12 MARCH 19-25, 2026 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC WWJD? JESUS CHRIST TAXI DRIVER STEERS INTO RELIGION AND POLITICS ON TAXI THE RICH. BY EMILY FERGUSON A few years ago, Ian and Will Ehrhart were in a taxi hurtling through a brush fi re in Mexico. “Fast and furious!” yelled Jesús, the driver. The Ehrhart brothers had been indulg- ing in Jesús’s homemade mezcal — and so had Jesús. “He was very drunk,” Ian recalls. “Drove us all around town, drinking tequila and smoking cigars.” “He was defi nitely 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 fi rst,” 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 transfi guration with Colin Kelly (vocals/guitar) and Miles Jenkins (drums/fl ute). Since then, the band has 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 shuffl ing them. It’s about get- ting 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 evan- gelical zealot right-wingers with a sense of humor that doesn’t belie the deeper mean- ings. There’s even jazz fl ute (!!!!) 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 cow- punk 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 fi re 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 im- migrants, 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 fi les. “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 fi rst 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 fi t in as he was writing the refrain, Ian says — although its lyrics about authenticity, self-confi dence and non-conformity certainly align with the alligator-tour-guide bride’s ethos. “I guess this is like, my fi rst 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 fl avors to it and it feels really good — like a family, fi nally.” In the age of social media, we’re more ex- posed 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 perspec- tive 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 physi- cal 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 defi nitely the individual looking outward — it expands and contracts. I think the record has these moments where it’s very, very macro, giving the impres- sion 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 fi tting together like a puzzle,” Ian says of arrang- ing the album. “The fi rst song, ‘Have It,’ is about the plight of the working class, doing a nine-to-fi ve every day until you die. And that was just Colin and I writing from our daily experience of life, and it kind of fi ts into the same overarching theme.” “Tractor Man,” “White Roses” and “Our World” slow it down for a 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?” continued on page 13 Jesus Christ Taxi Driver will have Taxi the Rich vinyls available at its release show. MUSIC HAILEY JANE
