Jesus Christ Taxi Driver Is Calling Out the Religious Alt-Right

A few years ago, Ian and Will Ehrhart were in a taxi hurtling through a brush fire in Mexico. “Fast and furious!” yelled Jesús, the driver.

The Ehrhart brothers had been indulging in Jesús’s homemade mezcal — and so had Jesús. “He was very drunk,” Ian recalls. “Drove us all around town, drinking tequilla and smoking cigars.”

“He was definitely a memorable person,” Will says.

“He was driving us down the highway of life,” Ian adds with a grin. 

Fear & Loathing-esque memories weren’t the only thing Jesús gave the brothers. They also realized they’d found the perfect band name: Jesus Christ Taxi Driver. 

“Well, Jesus Taxi Driver at first,” Ian says. “Then it kind of morphed, you know, with Jesus Christ Superstar.”

After all, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver touches on both religious and political topics in its music, but with a punk-rock attitude buoyed by bluesy, rollicking rock-and-roll riffs. Ian (vocals/guitar) and Will (bass) released the act’s debut album, Lick My Soul, in 2023 with a hired band, and by the next year, JCTD had reached its full transfiguration with Colin Kelly (vocals/guitar) and Miles Jenkins (drums/flute).

Since then, the band has become one of the must-see acts on the scene, and its latest album, Taxi the Rich, is a must-listen. In a refreshing play, JCTD is dropping only physical copies of the album in the month leading up to its April 24 release on streaming platforms. The vinyl version will become available on March 19, when you can buy it at the band’s album-release show at the Bluebird Theater, where it will be performing alongside the Thing and Honey Blazer. The members designed the release schedule around the Buy Before You Stream initiative, which encourages consumers to do what they used to before the streaming age: buy an album because it’s created by artists you know are talented.

“I think a lot of bands’ intention is to curate a playlist like how you’re supposed to listen to it,” Ian says, “and that’s been lost. I feel like people are picking and choosing certain songs on a record and shuffling them. It’s about getting the full picture and hearing the story, if there is one, and I feel like there usually is.”

On Taxi the Rich, the band pummels evangelical zealot right-wingers with a sense of humor that doesn’t belie the deeper meanings. There’s even jazz flute (!!!!) across the album, in a more-than-welcome revival that would make Ian Anderson proud. The music will be even better to hear in a live setting: The members have become known for the inexhaustible, frenetic energy they bring to concerts, which showcase Ian bounding around the stage, into the audience and even swallowing his mic á la Lux Interior of cowpunk purveyors the Cramps (iykyk) or belting it out while lying in a bush (which he did at the Underground Music Showcase last year).

And that unfettered liveliness shines through on Taxi the Rich as well. If you’ve seen JCTD within the last year, you’ve likely already heard some of the album’s offerings, including “Too Cold to Golf,” “Lana Del Rey” and the band’s self-titled track, the only songs available to stream until the April release. “Jesus Christ Taxi Driver,” which dropped on March 13, lights a fire under oxymoronic, Bible-thumping Trump supporters, who seem to forget what Jesus himself preached about immigrants. 

As Ian explains, the song is about “the fear and racism Americans have towards immigrants, asking the questions: What would Jesus do? And what if God was one of us? This song is seeking to expose the contradictions of the religious right by plopping the God child in modern-day NYC as a cab driver. From Bethlehem to the great U.S. of A. our hero (Jesus H. Christ) seeks to escape religious persecution and make some money to help his family, only to have everything taken away.”

Then there’s “Too Cold to Golf,” on which Ian sings, “I want to make you dance until you suffer.”

Like most of the rock band’s numbers, this one makes you want to dance. But as you listen to the lyrics, it’s almost uncomfortable to do something so celebratory while you’re simultaneously being reminded of war and the Epstein files.

“We did a session last year in January,” recalls Kelly, who also plays in the band Augustus, “and we wrote, like, half the record there, just jamming. And then some of the stuff was kind of left over from right after the first record came out. ‘Lana Del Rey’ was written pretty much when the band started, and we’ve been playing ever since.”

“Lana Del Rey” wasn’t really inspired by the pop singer — her name just fit in as he was writing the refrain, Ian says — although its lyrics about authenticity, self-confidence and non-conformity certainly align with the alligator-tour-guide bride’s ethos.

“I guess this is like, my first adult band,” says Ian, who used to play in an act called the Beeves (a standout track on Lick My Soul is titled “Ding Dong The Beeves Are Dead”). “It’s the best; we all bring our special flavors to it and it feels really good — like a family, finally.”

In the age of social media, we’re more exposed than ever to disasters occurring around the world, the members point out; if you’re plugged in, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed. Taxi the Rich includes their observations on such phenomena with an expanding perspective that’s both internal and external.

“We’re all getting a dose of the world in a lot of ways; we’re not just living in the physical world because of social media and digital media, what have you,” Kelly says. “We’re all kind of connected. So as much as this album is individual at moments, it’s definitely the individual looking outward — it expands and contracts. I think the record has these moments where it’s very, very macro, giving the impression that we can all have felt in our daily life, and then sometimes it’s a little bit more small.”

Taxi the Rich kicks off with “Have It,” whose opening chords recall the stylings of the Beatles’ Rubber Soul era. Such classic-rock sounds are imbued across the songs, their intentional placement maintaining a balance between white-hot riffs and more somber yet surfy tones.

“I think it all kind of just ended up fitting together like a puzzle,” Ian says of arranging the album. “The first song, ‘Have It,’ is about the plight of the working class, doing a nine-to-five every day until you die. And that was just Colin and I writing from our daily experience of life, and it kind of fits into the same overarching theme.”

“Tractor Man,” “White Roses” and “Our World” slow it down for a poetic breather, with the latter seemingly both hopeful and realistic as Ian sings, “Get your faith in our world / Feel the pain in our world.” But levity is beckoned back with such songs as “Record Machine” — “Fuck you, Dad, it was really mean / Why’d you have to break my record machine?”

JCTD’s lyrics also recall the cleverness and idiosyncrasies of bands like Ween, especially on songs like “Tractor Man.” As the band started writing the music for that tune, it “turned into a story of a serial killer who rides around a tractor and has got malicious intent,” Jenkins explains.

But this group also gets deep. Taxi the Rich closes with the whispers of “Easy Love,” a tune both reflective and introspective, with a Patti Smith-esque prompt: “Jesus died for no one / His mother wept for her sweet baby boy / And there’s no grand communion / I’m not sure I believe in / Easy love.” In other words, is unconditional love a true possibility?

“The feeling of it is desperate,” Ian says. “The last chord doesn’t really resolve, it’s kind of an ellipses.”

The ballad opens with the trill of the flute, which is a relatively new instrument for the band: Jenkins only recently uncovered his flautist abilities, having bought the instrument ahead of Treefort Music Fest last year. “Will and our tour manager went to a pawn shop, and I had been wanting to get a flute,” Jenkins says.

“We were looking on Facebook Marketplace, too,” Will adds. “We were in Omaha, Nebraska, and messaged an old lady like, ‘Our flute broke down on the road.'” 

“We did say that,” Jenkins recalls with a laugh. “‘This is an emergency, our flute broke down and we’re playing the biggest venue in town tonight!'”

According to Jenkins, who played sax in high school, the fingering of the two instruments is somewhat similar. “And I can whistle the beer bottle pretty well,” he notes.

He made his flute debut on the stage at Treefort. “We were on one of the outdoor stages at Treefort, which is probably a couple 100 people out there,” he says. “And I was like, Okay, I’ll go up and do an intro — solo flute intro to introduce the band while they’re coming on stage — and it was a hit.”

“The flute’s kind of the spirit animal of the album,” Kelly says with a smile.

That makes sense, given Taxi the Rich‘s sweet sonic equilibrium. And it makes the chance to see JCTD perform the album at the Bluebird before the band takes off on a West Coast tour all the the more exciting. This is the beginning of another groundbreaking year for the Colorado crew.

“I’m just looking forward to making art with my best friends,” Ian says, “all the time, as much as possible. More touring. More hanging out in the van, drinking coffee, drinking beer. Running down the middle of the road in the middle of the night. And it’s very important to us, the relationship between the band and the audience — we’re all here to let loose, let that energy out. Be ourselves.”

Or, as JC himself would put it: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Jesus Christ Taxi Driver releases Taxi the Rich at the Bluebird Theater, 3317 East Colfax Avenue, 7:45 p.m. Thursday, March 19. Get tickets at bluebirdtheater.net.