Devils at the Crossroad Delve Into the Mississippi Delta

Eternal damnation is nothing but a pit stop for these bluesy hard rockers. Singer/guitarist Joris Zylberman, drummer Cedric Sadako, and bassist Marco Benitez call themselves Devils at the Crossroad, alluding to the fiendish tempter that once coerced Robert Johnson to swap his soul for guitar prowess. The Beijing-based threesome further draw on that Mississippi Delta blues legend for their debut full length, Moonshine XXX, named after the bootlegged booze that bluesmen like Johnson guzzled with glee. They’ll release the disc with a gig at Temple on Saturday April 27.

Below, the trio tells us what they love most about the blues, discuss why Johnson is the perfect muse, and describe how Beijing’s music scene can leave laowai rockers brooding.

If you truly were devils at that famous Mississippi crossroads, and if Robert Johnson came passing through, how would you persuade him to sell his soul?
Cedric Sadako: It wouldn’t take much convincing – everyone would be coming to the crossroads to make the deal with us, not the other way around.

Even though you incorporate stoner metal and punk into your music, it still has a strong blues element. How did that older genre inspire your new album?
Joris Zylberman: The lyrics are about having hallucinations, about African-American voodoo, and Robert’s other fixations. We also try to use names and vocabulary from that time, talking about rundown shacks and moonshine. We want to rediscover these traditions through some very in-your-face rock and roll. So when you put our album on, you shouldn’t expect any ballads.

So you won’t have the festival crowds raising their lighters anytime soon?
JZ: Oh, festivals, that’s a whole other story. We want to play the biggest festivals, like Midi. But they don’t want us, because we are foreigners.
Marco Benitez: We try to get in every year, but then the bureaucracy gets in the way. They need all kinds of documentation for foreigners.
JZ: When they’re going to have foreigners, they’d rather bring in someone more famous, because it makes the headache of the paperwork worthwhile.

What other challenges lie in being an expat band?
MB: I felt pretty crappy at first because we didn’t have many Chinese people at our shows. We don’t like to think of ourselves as just an expat band, but rather a Beijing band. It took a while but I think we’re getting more and more Chinese fans.
JZ: Weibo makes a huge difference – Cedric is the communications master there.
CS: Master? I just use Google Translate.
JZ: But it’s fantastic, having a bigger Chinese crowd at our shows, because they dance like crazy and love to party.

Do all your fans dance like crazy? JZ: That’s why we like the blues so much. it’s about dancing and getting dirty and not being classy. It’s about being crazy and possessed and cursed.

So you all embrace the devil’s curse? You’re not afraid of it?
JZ: Of course. We’re all doomed anyway.
CS: I chose my side a long time ago. You’d need ten Jesuses to save me from my sins.

Devils at the Crossroad will release their debut full length, Moonshine XXX, at Temple on Saturday, April 27 at 9.30pm. Tickets are RMB 50 at the door. To buy advance tickets for RMB 40, contact joris.zylberman@gmail.com.