Reverend Peyton reclaiming what was once lost

The genre of Indiana-culinary rock music is certainly underrepresented on the pop charts. We have the protagonist of John Cougar’s “Jack and Diane” eating a chili dog at Tastee Freez but not much else.

It seems like Reverend Peyton might be aware of the dearth. On “So Delicious,” the most recent album by Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Peyton sings a song called “Pickin’ Pawpaws,” about a delicacy that he says is in abundance a mere 90-minute drive from Cincinnati.

Peyton’s description of pawpaws is part of a bigger discussion about living off the land in his home of Bean Blossom, Indiana, and how that do-it-yourself approach carries over into his music.

“Pawpaws are a fruit that tastes halfway between a mango and a banana,” he explains. “They’re so tasty. It’s like the northernmost-growing tropical plant. Those things are akin to plants that they’d have in the Caribbean or something. They grow all over Indiana, sometimes called the Indiana banana. They’re almost like lost in time. So many people have these things in their yard, and they’ll let them lay there on the ground and rot or throw them away.

“It’s amazing how much of this knowledge in our society, the way we live, is just being lost. Lost in time. (Peyton’s wife and bandmate) Breezy and I, I bet we have found ourselves, foraging for mushrooms, 20 or 25 pounds of mushrooms in the last year. Most people have no idea that there’s that much food out there just laying on the ground to eat. I’m talking stuff that would give any lobster or crab meat an absolute run for its money. Food that is just as good as anything else on the planet, just laying out there on the ground if you know what to look for. People will always go, ‘Don’t go searching for mushrooms. You’ll die.’ It’s like, ‘Man, when you know the difference between what will kill you and what tastes like lobster, it’s not that hard.’ ”

This is where pawpaws and lobster-tasting mushroom relate to music. It could be said that Peyton’s music, rooted in the magical guitar-playing of nearly forgotten masters like Mississippi John Hurt and Charley Patton, is also lost in time.

“The finger-style guitar that I play, where you play the bass with your thumb and the lead with your fingers, it is a dying art, and hardly anybody does it, and hardly anybody does it legit and right,” Peyton says. “I’ve made it a lifelong passion not just to keep it going but take it to new places. That’s like my whole ethos. That style is a uniquely American style. It’s like a lost art, like a language that’s becoming obsolete.”

Peyton thinks that playing century-old music requires an old-world approach and the tools to match.

“I love homemade instruments,” hey says. “I love that old-school ethic of doing it yourself. The place where it starts is very handmade from the get-go. There’s no loop pedals or iPod running in the background. It’s real, handmade music, made by human beings, played on real instruments. That’s just something that we’re proud of.”

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

With the 4onthefloor and the Easthills

When: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 28

Where: Taft Theatre, 317 E. Fifth St., Downtown; 513-232-6220

Tickets: $20 advance, $25 day of show