Jesse Dayton

Who would have thought that blackhearted Rob Zombie had a soft spot for honky-tonk? Then again, when you’re making a movie about flesh-eating rednecks, a taste for forlorn pedal steel seems oddly apropos. Enter Texas rockabilly veteran Jesse Dayton: Commissioned to write music for Zombie’s splatterfest, The Devil’s Rejects, Dayton produced an instant batch of certified knee-slappers, including “Dick Soup,” “I Don’t Give a Truck” and “I’m at Home Getting Hammered (While She’s Out Getting Nailed).” Credited to the fictitious, ill-fated musical duo Banjo & Sullivan, Dayton’s tunes probably won’t be enough to save Zombie’s dumb flick from the diaper bin of history, but they give a good indication of the songwriter’s versatility. Equally comfortable rendering blue-eyed soul and gory murder ballads, Dayton also puts a twist on stone-cold classics by Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Jim Lauderdale. Heck, he even turns the Cars’ smash hit “Just What I Needed” into a bona fide country weeper. More brains, Mr. Zombie?