The Red Devils: The Tragic Story of the Band & Death of Lester Butler

The Red Devils: The Tragic story of the band.

Thanks to nofightin.com who had some great old articles on the band.

7:39 photo credited to Tom Harold for Nofightin.com

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Red Devils

While the Red Devils may not have been hugely successful, they had a lot of industry heavyweights in their corner including ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Mick Jagger, Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin. With only one album to their name the Red Devils history would be full of, drugs, in-fighting, betrayal and death, Today let’s take a look at the history of legendary blues act the Red Devils.

The Red Devil’s history can be traced back to a mid 80’s band a roots/punk rock group The Blasters that included drummer Bill Bateman.. But Bateman grew tired of the Blasters inactivity and soon put together a loose collective of blues musicians in 1988. They’d go through a few name changes including the stumblebums and subsequently blue shadows with Bateman telling the LA Times he wanted to make a rowdy presentation of the blues.
One of the musicians who started playing with Bateman’s new band would be future Red Devils frontman and harmonica player Lester Butler who had been playing music since he was 6. Butler, who once referred to himself as “Spicolli’ sean penn’s character from fast times at ridgement high used to play for crowds in parking lots and took inspiration from musicians like howlin wolf, muddy waters, ccr, aerosmith and jimi hendrix. Butler would tell the LA Times in 1992 “I always loved music,” “And ever since I was a 6-year-old kid, I used to play harmonica. I heard blues one night, like everybody does, late in the evening on the radio, and I loved it. I played a lot in high school, but I quit for a while.”
If there was any foreshadowing of what trouble butler would get himself into he would tell a journalist according to loudersound “Remember in the seventies when they said cocaine wasn’t that addictive? I was a good argument against that bullshit further elaborating to the indianpolis star in 1992 “During the ’80s, the reason I didn’t play music was I was severely addicted to heroin and cocaine. I had to learn to get off that, you know?” I think people who come to near-death experiences do learn a little bit from that. Hopefully, I can pass a little of that on through my music to everybody else who’s either at that point or might be going to that point in their life.
By 1988 Blue Shadows would get a weekly monday night residency at a former chinese restaurant turned bar in west hollywood named King King where they’d play a dozen or so blues covers. The gig paid $200 per musician. Rounding out the lineup was Bateman’s roommate bassist Jonny Ray Bartel, his elder brother Dave Lee Bartel and a variety of lead guitar players who sat in with the group. Soon enough news spread about how good the performances were and even the LA Times were writing about the group. Their shows soon attracted sold out crowds and famous musicians and celebrities including bruce willis, members of motorhead, red hot chili peppers, zz top, black crowes,lenny kravitz, ac/dc. Billy Gibbons would tell Loudersound about the band. “Oh man, they were quite an outfit to be reckoned with,” “I was running hard at the time with one of the ZZ Top dancing girls – they called her the Alley Cat because she was always crawling about. She lived close by the King King, and I became a regular there on a Monday night. And who should I make friends with in those days but Rick Rubin. He was hanging out and took an interest in the band.”

Rubin had split from his New York based label Def Jam in 1988 with whom he had famously signed Slayer and Run DMC to and headed out west. Where he stablished new label called Def American. The band would sign several high profile acts including the black crowes and Danzig, and soon enough the Red Devils would join the list.

Rubin would end up seeing the band upwards of 60 times before signing the group, but his offer of a recording contract came with two conditions: they had to change their name (it wasn’t commercial enough) and they’d have to find a permanent lead guitarist. The bartel brothers took the name Red Devils from a bnd they had previously played in when they were kids and Rubin thought it would be commercial enough

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