The Spirit of Punk Rock Is Alive in Jesus Christ Taxi Driver

At a recent show at the Crypt in Denver opening for Fast Eddy, Ian Ehrhart — frontman for the punk-rock band Jesus Christ Taxi Driver — leaped off the stage to do his best Chuck Berry duck walk in the middle of the crowd before his band’s first song was even halfway over. Ehrhart’s wild stage presence, influenced greatly by the late, great Cramps singer Lux Interior, is a charming and electrifying habit, but it’s also inspired by anxiety.

“That’s why I started putting the microphone in my mouth, and I love doing that for some reason,” says Ehrhart. “I accepted some Indie 102.3 award once, and I didn’t know I had to go on stage and have Bruce [Trujillo] ask me questions. I didn’t know I was going to have to say something, and I was like, 'I don’t know how to do this.' I was so nervous. The second I get on stage, she asks me a question, and I can’t think of anything, so I just put the microphone in my mouth and spank myself. That’s how I deal with anxiety.”

Ehrhart grew up in Erie and went to Catholic school in the area. His parents weren’t extreme Christians, but he says that as the first-born child in his family, there was a lot of intimidating momentum, and some of his bombastic stage personality, and a lot of his songwriting, is inspired by his religious upbringing.

“I just had a weird experience,” he explains, “because as a kid your brain is just so soft and you’re kind of taking everything in, and people are telling you you’re either going to heaven or you’re going to hell, and that’s it. You think bad thoughts or you do bad things, and you suffer eternally, and it’s so scary, because you fully believe that. I remember getting into a big argument with the teachers about gay people going to hell because they’re sinning, and it turns out, like four or five people in that class were gay out of ten.”

Jesus Christ Taxi Driver’s debut album, Lick My Soul, is rebellious in its obvious distaste for musical boundaries, because it’s as influenced by Jack White and African desert blues as it is Oblivians-style punk rock and the Beatles — but it’s also heavily inspired by Ehrhart coming to terms with his Christian youth. Such songs as “Diabolical Catholic” and “Goat Hell,” based on the non-secular “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and featuring backup vocals by members of the Yawpers, juxtapose Ehrhart’s religious roots with a raucous sort of sarcastic, cosmopolitan humor somewhere between an all-American trainwreck and an intoxicating, boot-stomping revival.

“STUPIDMOTHERFUCKER,” for its part, finds Ehrhart calling the narrator “too dumb to breathe” and turning the aforementioned Crypt Records-style punk rock-and-roll made famous by such groups as the Oblivians and New Bomb Turks into a youthful stew of Front Range indie. Ehrhart is also an unabashed lover of Colorado's own Yawpers, whose own frontman, Nate Cook, has been a mentor, producer and collaborator since Ehrhart was leading the now-defunct Beeves, and Cook worked on Lick My Soul, too.

“Nate and I are kindred spirits,” Ehrhart says, “and I think that’s probably why he took a liking to us in the first place. I think we’ll definitely work with Nate again. He’s kind of the fifth member of the band.”
Ehrhart’s younger brother, Will, plays drums in Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, which also features Colin Kelly on guitar and a rotating cast of bass players that now includes Colorado star Emma Rose, whom many know from Big Richard and Sound of Honey. All of the elder Ehrhart’s collaborators seem to understand musicianship and showmanship equally, and that’s obviously a must to perform by his side.

Ehrhart also says it's important to defy genre classification. “On the first Beeves EP, I always wanted to say we’re a jazz, punk soul, reggae, every genre [band],” Ehrhart muses, “because I thought that’s what we were. I thought we included everything. I’m just, like, throwing everything in there. And then the same with [Jesus Christ Taxi Driver’s] ‘Goat Hell’ — that thing is all over the place.”

For a debut album, Lick My Soul is surprisingly tight and polished, while pulling from multiple influences and musical branches. It’s also effectively loose and untethered in the best ways, like a Stooges album, had that band been from 2000s Colorado rather than ’60s Detroit.

Speaking of the Stooges, any opportunity to see Ehrhart perform is a gift, because of the unforgettable, unique mess that might happen — not unlike Iggy Pop famously crowd-surfing while having fun with a jar of peanut butter. At a random karaoke night at Dillinger’s in Lafayette recently, Ehrhart had a packed bar of folks who had no idea that he’s in a band transfixed as he passionately sang Hall and Oates’s “Rich Girl” while devouring a corn dog.

“That was the first time I had a corn dog on stage as a prop,” he recalls. “I felt like I needed that to make me a little more comfortable, because karaoke is so scary.”

Jesus Christ Taxi Driver plays the Aggie Theatre, 204 South College Avenue, Fort Collins, midnight, Friday, April 19, as part of the FoCoMX music festival. Find tickets here.