MOORHEAD — Forty-five years after the group started, little has changed for Stray Cats. The trio still plays rockabilly inspired by music from the 1950s and ’60s. Singer/guitarist Brian Setzer still wears a blond pompadour, drummer Slim Jim Phantom keeps the beat standing behind a snare drum and a cymbal while Lee Rocker still occasionally plays standing on his upright bass.
Stray Cats hits the stage at Moorhead’s Bluestem Amphitheater on Thursday, Aug. 8, celebrating its 45th anniversary. While the band has spent more of that time broken up than working together, Rocker said it’s just natural for the members to get back together every five years.
“We’re like locusts. Every five years we come out,” Rocker said from his home in southern California as he prepared for the three-week tour. The trio has frequently reunited over the years, and Setzer has also been active with his own Brian Setzer Orchestra, with which he’s won two Grammy Awards.
Setzer has lived in Minneapolis for years, and Phantom also resides in California. The group last toured in 2019 when it released the anniversary album “40,” its first in 25 years. “I’ve always said that we all grew up in the same neighborhood, so there’s an instant feeling between us when we play.
It allows us to be confident and spontaneous. Man, that’s priceless,” Setzer stated in a press release in March announcing the group’s summer tour. The trio formed in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York, i.