Former Irving resident Charley Crockett, who’s thrived as a superb vintage-Outlaw country singer-songwriter now based in Austin, basically said he’s OK with going back to busking, which was what he did before becoming regionally famous — and which is what he may be doing if he keeps adding to this flamewar between him and supporters of two Earthly disciples of the great Satan hisself (“red and scaly with a bifurcated tail” and carrying a hayfork).
“FUCK TRUMP, FUCK EPSTEIN, BUT HAIL SATAN? NOT ME JACK” is what Crockett posted the other day before launching into a long explanation about his dumping Twin Temple from two dates on his tour. The married Satanic doo-wop duo from Los Angeles was set to open for him in Oregon and California last week before he gave them the “complicated cowboy” boot (thanks, snarky online commenters for that one). Big-time rockstar Jack White whipped out his phone, surfed to Instagram, and publicly asked Twin Temple to open for him in L.A. in September.
“Unholy hell,” the duo replied online, “Sir Jack, you have no idea what this means to us. Lifelong fans.”
Twin Temple’s streams, sales, and follows have since skyrocketed from the entire brouhaha.
What Crockett is attempting here has never really been done before in popular music in the age of recrudescent fascism and MAGA evil: He may have alienated a large chunk of his fanbase — anti-Trump fans of solid, wholesome, smart C&W — while entreating that semi-mythical demographic: anti-Trump Christians like him.
Courtesy Charley Crockett/Instagram
There’s not many of them. Despite the White House occupant’s crimes, documented moral failings, and overall terribleness — a non-churchgoer and adjudicated rapist with 34 felony counts who’s making billions off the presidency while gilding statues as American families struggle to afford gas and groceries — 2024 exit poll data found that around 58% of all Catholics (~40 million of ~70 million total) and 63% of Protestants (~38 million of ~60 million total) voted for him. That’s a lot of Jesus freaks out in the street, leaving behind barely a handful of Catholics and Protestants who follow Jesus truly instead of some diapered grifter. True Jesus lovers — and it’s either Him or Trump, no in-between there — are who Crockett’s going for, whether he knows it or not and whether super-stardom or busking beneath the shadows of the Frost Bank Tower on North Congress Avenue will result. It’s a brave, bold move, Charley’s, but also, I would argue, borderline anti-Christlike.
Jesus welcomed everybody, as those “He Gets Us” ads stress, including — especially — sinners. The sins regularly committed by Satanists, according to The Satanic Temple’s Seven Fundamental Tenets, include dreadful stuff like acting with empathy toward all creatures, prevailing over unjust laws and institutions, making your own decisions about your body, respecting others, conforming beliefs to the best scientific understanding of the world, and more. Satanic Temple members do not actually worship Satan. They employ his red, scaly, bifurcated-tailed figure to represent rebellion against “arbitrary authority.”
Courtesy Twin Temple/Instagram
Based on some of Crockett’s nonstop posts about the fiasco, he intimates that Twin Temple’s schtick is just that: shock value for its own sake. That he can’t or won’t believe practicing Satanists exist and can be good at music means he either lives in a bubble (he doesn’t) or that he’s choosing to belittle them, which is not very Christlike. Estimates put the number of Satanists globally at around several hundred thousand. The number of married Satanic doo-wop duos sits at precisely 1. Twin Temple’s songs about sexing up Lucifer, partying in “Babalon,” bewitching susceptible lovers, burning Bibles, and practicing “Black Magick” go pretty hard in an Evil Dead-kind of way: clever, cheeky, and really well-performed. With their hollow, echoing production quality, they even sound like they were recorded 70 years ago. At their core, they’re all about freedom, living honestly, and loving thy neighbor all night long.
Charley Crockett might enjoy Twin Temple’s catchy tunes if he set down the Bible he’s using as a shield and listened to them. He certainly can’t argue with their Christlike spiritual foundation.
