Gin Mobsters

The Louisiana rock trio, Gin Mobsters, is releasing their first EP, Silver Ghosts – a testament to the staying power of classic rock-and-roll.

Article by Vanelis Rivera and Photography by Andrew Bailey

The music genre of classic rock inspires us to think of legendary players like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and the Beatles. It’s the music of the baby boomers and generation X, the soundtrack of monumental socio-political movements and the battle cry of music festivals at their dawn. While classic rock certainly isn’t dead, and per the definition of classic, it may never die, the music seems to belong to a bygone era that thrives in nostalgia rather than embark upon and celebrate the present. This begs the question: Can classic rock grow alongside contemporary rock-and-roll composites? The verdict is still out, but the Louisiana rock trio, Gin Mobsters, is willing to test the waters, starting with the release of their first EP Silver Ghosts.

DJ Grissom is twenty-two years old and rocks a fire-red beard and Led Zeppelin-inspired tattoos. He’s the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Gin Mobsters. In a way, his band was in the works, while he was merely a toddler, in the form of his dad’s band, Bluezcatz. Currently, his father Joe Grissom is his drummer; he grew up in Start, Louisiana and started playing when he was twenty-three, because a couple of his friends, half-joking around, said to him: “Man, you should get you a set of drums.” He then taught himself how to play. DJ had a much earlier start in the music scene thanks to Joe’s encouragement. “I got pictures of him on my knee holding drumsticks,” says Joe. DJ recalls his father teaching him to play drums, when he was about three years old. “We were around the blues a lot,” says DJ, recalling roadie-ing with the Bluezcatz for gigs in cities like Memphis and Clarksdale. Inspired by the band’s guitar player, DJ taught himself how to play the guitar, starting with acoustic then moving on to electric. “You could see his eyes sparkling watching us perform,” says Joe. When DJ was about thirteen, he sat on stage with the Bluezcatz in a Coney Island gig and played a few songs, etching his way to his own center stage.
After the dissolve of Bluezcatz, father and son kept jamming at their home for years, their passion of music never ebbing. DJ even began performing solo, releasing two albums which he recorded in Nashville, Tennessee: 6 Days (2014) and Scars (2016). The duo didn’t locally perform live, because they could never find a bassist—that is, until 2017. William “Will” Pipes, from Rayville, Louisiana and a seasoned guitar-player, had a serendipitous meeting with DJ at a hardware store. Will went to the store to acquire copies of DJ’s solo CDs per a friend’s recommendation. When he found out that father and son were seeking a bassist, he asked to join in. The first time the trio practiced, they had a page full of nearly forty tunes in a matter of thirty minutes, and the crazy idea that they may be onto something was swirling in all of them. “The rest, as they say, is history. Everything has been falling into place since then. Almost as if it was meant to be,” says Will, further commenting that to him the band’s spirited energy feels like a train pulling away from a station. “The chemistry was instant, when we started playing together and making some noise,” concludes Will.

DJ always posited that he wanted a band. It was always just a matter of when. Will completed the triad, feeling right at home. “Them being that tight-knit family unit, there is no ego regarding the music. Age doesn’t come up. We’re pretty much equals then. We’re just three guys playing music,” says Will. Concerning playing with his son, Joe says, “It’s a pretty cool deal. It’s kind of magical.” DJ echoes the sentiments, saying that playing with his dad is “A feeling like no other. It feels so natural. We know what each other is going to do as far as music goes.” The trio soaks up each other’s energy with such synchronicity that Will attributes their opportune collaboration fated, kind of like their band name. It’s another inheritance from father-to-son; the name was created before DJ was born by Gray Martin, the former guitar player in Joe’s band. Another curious connection is that Will’s family has always been in the cotton gin business, a fact that only solidifies the destiny of his involvement. The name Gin Mobsters has a hard bite to it that elicits ideas of lawlessness, bootlegging and winding back-country roads, a vibe pervasive in the tracks of their upcoming EP.

“In-your-face classic rock” is one way to describe Silver Ghosts. On the edge of Southern rock and old blues, it’s reminiscent of the stuff Joe would play and that DJ attentively studied. “DJ has a taste for the older music and stuff like that,” says Will. In fact, all the music in this album was composed by Gray when Joe lead the band Roadside Scarecrows. The songs were there, part of DJ’s childhood, ready for him to pluck and work his guitar and lyrical magic to. Songs like “Lemondrop” are straight-up dance rock, up tempo with playful lyrics. In “Backroads,” DJ’s old blues influence can be noted with lyrics like, “Anywhere I want to go, is where I want to go” and “If you want to find me, I’ll be somewhere between heaven and hell.” “Reminds me of the blues feel,” says DJ who wanted the song to resemble “Hellhound on My Trail” (1937), song by Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson.

“I first heard the music to that when I was fifteen years old,” says DJ in reference to the song “Blood on the Streets,” one of the two ballads of the album with the heaviest lyrics. When it comes to ballads, there’s nowhere to hide. The lyrics tend to take precedent, and they better be saying something that captivates and impacts. DJ accomplishes this with lyrics like, “She always felt like a loaded gun, but was already too late to run.” This song was intended by Gray to be part of a trilogy that accompanies the second ballad of the album “Devil Knocked on My Door.” Though Gray never finished a third song, DJ wrote the lyrics to both songs without thinking they were going to go together. Yet, the lyrics of both maintain a pervasive dark undercurrent of navigating chaos, facing one’s shortcomings and the pang of what’s left behind—hence the silver ghost. “He has a pretty active imagination and a real love for the blues and the lore and legend that often surrounds the history,” says Will about DJ’s songwriting. In “Blood on the Streets,” DJ tells a dark story about a girl and her misfortunes. In the song, he alludes to the title of the album in the lyrics, “silver ghost dancing in the night,” explaining that the girl in the song was turned into a silver ghost.

This voracious three-man band, aside from resembling what you would imagine gin mobsters to look like—bandanas, felt hats and an edgy presence—brings the “classic rock vibe out” in Silver Ghosts. While DJ laments that young listeners don’t research the origins of the music they now like, the band is hopeful that their EP and live performances serve as ambassadors to the kind of music that’s experienced first and listened to after. “I’m hoping that people that see us get an interest in this kind of music,” says Will, referring to classic rock. He credits the band’s direction to DJ’s contagious enthusiasm by saying, “It would be an understatement to say that DJ loves music and performing, because it’s clearly part of who he is.” DJ and the Gin Mobsters are to be taken taken seriously musically in spite of their down-to-earth demeanor. They’re eager to show that as for the Gin Mobsters and their house, rock abides.

If you get a chance, don’t miss out on experiencing the Gin Mobsters light through nostalgic and modern dance rock. Their songs curl like cigarette smoke and invoke emotion with inspired attitude.

Follow the Gin Mobsters on Facebook to get notified about gigs and the release date of Silver Ghosts. Email them at [email protected] or call DJ Grissom at 318-334-9565 if you’re interested in booking the band.