Scissormen are devils or demi-gods, depending who you ask.

To some crusty blues fans, they’re rock ‘n’ rollers muddyin’ up the music’s waters. But to people who understand that the blues is still a vital style that can be every bit as hip and creative as what’s on the stages of Warped or Coachella, they’re saviors. And those are the folks the band’s been playing in front of for the past two years.

Touring behind their debut CD Jinx Breakers (Hi-N-Dry Recordings) ‹ which was produced by Morphine's Billy Conway ‹ and the acoustic When the Devil Calls (Barking Koala) they've seared a path with their incendiary live performances from festivals to premiere nightclubs to blues rooms to juke joints to coffeehouses to punk rock shows from Maine to Mississippi and out to the West Coast and Europe.

Ted Drozdowski, the Nashville-based band's slide guitarist and leader, understands that Robert Johnson, Jimmy Page and Johnny Ramone share the same spiritual connection. So he turns his guitar into an Ouija board and channels all three in blazing, over-the-top performances which typically find him leaping up on tables and running out in the street, playing slide with everything from martini glasses to machetes.

“I came up in punk and psychedelic rock bands, but playing the blues the way we play it means everything to me,’ says Ted. “This is music with teeth and guts and heart, and it rocks like hell when it’s done right. And we do it right! I caught the fever from musicians like R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill, who taught me to put every bit of my heart and soul into this music. So that’s what I do.’

Displaced southerner R.L. Hulsman, who brings Scissormen's thunder, cut his teeth touring and recording with 9lb Hammer before he was even out of his teens.” I've played cosmic American music with the likes of John Langford, the Tarbox Ramblers, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss,’ he says, “but playing with Ted brings it all back to my Kentucky and Mississippi roots.’

“We work hard to give people who hear us live a show they’ll never forget,’ says Ted. “And we work hard to keep this music kicking and moving forward, just like Jessie, Junior and R.L. did, and a handful of the best musicians from the Mississippi hills still do. We honor the past, but we’re all living in the present. And so is our
blues.’

Scissormen are finishing up a new album. Meanwhile, Jinx Breakers (now at iTtunes) and When the Devil Calls are available at www.scissormen.com, where you'll find MP3s, video and more. We’re also at www.myspace.com/scissormen.