Breaking Out

Hot New Band: Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

Texans serve up R-rated garage soul with a little help from Spoon.

By Kerry Miller

For the past eight hours, Black Joe Lewis has been driving a van around Austin, Texas, delivering fish for $9 an hour -- and he could really use a beer. Seafood delivery is better than most of the crap jobs he's had, beginning with a stint at the pawnshop where he picked up his first guitar. "If I didn't have this band," Lewis says, "I'd probably be in jail."

As he surveys the scene at local dive Hole in the Wall, Lewis, 27, seems more reserved than might be expected of the performer who got his start here, hootin' and hollerin' his way through playfully profane dirty-blues romps like "Bitch, I Love You" and "Big Booty Woman." Lewis figures his onstage antics -- leaping off drum risers David Lee Roth style or wailing on his knees like Jimi Hendrix -- were the only reasons clubs asked him back. "I sucked so bad," he says. "I'm a fan of raw music -- just plug your shit in, turn it up, and play."

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