8-tracks and these records my whole life. And I remember every single one of these songs. So, in a way, it was a little clandestine kind of an affair that my dad helped me become an aficionado of Johnny Cash music without even really knowing about it.”
Hawaii is a long way from the musical hotbeds of Nashville or Memphis, both in terms of distance and culture. Ernest, however, found out where the Cash fans were on the islands.
“Hawaii, especially Oahu, being such a base for many military bases, you got all four branches there [that] have very strong bases,” said Ernest. “So, you can imagine a lot of GIs were coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq at that point. And they haven’t heard American music for a long time, except for through their headphones. So, when they were coming back on leave, we would play and we’d pack the dance halls with young folks enjoying their R&R from being in the deserts. And at that point, we’d play and pack out these places, and they would love to hear these Johnny Cash songs. They loved the American Recordings because that was kind of fresh at that point, so we would learn a lot of those songs and play for them, and we became the favorites to a lot of these guys coming out and seeing us.”
Just to be clear, Ernest is not doing an impression of Cash. Based in Minneapolis, Church of Cash is, and always has been, a tribute. There is a difference.
“I’m not dressing up like Johnny Cash, and saying, ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,’” explained Ernest. “I don’t do any of that stuff. I come up there and I engage with the audience. We’re there to celebrate Johnny Cash’s music together. We’re not there for me to pretend like I’m him. So, I think it’s a little bit different that way. And I think it’s much more attuned to what we call a tribute.”
Which is what the Vivarium show will be. It promises to be special.
“We are celebrating his music together,” said Ernest. “And the amount of songs that we know, the 200-plus songs that we know, I think that opens up a challenge that nobody else can really step up to because that is a lot of songs. But I want to add on to this that when we come to the Vivarium in Milwaukee, not only will I have my drummer Jonathan (TeBeest) that I’ve been playing with forever, but I imported two Italians. I got an Italian bass player and this incredible Italian guitar player that I’ve been playing with for years, but I do fly him in for one particular tour a year and this is the one.”
Get ready for some hot licks.
“Oh, and this guy is an incredible,” said Ernest. “He’s the best guitar player in all of Italy. He’s on many movies. He’s on many, many soundtracks – well known in the guitar community as a good rockabilly vintage guitar player. And he’s just fantastic. So, if you’re a guitar fan, you’re going to love to see how he interprets Luther Perkins, who was Johnny Cash’s original guitar player, how he interprets his music and puts his own spin on it. It’s very entertaining. And the guy is a genius on that guitar.”
With 15 years under their belts, the Church of Cash is a well-oiled machine, but they’ve never played the Vivarium. When they do, the set list is a crapshoot, in the best way possible. It is always in a state of flux, because Church of Cash likes to change it up on the fly.
“We boast over 200 songs we know how to play,” said Ernest. “So that ranges from the ‘50s all the way up into the late ‘90s when Johnny Cash did his American Recordings. And I would like to say that when we play, we don’t just give the same show night after night. Because we know so many different songs, I can gauge what the audience is into that night and give them a unique show for that day.”
Almost everything in the Cash songbook is on the menu.
“Well, you can imagine being around for 15 years,” said Ernest. “When you’re touring around, sometimes we get the idea we should play some more songs, or we’re listening to a Johnny Cash record, and we think a particular song is great and we can learn it almost on the road. And then maybe I’ll spend a little more time memorizing it, but once it’s done, we maybe do it at a sound check and then we’re ready to play it.”
However, the Church of Cash doesn’t just play Cash’s music. They inhabit his songs.
“What I really love about Johnny Cash’s music is his attention to the stories and how he can really bring you in, and you can relate to his stories or somehow his stories become the soundtrack in your life,” said Ernest. “I don’t think I’m the only one when it comes to this with Johnny Cash’s music and the effect of it on our lives.”
Ernest and company take care to get everything about Cash and his music just right.
“As a singer, it’s your job to convey the story to others,” said Ernest. “That being said, it’s important for you to take those lyrics in, to understand them, to understand the story. So, you’re not just onstage singing notes or just words with the notes attached to them. It’s going beyond that to understand the story. So, when you are singing these notes and the melody, you’re conveying the feeling, the story, the emotion that the songwriter really wants to indicate to the audience. And as a singer, it’s my job to understand these lyrics, figure out what that song is and how it wants to tell that story, and then effectively do that.”
While fans clamor for Cash favorites like “Ring of Fire,” “Jackson,” “Boy Named Sue” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” there’s another that is near and dear to Ernest’s heart.
“There’s a song that Johnny did with his good friends, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson,” said Ernest. “They were called The Highwaymen, and in particular, they have the song called ‘The Highwaymen.’ And it’s always been one of my favorites to play. I love the story of it. I love that in the song all four fellas get a chance to sing it. And Johnny Cash gets the fourth verse. And it’s just a poignant song, a passage that Johnny Cash gives to us, and I just always love that song and anytime we get an opportunity to play it it’s just … it’s a good song.”
Cash, of course, had loads of them. And a Church of Cash show rummages through his extensive catalog to faithfully reinterpret a long list of Cash songs from every era, just as they have for the four albums they’ve released. Some have more B-sides. Others take on more of his gospel work. The next one, he says, will not include any Cash music, but it will instead reimagine songs by other artists in Cash’s style.
As for their stage show, anybody who goes to see the Church of Cash should leave with a smile.
“Well, this is what I really hope for,” said Ernest. “Now, I would imagine the people that are coming to the show are Johnny Cash fans, so at one point in their life and my life, we listened to Johnny Cash music, and he was a part of our soundtrack. He was a part of the fabric of our life. Now, when we’re playing, it’s not really about us onstage. It’s about the songs that are floating in the air past our ears. And at that point, maybe, I hope it brings up those strong and wonderful feelings and memories that we had when Johnny Cash was part of our life. And we can relive those moments together as an audience, even though we have separate memories.”
Check into tickets Vivarium show here.