Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is a musician, Warren Age. Warren, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Okay, So where are you right now? In
Speaker 1: this corunap partners? I am in Westchester County, New York.
Speaker 1: And how many people are in the house with you? Myself,
Speaker 1: my wife, my eight year old son, and uh we
Speaker 1: have he has a nanny that has been with us
Speaker 1: the entire time, so we're all kind of quarantined together.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about being this age and having
Speaker 1: an eight year old kid? You know, that's a good,
Speaker 1: uh good point. I I became a dad at fifty,
Speaker 1: which was I don't know if it's recommended or not.
Speaker 1: In my case, it worked out really good because I
Speaker 1: was on the road so much, uh for most of
Speaker 1: my life that I never really wanted to be a
Speaker 1: m I a dad, And so now I'm able to
Speaker 1: spend a lot more time with him, starting when he
Speaker 1: was born, and especially now than I ever have. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm at home more than I've been in the past
Speaker 1: thirty years. And other than the coronavirus situation, why you
Speaker 1: go at a home more? Well, once he was born,
Speaker 1: I started kind of tailoring my schedule a little bit
Speaker 1: to spend more time at home and to make it
Speaker 1: where I could come back and forth more often and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a challenge just getting connecting the dots. But I love
Speaker 1: being a dad. In my I was gonna say fifties,
Speaker 1: but I just turned sixty. So how did you pull
Speaker 1: the trigger? What was what was the thought process after
Speaker 1: fifty years? Uh, look, I guess you know so, Uh
Speaker 1: you turned sixty. I turned sixty at this point seven
Speaker 1: years ago really fucked me up. I found fifty fifty
Speaker 1: was no big deal. House sixty, Well, sixty was a
Speaker 1: little intimidating, and still is. But the fact that I
Speaker 1: spent my sixtieth birthday uh quarantined and with just the
Speaker 1: four of us was a little surreal in a in
Speaker 1: a bizarre way. We my wife and I had talked
Speaker 1: six months earlier or something about Okay, we're gonna make
Speaker 1: a big deal out of it, We're gonna bring in
Speaker 1: friends and family and have a big blowout. And by
Speaker 1: the time it all came around, that wasn't really meant
Speaker 1: to be. And then when my birthday actually happened, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: happy birthday, We're the three of us are having a
Speaker 1: great time. And now I just remember, literally starting around
Speaker 1: the time of my birthday, and I didn't anticipate it,
Speaker 1: turning sixty. A lot of ship that was meaningful before
Speaker 1: suddenly wasn't meaningful anymore. I guess I realized at some
Speaker 1: point I would die. Have there been any emotional changes
Speaker 1: turning sixty. Well, yeah, And I don't know how much
Speaker 1: is attributed to turning sixty, and how much is attributed
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus, because the same thing for me, uh,
Speaker 1: which I don't recommend. Okay. So going back to your son,
Speaker 1: you're talking about your road work. How many forgetting coronavirus?
Speaker 1: How many days a year you on the road now?
Speaker 1: Prior to this, probably a hundred, two hundred and fifty, okay.
Speaker 1: And once your kids started to go to school, your
Speaker 1: kids stays home, your kid comes with you. How do
Speaker 1: you work that he stays home except when it is
Speaker 1: convenient for him to come for a few days. And
Speaker 1: then I just find myself coming back and forth a
Speaker 1: lot more often, which is fine, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: of If we have two days off, I'll go home
Speaker 1: for two days and go back on the road for
Speaker 1: four or five days and then come back home for
Speaker 1: two more days, which is a lot of wear and tear,
Speaker 1: but definitely worth it. Now you're really seen as a
Speaker 1: road dog. So how are you filling this time? Well,
Speaker 1: it's been a bit of adapting. Uh, I'm writing a lot,
Speaker 1: which is great. That's the one of the down one
Speaker 1: of the one of the few upsides. But um, in
Speaker 1: the beginning, just a lot of kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: how to reinvent and how to kind of reinterpret the
Speaker 1: whole situation. Um. Gradually, I'm getting my setup more and
Speaker 1: more together where I can uh do more playing and
Speaker 1: recording and stuff. But in the beginning I was mostly
Speaker 1: just writing on acoustic guitar and writing a lot of
Speaker 1: lyrics and uh taking advantage of that. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've written this much since. Okay, So, prior to the
Speaker 1: COVID situation, did you have a home studio only a
Speaker 1: small one. There's a studio close by that I work
Speaker 1: in a lot, and I've been for the past three
Speaker 1: years trying to either build by a studio of my own,
Speaker 1: which has been like an ever changing process. It's a
Speaker 1: work in progress. Uh. My ability to record here is limited,
Speaker 1: but getting less limited. Um, but it's really making me
Speaker 1: think of things differently, Like I haven't been to the
Speaker 1: studio that I normally record, and I haven't been there
Speaker 1: since the coronavirus. Are you pretty tech savvy now that
Speaker 1: you're alone without an engineer? Are you familiar with pro
Speaker 1: tools or logic or any of that other stuff. No,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been telling myself that I needed to
Speaker 1: learn pro tools for the for years now, and of
Speaker 1: course this is gonna be a great opportunity. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to force myself to do it. Okay, talk about
Speaker 1: the writing process. Do you normally write songs or do
Speaker 1: you say, put pick out a window, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write a song? Or you wait for inspiration? Sure,
Speaker 1: a normal routine. I usually wait for inspiration. I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those people that rights every day or can
Speaker 1: force myself to write. I know some people have good
Speaker 1: luck with that, but I might go two or three
Speaker 1: months without writing at all, and every time that happens,
Speaker 1: I start getting this feeling of anxiety of have I
Speaker 1: written my last song? And then eventually I'll write something,
Speaker 1: and then another one will come pretty quickly. And another
Speaker 1: one will come pretty quickly and I'm realized that I'm
Speaker 1: back on the wave. But more often than not, it
Speaker 1: starts with a lyrical idea. I find it easier to
Speaker 1: write music based on a lyric that that already exists,
Speaker 1: then vice versa. Now, having said that, in the past
Speaker 1: six or eight years, I've been trying to do the opposite,
Speaker 1: just to not fall into the pattern and to shake
Speaker 1: things up a little bit. But I really enjoy working
Speaker 1: that way. What I what I tend to notice is
Speaker 1: that the up the up timpo songs start with the music,
Speaker 1: and the mid tempo and down timpo songs usually start
Speaker 1: with the lyric. Okay, so give me an example of
Speaker 1: how you would latch onto a lyric. U Usually just
Speaker 1: some sort of thought happens randomly, and I decide if
Speaker 1: I like it or not. And these days I'm mostly
Speaker 1: writing on the computer as opposed to by hand. Uh.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of stream of consciousness writing. And
Speaker 1: if the thought, if the initial thought appears to me
Speaker 1: in a way that I feel like it's a hook
Speaker 1: or a title, then maybe that gives me some sort
Speaker 1: of incentive or direction. If it's just a clever idea,
Speaker 1: or something that taps into me emotionally that I just
Speaker 1: start writing until either until it starts feeling forced, or
Speaker 1: until something appears that sounds like a chorus, or you know,
Speaker 1: every situation is different. Um, I know. Greg Alman used
Speaker 1: to say there's as many ways to write a song
Speaker 1: as there are songs. Okay, what is your motivation for
Speaker 1: writing songs? Is it something you say, I'm an artist,
Speaker 1: I have to do it, or is it something you
Speaker 1: would do even if you weren't releasing music, or it's
Speaker 1: about having something to say? What makes you write songs?
Speaker 1: I'm more grateful for being able to write songs than
Speaker 1: just about anything else in the world. It's therapy for me.
Speaker 1: It's a creative outlet. It's uh something, it's a learning challenge. Uh.
Speaker 1: I feel like the majority of the stuff that I
Speaker 1: write most people will never hear, and that's kind of bizarre.
Speaker 1: But there have been a lot of songs that I
Speaker 1: wound up releasing at some point that started out as
Speaker 1: just a personal song that I've I feel like I
Speaker 1: wrote for myself. Um, I'd never think of it like
Speaker 1: I need to write or what can I do to
Speaker 1: write a song that more people will tap into or
Speaker 1: that will make money, or I don't. I never think
Speaker 1: like that. I write the song first and then think
Speaker 1: about later, Hey, is it any good be Is it
Speaker 1: something I could do? Is it something someone else can do?
Speaker 1: You know it. I don't even think about the categorization
Speaker 1: of the tune until it's finished normally. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning. You're from North Carolina, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: we're in North Carolina, Asheville. Now Asheville, they you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of in the mountains. They got a ski area.
Speaker 1: They have a rich person in a house there. You know,
Speaker 1: what was it like growing up in Asheville. Well, when
Speaker 1: I was growing up there, it wasn't the bohemian capital
Speaker 1: of the South that it is now. Uh that's been
Speaker 1: the past fifteen or twenty years that that transition had happened.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, a lot of great musicians, uh,
Speaker 1: mostly guitar players, UM, a lot of bluegrass, a lot
Speaker 1: of folk music, UM, and a lot of art and
Speaker 1: a cool art scene. But it was much more underground,
Speaker 1: unlike now where it's it's everywhere. It was always a
Speaker 1: cool place. You know, being in the mountains is beautiful,
Speaker 1: it's it's geographically beautiful, really great people. Uh, but I've
Speaker 1: watched it kind of turned into what Austin is to
Speaker 1: Texas Asheville is to North Carolina. Now, okay, so you
Speaker 1: grew up what your parents do for a living? Um,
Speaker 1: My parents divorced when I was eight, and I was
Speaker 1: mostly raised by my dad, who worked in a grocery store.
Speaker 1: They were both Uh they both grew up on farms
Speaker 1: in Polk County, North Carolina, and then moved to the
Speaker 1: big city of Ashville. Okay, just starting to Asheville. If
Speaker 1: you want to leave Ashland, go to the big city.
Speaker 1: What big city would you go to? Well, initially Nashville
Speaker 1: was the closest one. And that's how far away? Five
Speaker 1: hours by car? Not close, yeah, not close, but much
Speaker 1: closer than New Yorker l a. Uh. So I went
Speaker 1: to Nashville late eighty three, lived there. But before we
Speaker 1: get there, let's say, Okay, your parents get divorced. Before
Speaker 1: they got divorced, there were you Were you the only kid?
Speaker 1: Or are the other kids? I have two older brothers,
Speaker 1: two older brothers, how much older? Three years and five years? Okay,
Speaker 1: your parents divorce, Uh, it's relatively uncommon for the kids
Speaker 1: to go with the father. What was the thought process there?
Speaker 1: You know? Uh, I was so young that I wasn't
Speaker 1: such a big part of it. But it was unheard
Speaker 1: of in the South at that time or anywhere, but
Speaker 1: especially in the South at that time. Divorce was on
Speaker 1: her of much less the dad getting the kids. UM.
Speaker 1: I guess there was enough justification at that time for
Speaker 1: my dad insisted that it that it be that way,
Speaker 1: which for him meant working all day long and raising
Speaker 1: three boys, which is uh, just an unbelievable task. Okay.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a stepmother or stepfather my mom remarried.
Speaker 1: I had a stepfather who passed away a little over
Speaker 1: a year ago. Okay. And did you continue to have
Speaker 1: contact with your mother growing up? Uh? We lost touch
Speaker 1: for a short period of time, not much, um, and
Speaker 1: it was a hard thing to get used to, uh,
Speaker 1: but we eventually became closer and closer. It was a
Speaker 1: bizarre situation for myself because my dad was When I
Speaker 1: was really young, my dad was working all the time,
Speaker 1: so it was me and my mom at home, and
Speaker 1: then when she was gone, that changed completely. So it
Speaker 1: was it was hard for me to adjust to My
Speaker 1: older brothers did a little better job adjusting, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: but she moved about an hour away, so we would
Speaker 1: visit a lot. But you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: uh not your normal as in Harriet type of situation.
Speaker 1: Looking back at this age, deep into your life, do
Speaker 1: you think your mother uh leaving to a great degree
Speaker 1: affected you in certain ways that have sustained affected your adulthood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure it did. Uh. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with my gravitating towards uh
Speaker 1: music and poetry and songwriting and and traveling and all
Speaker 1: the things that I chose, you know, but um, at
Speaker 1: the time, I don't think you can never really know
Speaker 1: what motivates that. But yeah, I think So. Do you
Speaker 1: ever go to therapy? No, I think, Uh, I've thought
Speaker 1: about it a lot in recent years, but never done it.
Speaker 1: And um, I think songwriting has kind of been my therapy,
Speaker 1: and I've always felt like without it or music in general,
Speaker 1: but songwriting, especially music, has has been so therapeutic for
Speaker 1: me that I think without it, I don't I have
Speaker 1: no idea how adjusted I would be. Okay, So you're
Speaker 1: going to school, or you're a popular kid, or you're
Speaker 1: good in school, what's that experience, like I was semi popular,
Speaker 1: you know, not not mainstream, but the musician circle that
Speaker 1: I ran in, there were there were several of us
Speaker 1: that had some sort of popularity. I've surprisingly was a
Speaker 1: good student. I graduated in the top five percent of
Speaker 1: my class and was in the National Honor Society. Um
Speaker 1: had scholarship offers that I turned down, which I think,
Speaker 1: uh shocked my dad, but he was supportive. Okay, So
Speaker 1: was there music in the house growing up. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: dad listened to Hank Williams and Bill Monroe and uh
Speaker 1: Merle Haggard and George Jones, Ralph Stanley, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Um My two older brothers have amazing taste in music
Speaker 1: and had tons of records, eventually thousands of records. And eventually,
Speaker 1: uh my middle brother collected to the point that he
Speaker 1: started a record store of used in new records and
Speaker 1: uh did that for about twenty five years and to
Speaker 1: this day, I think he's got thousands of records, although
Speaker 1: he closed the store a while back. Okay, how old
Speaker 1: were you when he opened the store? Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties. Okay, so you were already
Speaker 1: out of the house. Yeah, Okay, So when do you
Speaker 1: first play a musical instrument. I started singing probably around
Speaker 1: seven or eight, And thanks to my older brothers, they
Speaker 1: had all this great soul music, the Temptations and the
Speaker 1: Four Tops and Sam and Dave and Wilson Pickett. I
Speaker 1: think James Brown was my first hero. Um we had
Speaker 1: at a time when we only had a handful of records.
Speaker 1: It was the best of Aretha Franklin, the best of
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder, the best of the Four Tops, you know,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And they also had the Beatles and
Speaker 1: the Stones. Um and the fact that they had so
Speaker 1: many records just kind of gave me this library to
Speaker 1: dig through. My oldest brother got a guitar when I
Speaker 1: was eleven, and uh, I played it more than he did.
Speaker 1: So I got my own guitar when I was twelve. Okay, See,
Speaker 1: were singing like singing in school, saying in the in
Speaker 1: the school chorus and in church in the beginning when
Speaker 1: I actually went to church, um, but mostly in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, trying to sound like Wilson Pickett, but
Speaker 1: sounded more like Smokey Robinson. Okay, so you pick up
Speaker 1: the guitar. Your brothers guitar were levant you ever have lessons.
Speaker 1: I took a handful of lessons from this guy named
Speaker 1: Andy Hunter, who was a local UH blues guitar player
Speaker 1: who was really great, but he was self taught, and
Speaker 1: so after a few lessons, he kind of pulled me
Speaker 1: aside and said, hey, you know, most of my students
Speaker 1: don't even practice in the six days between lessons. I
Speaker 1: can tell you're really serious about this. You should probably
Speaker 1: just stay on the path of teaching yourself, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the weirdest, most honest thing for someone to say, uh,
Speaker 1: putting him out of work, But I think the fact
Speaker 1: that he was self taught made him look at it
Speaker 1: that way. I learned a lot from him, um, And
Speaker 1: one of the things that stuck with me was his
Speaker 1: fascination for what he considered the three Kings Freddie, B,
Speaker 1: B and Albert. He said, if you listen to those
Speaker 1: three guys your whole life, you still can't learn at all. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that stayed with me. So how did you teach yourself? Uh?
Speaker 1: Just records, skipping the needle back and play into records. Uh.
Speaker 1: At some point I bought a music theory book and
Speaker 1: just started studying that on my own and and in
Speaker 1: high school I took a one semester course of music theory.
Speaker 1: But mostly there were a circle of musicians that were
Speaker 1: teaching each other how to play and playing together, and
Speaker 1: we were all starting bands before we could even play,
Speaker 1: which I think, looking back was probably a good thing
Speaker 1: because we learned how to play music together, which is
Speaker 1: very important. Okay, did you immediately? I knew from the
Speaker 1: era we all and everybody in my generation a little
Speaker 1: bit older than you played guitars, but it was clear.
Speaker 1: I remember pretty much giving up when a friend of
Speaker 1: mine said, Hey, we're gonna change keys, and I said,
Speaker 1: We'll wait a second. It is a little too much
Speaker 1: for me. So did you. It's always hard work to
Speaker 1: be great, But did you feel you had a natural
Speaker 1: affinity for it? I did. I felt like I had
Speaker 1: an affinity for it. You know. I think everybody when
Speaker 1: they first start, they think this is what I want
Speaker 1: to do for the rest of my life. But then
Speaker 1: that feeling dissipates at some point in a year or two,
Speaker 1: and you start kind of losing interest. I just never
Speaker 1: started losing interest. The interest uh increased, and I as
Speaker 1: I got better, I kind of face the fact that
Speaker 1: the more I learned, the more I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: And and when I was fourteen, there was a little
Speaker 1: folk club down the street and I would sneak in
Speaker 1: there when the drinking age was eighteen at that time,
Speaker 1: and I would sneak in and hear these folk musicians
Speaker 1: and it was just amazing here in live music like
Speaker 1: that in a in a small environment. And then eventually
Speaker 1: the word got out that I played guitar, so somebody
Speaker 1: asked me to get up and play, and I did,
Speaker 1: and then I was hooked. That's what I wanted to
Speaker 1: do all the time. So you got up and play?
Speaker 1: Would you play some blues or something? It was? It
Speaker 1: was actually at that time the the stage in that club,
Speaker 1: you couldn't put a drum kid on there. You could
Speaker 1: only have two or three stringed instruments or something. But
Speaker 1: there were a couple of people playing electric guitar, and
Speaker 1: one of them gave me their electric guitar and and
Speaker 1: I just played along and just remember I have a
Speaker 1: visual recollection of that now and and and how it
Speaker 1: felt as well. Uh, And it was just an amazing feeling,
Speaker 1: something to tap into, something to be part of that
Speaker 1: I had never experienced before. And what was the reaction
Speaker 1: to anybody say, hey, kid, you're good to stay at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of encouragement, you know. Uh, the
Speaker 1: um the local musician scene was very encouraging to me,
Speaker 1: and so I would go there all the time, and
Speaker 1: I met more and more of the local musicians and
Speaker 1: they would all get me up to play. And that's
Speaker 1: where I really developed this appreciation for folk music and
Speaker 1: for songwriting in general, because a lot of those local
Speaker 1: guys were fantastic songwriters and they were doing their own material.
Speaker 1: And that was a revelation as well that these guys
Speaker 1: are writing their own songs and they're really good. Then
Speaker 1: they would also be playing Dylan songs and John Pryan
Speaker 1: songs and uh, stuff like that. But it was turning
Speaker 1: me onto this world of music that I was ready for.
Speaker 1: So what was your first guitar? The first guitar I
Speaker 1: had was called a Norma uh, and it was There
Speaker 1: was a Norma Amp forty nine dollars and fifty nine
Speaker 1: dollars respectively, and my dad got home at the local
Speaker 1: hardware store. And how how long did it take to
Speaker 1: graduate from that? I think probably a year or so.
Speaker 1: I got a copy of a Gibson s G. There
Speaker 1: was a hundred dollars about a year later, and then
Speaker 1: about a year after that, I got a real Gibson
Speaker 1: s G Jr. And my dad was really good about,
Speaker 1: uh upgrading and just as long as I didn't lose interest,
Speaker 1: he would continue to make sure I had a little
Speaker 1: bit better guitar, a little bit better I amp. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Connecticut. We would go into New
Speaker 1: York Street whatever it was, and by where did you
Speaker 1: actually buy the stuff you're in color? In North Carolina, Well,
Speaker 1: there was a music store, oddly enough a few blocks
Speaker 1: from my house. And when I would ride the bus
Speaker 1: to and from school, that's where we would get on
Speaker 1: and off. The bus was on that corner where the
Speaker 1: music store was. And so at the at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, Uh, the two or three people that
Speaker 1: were in my circle of musician friends, we would get
Speaker 1: off the bus and immediately go into the music store
Speaker 1: and just geek out and look at everything and annoy
Speaker 1: the people that ran it, you know, and let's try this,
Speaker 1: let's try that, and spend hours in there, uh, which
Speaker 1: in hindsight must have been really annoying, but they were
Speaker 1: so supportive and nice and and then of course we're
Speaker 1: friends now. But uh, we literally spent hours of our
Speaker 1: day in the music store just playing instruments. You know.
Speaker 1: And when did you start forming bands? I think almost
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, you know, we were designing album
Speaker 1: covers and you know every crazy thing that that kids do.
Speaker 1: That uh the first time I think we played in public.
Speaker 1: There were a few things, like we played a walkathon
Speaker 1: where these poor people that had just walked twenty miles
Speaker 1: when they when they were done, they got like free
Speaker 1: punch and to sit and listen to us play. And
Speaker 1: it must have been very painful. But they were a
Speaker 1: captive audience. You know. We played a few things. They
Speaker 1: were all free gigs. In the beginning. We would just
Speaker 1: play anywhere anybody would have us know, and what material
Speaker 1: were playing? Oh my goodness, back then, Uh whatever was
Speaker 1: going on at the time. Uh where it be Grand
Speaker 1: Funk railroad, Uh could be uh well, you know, oddly enough,
Speaker 1: when I was fourt in their fifteen, we had a
Speaker 1: band called Blue Sky that was named after the Allman
Speaker 1: Brothers song and we had two drummers. And so how
Speaker 1: foreshadowing is that? I mean, you know, we played a
Speaker 1: handful of of all my brothers songs, but we played
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff as well, but we were
Speaker 1: big enough fans to call our band that. So you
Speaker 1: graduate from high school and you tell your father, what
Speaker 1: what's the path? Then I want to go on the
Speaker 1: road and play music and uh not go to college.
Speaker 1: And he was, I'm sure extremely disappointed because I would
Speaker 1: have been the first person in our family to go
Speaker 1: to college. Um. But he said, if that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do and you're gonna give it everything you got,
Speaker 1: then you have my blessing. And he was always supportive
Speaker 1: that way. Um, I'm not sure that I would the
Speaker 1: same decision given that decision to make now, you know,
Speaker 1: for his decision, I mean, uh, you know, if it
Speaker 1: were my son, I'm not sure I would be so understanding. Well,
Speaker 1: let's just say, hypothetically, if you would gone to college,
Speaker 1: what would be it would have been different for you? Um?
Speaker 1: Good question, you know, because a lot of bands starting college,
Speaker 1: you know, especially uh the New York scene when I
Speaker 1: came to New York and uh bands like Blues Traveler
Speaker 1: and Spin Doctors and of course the Dave Matthews band
Speaker 1: in Virginia. All those bands, Uh, started out playing together
Speaker 1: in college and started a scene at their college. So
Speaker 1: maybe I would have done that. But had I gone
Speaker 1: to college, I would have probably going into some sort
Speaker 1: of creative writing journalism type situation, because that's what all
Speaker 1: my teachers were pushing me toward. None of them were
Speaker 1: pushing me towards music. Okay, you started writing songs relatively
Speaker 1: immediately after you went to the folk club, even prior,
Speaker 1: I would say, but really terrible, like horrible songs. But uh,
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, I was writing songs, if you
Speaker 1: could call it that. I started writing poetry before I
Speaker 1: picked up guitar, So as soon as uh, I started
Speaker 1: playing guitar, that just changed to song lyrics. Um, and
Speaker 1: I would hate to go back and have to face
Speaker 1: up to whatever those songs were now. But but unlike
Speaker 1: a lot of musicians, it wasn't the case even with
Speaker 1: the Stones. But we're gonna make a record. You should
Speaker 1: write your own material. You were writing your own material
Speaker 1: at the beginning, even before the dream. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess uh bands from an earlier era
Speaker 1: started out doing covers, but the era I was influenced
Speaker 1: by at that time, I guess everybody was mostly writing
Speaker 1: their own music, and I, in my head, that's what
Speaker 1: you did. Okay. So you say you went to Nashville
Speaker 1: when you were twenty three, what happened from eighteen when
Speaker 1: you graduated from high school to tree. I was in
Speaker 1: a band Locally. There was a band called Ricochet that
Speaker 1: was kind of a Southern rock type band. I was
Speaker 1: the youngest member of that band, and we were trying
Speaker 1: to get a record deal with no clue as to
Speaker 1: how to go about that. UM and that band went
Speaker 1: through a few incarnations and broke up several times, and
Speaker 1: then at the end, when the last incarnation reformed, we
Speaker 1: did our very first gig. And the same day that
Speaker 1: we played our first gig, I had gotten a phone
Speaker 1: call UH from this guy that was playing UH in
Speaker 1: David allen Coe's band, and he said, we're looking for
Speaker 1: a guitar player. Are you interested? And I didn't really
Speaker 1: know much about CO I didn't know his music, but
Speaker 1: it seemed like a step up. And so after our
Speaker 1: first reformed gig, I went to the guys and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna take this gig and got on
Speaker 1: a plane and UH flew to Baton Rouge Louisiana Christmas Eve,
Speaker 1: and uh joined a situation that was I was totally
Speaker 1: unprepared for okay, just to do a little backfilm. How
Speaker 1: old were you when you first took the co gig? Uh?
Speaker 1: I think I just turned twenty. Okay, so for the
Speaker 1: two years since high school you were still living at home?
Speaker 1: Were you making any money playing music? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: we were making enough money to be content. We we
Speaker 1: weren't making very much money and it was not sustainable,
Speaker 1: but it was at that time it was it felt
Speaker 1: like a pretty good life. Um. I lived a friend
Speaker 1: of mine named Matt Sluter. He and I had a
Speaker 1: house together of our own that we rented for like
Speaker 1: two hundred bucks a month or something. Um. But I
Speaker 1: was only there about six months, and then that's when
Speaker 1: I got the offer to go on the road and
Speaker 1: wound up leaving. Uh. You know, like I said, at
Speaker 1: the time, it just seemed like a step up, and
Speaker 1: so I had to try and see what happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: you say you were totally unprepared. Amplify that? Well? Is uh? Music, lifestyle, entourage, Uh, persona,
Speaker 1: everything was the whole other world. You know. I was
Speaker 1: this little genteel hippie kid from Asheville, and I was
Speaker 1: thrust into this world of of bikers and and uh
Speaker 1: rowdy craziness, which you know. I guess education comes in
Speaker 1: all forms, right. Well the first musically, do you have
Speaker 1: any because obviously you have to be anxious, did you
Speaker 1: have any problem fitting in with the band? Well, we
Speaker 1: had a phone conversation, and I don't really, I don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't consider myself cocky, so to speak. I was
Speaker 1: pretty shy, but I guess I was somewhat cocky on
Speaker 1: the phone. Uh. He said, I'm looking for a guitar player,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I don't really consider myself a
Speaker 1: country guitar player and I'm not really looking to be
Speaker 1: a country guitar player. Uh. And he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for a blues rock guitar player to add an
Speaker 1: edge to my music. And I said, well, if you're
Speaker 1: saying that I can play like myself, then I might
Speaker 1: be interested. But if you want me to play like
Speaker 1: somebody else, I'm not interested. And he he liked that,
Speaker 1: and he said, I think you're gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: This is this is co himself for your being. It
Speaker 1: was it was him himself who I had never met,
Speaker 1: knew nothing about and uh, so I flew to Baton Rouge.
Speaker 1: I took one guitar with me. The Airlines lost my guitar,
Speaker 1: and on the phone he had said, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know any your songs, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: come sit in the audience for two or three nights,
Speaker 1: or stand backstage and and listen to the show, and
Speaker 1: after a few nights you should be ready to play.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize that he was completely lying to me.
Speaker 1: He uh, I got there, they lost my guitar. I
Speaker 1: went to sound check and I was bitching and cussing,
Speaker 1: and he said, what's wrong? And I said, the Airlines
Speaker 1: lost my guitar. And he said, well that's okay. When
Speaker 1: we play tonight, you can play one of mine. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, what do you mean. I'm gonna sit
Speaker 1: and listen to the show for a few days. And
Speaker 1: he's like, oh no, not, I changed my mind. You're
Speaker 1: on tonight. And so I went on stage and played
Speaker 1: a bunch of songs I've never heard before. Uh and
Speaker 1: that was my audition. And were you replacing someone or
Speaker 1: adding flavor? I was unbeknownst to me, I was the
Speaker 1: only guitar player, the only guitar player. The other guitar
Speaker 1: player had quit and it was me or nobody. So
Speaker 1: that was the situation. But he didn't tell me that, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're on the road, uh, the sex, the drugs. Are
Speaker 1: you relatively innocent and all of a sudden there's craziness?
Speaker 1: What's going on there? Yeah? I mean you know, I
Speaker 1: knew some of that world from always being the youngest
Speaker 1: musician in every band I was ever in, uh. And
Speaker 1: that was the case throughout my life up up through
Speaker 1: joining the Allman Brothers, up until Mark and Jonas and
Speaker 1: o'teel and uh Derek Truck's joined the Allen Brothers. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, I was the youngest person in every
Speaker 1: band I was ever in. So I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of debauchery that I wasn't connected to because in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases it was a bit overwhelming, but it
Speaker 1: kind of went with the territory. But I've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like this. This was total mania, and I I
Speaker 1: probably wanted to bail from the very beginning, probably from
Speaker 1: the first week, if not the first day, but I
Speaker 1: didn't want to give up. I didn't wanna be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm quitting, you know, I had to give
Speaker 1: it a shot. And of course there were a lot
Speaker 1: of upsides to it, you know. It was it was
Speaker 1: uh being thrust into a world where I could make
Speaker 1: records for the first time, travel all over the country,
Speaker 1: go to Europe, all these things that I wanted to do. Um,
Speaker 1: So it was a complete change for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And are you a relative straight arrow or you the
Speaker 1: type who likes to drink and drug at least some
Speaker 1: point in your life. I think I'm pretty uh pretty
Speaker 1: straight arrow as as relatively speaking. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: alcohol free for thirty seven years or something like that.
Speaker 1: And it's not because it was ever a problem with me. Uh,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't my choice and it wasn't something I
Speaker 1: was really that interested in. And how about drugs? Dabbled
Speaker 1: but very little, you know, uh a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of smoking pot, okay. And then you have to
Speaker 1: hit the last part of the trifecta. What about sex? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, less than average, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: it was there was some enticement early on when you
Speaker 1: have no ties and connections to anything, but it just
Speaker 1: never was my thing. So how long do you played
Speaker 1: with Cole three years, three and a half years. And
Speaker 1: how did that end? Um? I left his band in
Speaker 1: January of eighty four, and about six months later he
Speaker 1: called called me. He we had not spoken for a
Speaker 1: long time or I quit and and he called me
Speaker 1: and said, hey, I'm making a new record. Do you
Speaker 1: want to come play on it? And I said yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: And he said he won't come back on the road,
Speaker 1: and I said no. And so then for the next
Speaker 1: two or three records he would call me and asked
Speaker 1: me to come in, but not for the whole record.
Speaker 1: He was just asked me to play on two or
Speaker 1: three songs, as opposed to in prior when I played
Speaker 1: on the entire thing. So you quit? What was the plan? Uh? Two?
Speaker 1: Go to Nashville pursue a career as a studio musician. Um.
Speaker 1: It was the closest town to Asheville that had a
Speaker 1: music scene and in five hours I could be home
Speaker 1: in a car, So that part of it was was
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Uh. I didn't know much about the
Speaker 1: whole studio world, and when I started trying to thrust
Speaker 1: myself in to it, there was a lot of learning.
Speaker 1: But luckily I had learned a lot from being able
Speaker 1: to play on on COEs records because he used all
Speaker 1: studio musicians other than myself, and and for a while
Speaker 1: UH Pedal Steel Player also played on the records, but
Speaker 1: then he quit the situation as well. So I was
Speaker 1: learning from all these A team studio pros that were
Speaker 1: the best in the business, a lot of which had
Speaker 1: moved there from Memphis and had played on you know,
Speaker 1: all these great Memphis records and UH and some that
Speaker 1: had moved from l A, but a lot of local
Speaker 1: Nashville guys, and they were all just amazing at what
Speaker 1: they did. But it was another world from what I did,
Speaker 1: and so it was it was a lot to digest
Speaker 1: and a lot to learn. As I started getting better
Speaker 1: at it, and as I started getting more and more
Speaker 1: UH demand or or more and more work offers, I
Speaker 1: started realizing it's not really what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I thought it was, but there wasn't enough being yourself,
Speaker 1: you know. It was too much of a chameleon type experience.
Speaker 1: You had to be what they wanted you to be
Speaker 1: at pretty much every moment, and I couldn't really deal
Speaker 1: with that. So what was the next step? UH? I
Speaker 1: started thanks to this girl named Kim Morrison, who was
Speaker 1: one of the people in Nashville that put together background
Speaker 1: vocal groups. She called me one day and said, what
Speaker 1: do you think about being part of some background vocal sessions?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you'd have to show me the ropes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, sure, and so she did, and the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I was spending more time in the studio singing,
Speaker 1: singing background on other people's records and not playing guitar.
Speaker 1: And uh. I did that for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and I would talk to the producers and about, hey,
Speaker 1: had you know I also played guitar, And the Nashville
Speaker 1: mentality is, oh no, we got plenty of guitar players.
Speaker 1: You know, you're a singer. And so it was good
Speaker 1: for me in the way that I really learned a
Speaker 1: lot about singing, harmony and adapting to any situation like that.
Speaker 1: And it was great vocal stamina training because some days
Speaker 1: we'd sing for like ten hours. Um. And so I
Speaker 1: had met Dicky Betts along the way. I had met him,
Speaker 1: I think when I was twenty one, and had sat
Speaker 1: in with him when I was in Ko's band, and
Speaker 1: he had sat in with us, and we kind of
Speaker 1: had become friends, but we didn't see each other that often.
Speaker 1: And so one day Kim called me and said, I'm
Speaker 1: putting together a vocal group to sing background on Dicky
Speaker 1: Bets's record. Do you want to do it? And I'm
Speaker 1: like absolutely. So I walked in the studio and Dicky
Speaker 1: looked at me and and he was like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing here? And I was like, oh, here to
Speaker 1: sing harmony. He's like, oh, you got a guitar and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I didn't bring a guitar, and
Speaker 1: he just kind of laughed and said, well good, I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear you play anyway. And you know,
Speaker 1: so we're just like joking around, but it planted this
Speaker 1: seat in his head because one of the guys in
Speaker 1: his band, Marty Prevent, the bass player, had been kind
Speaker 1: of pushing Dicky to get me in his band. And
Speaker 1: so what I realized was they were making this kind
Speaker 1: of Nashville country record and it wasn't it wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: It was it was pretty stale and and like an
Speaker 1: attempt at being commercial but very generic. And I was
Speaker 1: happy to sing on it and reconnect with him. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then he called me out of the blue and said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: Uh I scrapped that record. Uh, he said it just
Speaker 1: wouldn't me. He said, uh, let's get together and write
Speaker 1: some songs and make a can roll record. And so
Speaker 1: we started writing and turned into his record pattern disruptive,
Speaker 1: and that turned into me joining the all my brothers. Okay.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of musicians, and it's frequently about relationships.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, so and so called, but they were
Speaker 1: big friends. Or as you say to the producer, hey,
Speaker 1: I also play the guitar. To what degree were you
Speaker 1: working at as far as selling yourself in greeting yourself
Speaker 1: in the scene in order or are you sitting at
Speaker 1: home waiting for the phone to ring. Well, I've never
Speaker 1: been a super aggressive person. But someone told me when
Speaker 1: I first came to Nashville that you have to take
Speaker 1: every gig that's offered to you, and you have to
Speaker 1: take every session that's offered to you, because the worst
Speaker 1: one is going to lead you to something better. And
Speaker 1: so I found that to be true. I would go
Speaker 1: do these terrible gigs, uh, and these horrible recording sessions,
Speaker 1: but I would meet somebody that called me three months
Speaker 1: later and said, hey, I got this session or this gig,
Speaker 1: do you want to do it. Um. So in that way,
Speaker 1: I was open to whatever would happen. Uh. The the
Speaker 1: final straw for doing those uh terrible gigs came for
Speaker 1: me when I got a call to do this, uh
Speaker 1: this gig in a club five sets a night dollars,
Speaker 1: so it's five dollars a set. And we were in
Speaker 1: the parking lot during one of the breaks and the
Speaker 1: club owner came up tapping his watch, like, you boys
Speaker 1: been on break too long? And I thought, no, I
Speaker 1: think I'm done with this. I don't care if this
Speaker 1: leads me to something else. I'm not doing this anymore.
Speaker 1: And so, uh, my roommate went down and played the
Speaker 1: gig the next night, and somebody fired a gun and
Speaker 1: in the club, and I was like, well, it looks
Speaker 1: like I got out just in time. But you know
Speaker 1: it was. I met a lot of great people through these,
Speaker 1: uh these situations that were far from my ideal. But
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the way it works. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna do that, you have to kind of open yourself
Speaker 1: up to everything. Eventually you meet more and more people
Speaker 1: that that can help. And and uh, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a guitar player in Nashville named Kenny Greenberg, and he
Speaker 1: you're gonna mention, Okay, Well, Kenny, Kenny and I became
Speaker 1: friends and he was kind of the own. He was
Speaker 1: the first call guitar player for uh blues and rock
Speaker 1: sessions and stuff in Nashville, which at that time there
Speaker 1: were not many Uh it was much more country dominated
Speaker 1: than even it is now. Um. But he and I
Speaker 1: became friends, and we did some gigs together and some
Speaker 1: sessions together. And he called me one day and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I get some overflows sometime times sessions that I can't do.
Speaker 1: Can I give them to you if if I can't
Speaker 1: do them? And I was like absolutely. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a really cool thing for him to do. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also recommended this gig that he couldn't do two
Speaker 1: weeks with the Nighthawks, the Blues Ban the Nighthawks, And
Speaker 1: I did that and it was a blast, and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Hall was singing and playing harmonica and saxophone, and Jimmy
Speaker 1: and I knew each other prior to that, but that's
Speaker 1: where we really became close. Uh. But those kind of
Speaker 1: relationships me and everything. Okay, you go to work with Dickey,
Speaker 1: what's the what are the details to being part of
Speaker 1: the reconstituted Almond Brothers. Well, first we wrote a bunch
Speaker 1: of songs and made his solo record. And during that
Speaker 1: whole time process, I had no clue that they were
Speaker 1: thinking of reforming the Alma Brothers. Every time it was
Speaker 1: ever brought up, it was met with a resound no,
Speaker 1: that's never gonna happen. They had vowed to never never reform,
Speaker 1: and as far as I knew, that was going to
Speaker 1: remain the case. So we did Dickie's record. I was
Speaker 1: in his band for about two and a half years,
Speaker 1: and then after his record, we we did a tour
Speaker 1: promoting the record, and then there was a break and
Speaker 1: I at that time I had gotten my first offered
Speaker 1: to sign a record deal with my own as a
Speaker 1: solo artist. So in my mind, that's what I was
Speaker 1: gonna do. Okay, well it's slow down. How did that
Speaker 1: come about? Well, uh, it actually had been brewing for
Speaker 1: a while. I had made up my mind I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a session musician. I either want to
Speaker 1: be in a band where I'm the singer or one
Speaker 1: of the singers, or I want to be a solo artist.
Speaker 1: But I can't do this anymore. And so I I
Speaker 1: hired a manager, this guy named Doc Fields who was
Speaker 1: passed away years ago. He was my first manager, and
Speaker 1: he started sending recordings out and getting interest from some
Speaker 1: record companies and me as an artist. I think I
Speaker 1: was seven or twenty seven, and when Dickie called me,
Speaker 1: there was already some things in the works and I
Speaker 1: wasn't even sure I was gonna be able to juggle
Speaker 1: all of it, and the being a solo artist was
Speaker 1: was very important to me, and I was up front
Speaker 1: with him and said, hey, I'm a huge fan and
Speaker 1: I really really want to do this, but I'm also
Speaker 1: getting this other offer that's very important and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I can make it all happen. Uh. We did
Speaker 1: make it work out, and I kind of put my
Speaker 1: record on hold for a long time to do his
Speaker 1: record and then do the tour, and then when when
Speaker 1: that was over, I thought, Okay, now I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: focusing on making a solo record. And then they called
Speaker 1: me and said we're putting the all my brothers back
Speaker 1: together and we want you to join, which was a
Speaker 1: complete shock to me. I absolutely had no idea that
Speaker 1: it was coming, and I was like, ship, Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm gonna have to have to postpone my record
Speaker 1: again because there's no way I could turn that down.
Speaker 1: And what year is up? Nine? So eighty nine at
Speaker 1: the time they put together the Only Brothers. How many
Speaker 1: dates a year were they working then? Obviously we're just
Speaker 1: getting back together. Well, they they had released this Dreams
Speaker 1: box set for the twentieth anniversary, and uh, they wanted
Speaker 1: to do a tour in support of that. So it
Speaker 1: was a twentieth anniversary tour promoting the box set, and
Speaker 1: it was only intended to be a one time thing. Uh. Gullibly,
Speaker 1: maybe I believed that I was gonna go do this
Speaker 1: tour and go back to to my life. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that they would, based on the success and
Speaker 1: the chemistry and the fact that everybody was getting along,
Speaker 1: that they would say, oh, let's do it again next year,
Speaker 1: and the next year and the next year. It was
Speaker 1: a year by year thing, um, And I think it
Speaker 1: probably surprised everybody. From the beginning. The chemistry of that band,
Speaker 1: that incarnation of the band was was pretty uncanny. Right
Speaker 1: from the beginning, the original members were getting along again,
Speaker 1: everybody was playing great, The new members were fitting in well,
Speaker 1: and it was just coming together in a way that
Speaker 1: exceeded everybody's expectations. And I think the smartest thing that
Speaker 1: the band did was go back to the early stuff,
Speaker 1: the Duyne, Almond, Barry Oakley era stuff, and pattern everything
Speaker 1: around that. Not worried so much about having to touch
Speaker 1: on every era of the band. They weren't so happy
Speaker 1: with the last few records they had made, so there
Speaker 1: was an instant decision to divorce themselves from that part
Speaker 1: of their career and try to get back to the
Speaker 1: original sound. I think they realized because Dicky and I
Speaker 1: had several conversations that even though they felt like they
Speaker 1: had backed out of the music business because they weren't welcome, uh,
Speaker 1: they weren't really fitting into the current eighties situation about
Speaker 1: by the late eighties, Stevie Ray Vaughan was doing great,
Speaker 1: The Grateful Dead were still doing great, Robert Cray and
Speaker 1: I remember Dickie saying somewhere in between all that stuff
Speaker 1: as us, so maybe maybe it is time for us
Speaker 1: to come back. And so that's what happened. Okay, how
Speaker 1: much of your year was working on the Almond Brothers
Speaker 1: and what do you do with the rest of the
Speaker 1: time less than half we uh, we had more than
Speaker 1: six months to ourselves. So I was, you know, recording demos,
Speaker 1: writing songs, playing gigs, uh, playing my music, and pursuing
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. And and it was nice that
Speaker 1: I had that much free time around the all my
Speaker 1: Brothers schedule. Um, but the whole time thinking well, I
Speaker 1: need to get in the studio because years were going
Speaker 1: by without me making my first record. You know. I
Speaker 1: recorded my first record in two that I had been
Speaker 1: working on in my head since seven. Okay, you joined
Speaker 1: the Allman Brothers. Do they treat you right? Are you
Speaker 1: a member of the band? Uh? Not a member from
Speaker 1: a business standpoint, you know. Um, but I think a
Speaker 1: really smart decision on their part, which I would assume
Speaker 1: that they really had to look at it this way
Speaker 1: because of the music and the the legacy of that band.
Speaker 1: It wasn't debt on stage as like the original members
Speaker 1: and the new guys or the sidemen. It was it
Speaker 1: was a band. Everybody was meant to contribute and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of bands that reformed, you would
Speaker 1: have the original members visually would be the band and
Speaker 1: everybody else would be like the hired guns, but that
Speaker 1: that was never meant to be what the Allman Brothers was.
Speaker 1: So from the very very beginning, the latitude that they
Speaker 1: gave us all was tremendous, you know, input, plenty of
Speaker 1: space to play and that way, I felt extremely included.
Speaker 1: And and and I was writing songs, co writing with Dickie.
Speaker 1: They were, Uh. I sang a song on the first record.
Speaker 1: I sang a song on the second record. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there was like the third record, and I felt like
Speaker 1: in the situation I was in, they were they were
Speaker 1: really respectful of of my situation. So then Dicky gets
Speaker 1: kicked out of the band. Give us your take on that.
Speaker 1: I know it's dicey, but yeah, that was Uh, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of water under the bridge. But between
Speaker 1: eighty nine and that, when uh, when we when Government
Speaker 1: Mule formed in late nine, Woody and I had no
Speaker 1: um thoughts of leaving the Allman Brothers so to speak.
Speaker 1: We were just doing a side project. But at that
Speaker 1: time the Allman Brothers, the the original members, were not
Speaker 1: getting along so well, and there was there was no writing,
Speaker 1: no rehearsing, no recording, no communicating for that matter. And
Speaker 1: so in Government Mule, all those things were flourishing, and
Speaker 1: so it was the balance was shifting. So eventually, uh,
Speaker 1: we felt like we needed to leave the Allman Brothers
Speaker 1: in order to be taken seriously as government mule, because
Speaker 1: it was turning into something more than a side project.
Speaker 1: So in seven, Woody and I left the Alma Brothers
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until I guess ninety nine that they
Speaker 1: kicked Dickie out, which so I wasn't around for that. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a really touchy subject for for everybody,
Speaker 1: but for myself, Dicky is the one that gave me
Speaker 1: the opportunity. He's the one that brought me into the band.
Speaker 1: He brought me into his band. He brought me into
Speaker 1: the Alma Brothers. He insisted that I be a big
Speaker 1: part of the writing process and the creative process and
Speaker 1: and and you know, I feel like I owe him
Speaker 1: a huge part of my career. And when was the
Speaker 1: last time you talked to him? Uh? Last time I
Speaker 1: talked to him was when he played peach Fest um
Speaker 1: and we spoke briefly, but I listened to his his set,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's been about a year ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, forgetting all the things that were said. One
Speaker 1: of the discussions is that he was bipolar and would
Speaker 1: sort of leave the boat for a while. Did you
Speaker 1: experience that in your time with him? Well, suffice to
Speaker 1: say the Allman Brothers was plagued with plenty of issues
Speaker 1: along those lines. It's not really my place to examine
Speaker 1: or report on on that. I knew the history of
Speaker 1: the band before I joined, and you know, it extended
Speaker 1: far beyond uh in any problems Dickie might have you know, um.
Speaker 1: But there was a lot of drama for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a time period when Greg and
Speaker 1: Dicky couldn't or wouldn't communicate, and so Dicky would come
Speaker 1: to me and say, hey, warn't I can't talk to Greg.
Speaker 1: Will you talk to him about this? And then Greg
Speaker 1: would come to me and say, man, I can't talk
Speaker 1: to Dicky, will you talk to him about this? And
Speaker 1: I was literally pushed me pull you in the middle
Speaker 1: and trying to to kind of be Switzerland and and
Speaker 1: not take sides, but and trying to just speak my mind,
Speaker 1: but also to stay out of age old family feuds
Speaker 1: that have been there for a long long time. So Yes,
Speaker 1: Government Mule started as a side project two questions, why
Speaker 1: is a government mule and why is government spelled g
Speaker 1: O v apostrophe t all right, So this story is
Speaker 1: a little less politically correct as time goes on. But Uh,
Speaker 1: we were looking for a name for our band and
Speaker 1: the only thing we had thought of was drag Strip Courage,
Speaker 1: which was from a Tom Waite song, and we didn't
Speaker 1: like it, but it was the best thing we had
Speaker 1: thought of, and we're all big Tom Waits fans. So
Speaker 1: the All My Brothers were headlining one night of Memphis
Speaker 1: and May, which is the Bell Street Festival in Memphis,
Speaker 1: and we were headlining one night and James Brown was
Speaker 1: headlining the next night. So the All Brothers entouries left
Speaker 1: after the show and traveled from Memphis to Atlanta. Woody
Speaker 1: Allen Woody, the bass player who was in Government Bullen
Speaker 1: and in Uh, the All My Brothers and Jamo, one
Speaker 1: of the two original drummers, and the Allma Brothers stayed
Speaker 1: behind to see James Brown. And there was a part
Speaker 1: of the show where James was waltzing with his what
Speaker 1: they determined later to be his wife, and Uh, Jamo
Speaker 1: was referring to her anatomy and he pointed and said
Speaker 1: to Woody, is that James his wife? And what he said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, and he said ship, government, mule and
Speaker 1: he was referring to the size of her ass. Unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to either of us in Gulfport, Mississippi, which is where
Speaker 1: Jamo was from, that was a term. And so what
Speaker 1: he called me and said, I think I have the
Speaker 1: name for her. So we're named after James Brown's wife's
Speaker 1: big ass. And why the apostrophe? Why not the full stop? Um?
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, when you rubber stamp government
Speaker 1: owned some crate somewhere. You know, I'm not sure why
Speaker 1: we chose that. You know, names are are funny, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know any band name that would would be
Speaker 1: good if the band wasn't good. But uh, it haunted
Speaker 1: us in some ways because when we would go overseas,
Speaker 1: they would say, so, what does it mean, goof to move?
Speaker 1: What gov to move? What does it mean? Oh well,
Speaker 1: g O V apostrophe team means government and mule. We
Speaker 1: were referring referring to the forty acres in the mule
Speaker 1: and that whole thing, you know. And there was a
Speaker 1: song on the first record that talked about that. But
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. It went completely over people's heads. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we didn't talk about where the name came from
Speaker 1: for a long time because James's wife passed away and
Speaker 1: it it seemed inappropriate to talk about even under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: Probably um. But then a few years ago Matt App's
Speaker 1: our drummer uh spilled the being. So we used to
Speaker 1: always just say, oh, whatever, whatever you think it means,
Speaker 1: that's what it means. You. Okay, So you start this
Speaker 1: side project, you're done with the Allman Brothers discovernment mule?
Speaker 1: Are you essentially starting over? Enough people know you that
Speaker 1: it's happening. To what degree is the success? Is there
Speaker 1: a success in your eyes at the beginning? Well, I
Speaker 1: think more so than we expected, more recognition than we
Speaker 1: expected to happen so soon, because our first record was
Speaker 1: meant to be a side project. It was meant to
Speaker 1: be a really low budget, experimental, improvisation oriented type record
Speaker 1: in the beginning, even more so than it wound up being.
Speaker 1: By the time we actually got a record deal and
Speaker 1: a producer in a studio and all that stuff, I'd
Speaker 1: written more and more songs, so it became more of
Speaker 1: a song oriented record. But in the beginning, I wanted
Speaker 1: it to be very uh, the psychedelic and and and
Speaker 1: low pressure, you know. Uh. I've been listening a lot
Speaker 1: to this record by Pat Matheny and Roy Haines and
Speaker 1: Dave Holland called Question Answer, and I read in the
Speaker 1: liner notes that they went into the studio, played a
Speaker 1: bunch of songs one time, never played a second take,
Speaker 1: never listened back to anything, and then he went back
Speaker 1: into the studio a couple of weeks later and with yes, yes, no,
Speaker 1: yes no. And that's the way that they made that record.
Speaker 1: And so that was kind of what I thought we
Speaker 1: should do for the first Government Mule record. Uh. By
Speaker 1: the time all the red tape had been dealt with,
Speaker 1: it was turning into something more than that. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad because uh I liked the more song orient to
Speaker 1: uh uh aspect of it. You know. But in the beginning,
Speaker 1: we're just doing something for fun. We had no aspirations
Speaker 1: on leaving the Alma Brothers, are doing a second record
Speaker 1: or doing a second tour. We're just doing something for
Speaker 1: the fun of it. The way it came about was
Speaker 1: myself and Alan Woodie and Greg Alman used to share
Speaker 1: a tour bus, and we listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: music on the bus, as opposed to the other band
Speaker 1: bus where nobody listened to music. And we Uh, one
Speaker 1: day we were listening to Cream or Hendrix or something
Speaker 1: and what he commented, you know, nobody does this anymore,
Speaker 1: the whole power trio improvisational trio, rock trio thing. Nobody's
Speaker 1: done that. And I was like, yeah, you're right, and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, with the right drummer, you and
Speaker 1: I could do that, and I thought of Matt Apps
Speaker 1: and so that's where the idea was born. Um, but
Speaker 1: again just something for fun with very little ambition. As
Speaker 1: it changed into something else, then our priorities changed. Okay,
Speaker 1: but if that you ultimately say, we're not working with
Speaker 1: the Allman Brothers were working with Government Mule, correct, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So how did they pull you back in? Everything was
Speaker 1: for Government Mule was was really going great and uh
Speaker 1: from a creative standpoint, From a business standpoint, we had
Speaker 1: made three records, the band was progressing musically all the time,
Speaker 1: and then Alan Woody uh passed away unexpectedly in two thousand.
Speaker 1: So at that point I felt like Government Mule was finished,
Speaker 1: that we were done, and it took me a long
Speaker 1: time to wrap my head around even the concept of
Speaker 1: trying to replace him and trying to continue on. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's hard enough to replace any founding member, but in
Speaker 1: a trio, I think it's even harder because in a trio,
Speaker 1: each person as kind of depending on their personality to
Speaker 1: be a third of the music. You know, when you
Speaker 1: look at Cream and and the Hendrix experience, and even
Speaker 1: bands like led Zeppelin and Free that we're a trio
Speaker 1: plus a singer or The Who or Mountain Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: all these bands the bass player and the drummer were
Speaker 1: having just by the nature of it to uh have
Speaker 1: a much more aggressive role, which implied the need for
Speaker 1: a lot of personality to come from those characters, you know,
Speaker 1: and Alan Woodie was absolutely the perfect character for that.
Speaker 1: That's why we we started the band in the first place.
Speaker 1: So I was ready to two in Government Mule. The
Speaker 1: first two phone calls I got were from Phil Lesh
Speaker 1: who said, Man, I feel so bad. I I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to lose someone that you have a
Speaker 1: profound musical relationship with and and that was a very
Speaker 1: heartfelt call. And the second call was from Greg who
Speaker 1: uh he and Woody were very close and they were
Speaker 1: they were they would ride motorcycles together. They uh, you know,
Speaker 1: our bus was there was a lot of camaraderie on
Speaker 1: our bus. And he was feeling the loss in a
Speaker 1: very similar way to mind. But he understood, uh, my loss,
Speaker 1: and and he said, how are you doing? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still having these dreams like where he's
Speaker 1: in the dream. And just before he even thought about it,
Speaker 1: he said, oh, You're always gonna have those, and I
Speaker 1: was like wow. Until that moment, I didn't understand that
Speaker 1: he had those all the time, you know, But not
Speaker 1: during that phone call. But in one of the later
Speaker 1: phone calls, he said, sure, love be have you back
Speaker 1: in the Albam Brothers And so I thought, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I should give it a try, you know. So we
Speaker 1: we agreed to book the Beacon Theater for a ran
Speaker 1: and they we're gonna call it the alban Brothers with
Speaker 1: special guest Warren Haynes. So if it didn't work out,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't look like I had rejoined and then quit.
Speaker 1: So we did that, and the chemistry from the beginning,
Speaker 1: everybody sounded great. Everybody was in great spirits and at
Speaker 1: that time, I was thinking I can't really continue with
Speaker 1: Government Mule, and so I found myself back in the
Speaker 1: Albam Brothers. Uh and and I'm really glad that that happened. Uh.
Speaker 1: Keeping Government Mule together was a whole another thing. We
Speaker 1: came up with this idea which was born out of
Speaker 1: this dinner that we had. We had dinner with myself,
Speaker 1: my wife, Matt Apps, Alan Woody's wife, and Michael Barbierro
Speaker 1: are producer, and somebody said, well, if you were going
Speaker 1: to make a record, who would you want to play bass?
Speaker 1: And I said Jack Bruce, no, seriously, John Entwistle, no, seriously,
Speaker 1: Chris Squire no. And then we thought, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we ask each of these guys to play one song?
Speaker 1: And so that's how the whole deep End concept came about.
Speaker 1: We thought, let's go to all Alan wood He's favorite
Speaker 1: bass players and which are mostly our favorite bass players too,
Speaker 1: and ask them all if they'll be involved in this record,
Speaker 1: you know. So we spent this therapeutic time in the
Speaker 1: studio every day, a new favorite legendary bass player standing
Speaker 1: where Alan would he used to stand. And that's the
Speaker 1: way that we forced ourselves to kind of get back
Speaker 1: in the game. It was. It was cathartic, It was
Speaker 1: bitter sweet because there were these moments of absolute joy
Speaker 1: mixed in with all the pain and and more than anything, uh,
Speaker 1: it was an opportunity to reinvent ourselves because I started thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got to write a song for for Bootsty Collins.
Speaker 1: I've got to write a song, uh, for for Jack Bruce,
Speaker 1: I gotta write a song for for Larry Graham. You
Speaker 1: know all these things that I didn't just want to
Speaker 1: have people come in and play on any government Mule song.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to play on a song that they
Speaker 1: could insert their personalities into. And so by doing that,
Speaker 1: we were able to kind of expand the the sound
Speaker 1: of government Mule and the concept of government Mule to
Speaker 1: include all these other influences that we all had anyway,
Speaker 1: but had never been part of our band before. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have that track, that train running down the track,
Speaker 1: you have the Allman Brothers. The Allman Brothers turned the
Speaker 1: Beacon into quite a month there in March in New
Speaker 1: York City. At what point do you say just staying
Speaker 1: on the Allman Brothers tip at one point to say
Speaker 1: I can't do this I have to do my own thing.
Speaker 1: Um you mean at the at the very end, at
Speaker 1: the very end. Well, I'm glad you you asked me that,
Speaker 1: because that's not really what happened that. Um. That story
Speaker 1: was so misconstrued in the in the press. Um. The
Speaker 1: I've told the story and before, and Derek's told it before,
Speaker 1: but it seems to be Uh. I guess it's hard
Speaker 1: to get it to cut through all all the noise.
Speaker 1: But the entire band had been talking about picking an
Speaker 1: end date when we were not gonna do this forever. Uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of the original members felt like at some point,
Speaker 1: and and the new members as well, we all felt
Speaker 1: like the All My Brothers isn't a band that can
Speaker 1: just go play the hits and go through the motions. Uh,
Speaker 1: play the same songs every night the same way. The
Speaker 1: band has never been about that. It's always been an
Speaker 1: improvisational band that gives a ten percent and leaves everything
Speaker 1: on the stage every night and in in the event
Speaker 1: that we can't do that anymore, rather than go out
Speaker 1: there and watch it deteriorate and get worse and worse
Speaker 1: year after year, then let's let's be aware of it
Speaker 1: and pick out pick a time when we're gonna do
Speaker 1: the last tour, the last show, uh, and everybody was
Speaker 1: on board with that. With that concept, we were gonna
Speaker 1: do the final show at Madison Square Garden, and I
Speaker 1: think initially it was gonna be on Dwayne Alman's birthday.
Speaker 1: And and you know, we had made all these plans together,
Speaker 1: the entire band. Um As the end date got closer
Speaker 1: and closer, some people started getting cold feet and saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't think I want to
Speaker 1: go through with this. I'm you know, I think we
Speaker 1: would like to keep it going. And it was only
Speaker 1: you know, one or two people that felt that way.
Speaker 1: Everybody else was pretty uh committed to stay in with
Speaker 1: the original concept. But when we would get together and
Speaker 1: have these meetings about what about keeping it going longer
Speaker 1: with Derek Trucks and myself had made plans we had
Speaker 1: we had booked ourselves far beyond that concept, and it
Speaker 1: would mean completely disrupting everything that that that we had
Speaker 1: on the books and and going against everything that we
Speaker 1: were doing. And and we all for the most part
Speaker 1: still agreed that it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: Um So, Butch had gone on this cruise and said
Speaker 1: to a panel that, uh, the Allman Brothers was going
Speaker 1: to continue and but that that Derek was no longer
Speaker 1: going to be part of it, or something to that effect.
Speaker 1: And he didn't realize that there was a rowing Stone
Speaker 1: writer on the cruise that was was part of that.
Speaker 1: And so as soon as they docked, the guy called
Speaker 1: Burt Holme and the Allman Brothers manager and said, what's
Speaker 1: going on? Bert called Derek. Derek called me, and uh,
Speaker 1: We're like, well, you know we're on the same page,
Speaker 1: aren't we. Aren't we continuing with this plan? And so uh,
Speaker 1: Derek said, well, I think I think I should just
Speaker 1: put out a press release saying that I'm leaving the
Speaker 1: band because I can't do this. I have all this
Speaker 1: other stuff committed to that I'm not willing to to change.
Speaker 1: And I'm not speaking for Derek, but this is this
Speaker 1: is the way it went down. And he and I
Speaker 1: had kind of always made a pact um if you go,
Speaker 1: I go. We had always felt that way that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be in the band without him, he
Speaker 1: didn't want to be in the band without me, and
Speaker 1: I think most of us kind of felt like this
Speaker 1: is the last version of the Alma brothers, we should
Speaker 1: we shouldn't water it down and take a chance on
Speaker 1: deteriorating it by creating yet another incarnation this far down
Speaker 1: the line. And so he said, well, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's what we should do it. I said, well, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna do that, then let's do it together. Let's
Speaker 1: just put out a dual press release saying that this
Speaker 1: is what's happening. And it was. It was really unfortunate
Speaker 1: because we tried to take an advantage of the opportunity
Speaker 1: to tell people in the media that that's what was happening.
Speaker 1: But it was very awkward and uncomfortable. Uh So I
Speaker 1: never did feel like uh I was leaving the band,
Speaker 1: and and I and Derek never did either. It was
Speaker 1: we were just going through with the plan that we
Speaker 1: had had for several years. Okay, how did you end
Speaker 1: up playing with the Dead Dead? And Phil Lesh? Uh?
Speaker 1: Phil Lesh called me in the late nineties and said
Speaker 1: that he had put together a list of musicians that
Speaker 1: he wanted to work with and that I was on
Speaker 1: that list, and was I interested in coming to California
Speaker 1: for a few days rehearsal and do a couple of
Speaker 1: shows and see what happened, and I said, absolutely, so
Speaker 1: I flew to to California. We rehearsed for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, we did, uh did two shows, and it
Speaker 1: was a blast. I really enjoyed it, and that was
Speaker 1: the beginning of very uh long running, beautiful relationship. Um.
Speaker 1: It turned into me eventually being asked to tour with
Speaker 1: the Dead in two thousand three and in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and I really loved that experience. You know, I love
Speaker 1: all those guys. I'm really honored to be part of that,
Speaker 1: that family and that and part of that, uh, that
Speaker 1: musical family. I guess it's unfortunate that, uh, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of tension among the original members during the tours,
Speaker 1: that there was a chance it was gonna go longer,
Speaker 1: and probably could have and maybe should have, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't meant to be. And having dealt with the Allman
Speaker 1: brothers in a similar fashion, I respect that. You know,
Speaker 1: when things are not jail ling on the road, these
Speaker 1: bands have histories that predate everything, and so you know,
Speaker 1: whenever there's tension and drama, it usually has something to
Speaker 1: do with something that happened a long long time ago. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: needless to see the Allman Brothers are history, and phil
Speaker 1: Lesh does not go on tour. Where does this leave
Speaker 1: Warren Haines? Um. You know those years that I did that,
Speaker 1: I juggled so much, so many balls, Like there was
Speaker 1: one year I did the Allman Brothers and Mule and
Speaker 1: the Dad and I didn't think it was possible. I
Speaker 1: went to my wife and said, you know, I have
Speaker 1: this this situation and it's being offered to me. I
Speaker 1: don't see any way of making it work. And she
Speaker 1: was like, slow down, do you want to look back
Speaker 1: and think I had this opportunity? But I said no,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, maybe not. So we did
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of communicating, a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of behind the scenes with all
Speaker 1: the camps working together to make things work out in
Speaker 1: a way that wasn't ideal for any of the situations
Speaker 1: but worked for everybody. Um. So when that load was
Speaker 1: removed and it made things a bit more normal for me,
Speaker 1: you know, I really embraced and enjoyed at the time
Speaker 1: working to the extent that I was. I love that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing I love more than playing music,
Speaker 1: and I look at it like an athlete, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're on top of your game and and there's
Speaker 1: a demand, and you've got a great team or two
Speaker 1: great teams or three great teams that you're lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be part of, then yeah, let's make hay when
Speaker 1: the sun shine and uh. You know, I really felt
Speaker 1: wonderful about all that stuff. But then when it was
Speaker 1: finally over, I'm like, oh, it is kind of nice
Speaker 1: to be home for a minute. You know. Um these days,
Speaker 1: you know, prior to the coronavirus, which leads us back
Speaker 1: to where we were, I worked pretty much the amount
Speaker 1: of time that I feel comfortable with and and you
Speaker 1: know if I if I work less, I start to
Speaker 1: get a little antsy uh, And I don't need to
Speaker 1: to work more than I have been. It's it's been
Speaker 1: a pretty rigorous schedule, which which I enjoy. But you know,
Speaker 1: another another way I would compare it to being an
Speaker 1: athlete is like, you know, I'm I'm sixty years old.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy that I've had the career that I've
Speaker 1: had and had the opportunities that I've had, and I
Speaker 1: want to be like John Lee Hooker playing when I'm eighty.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there are windows that we're
Speaker 1: confronted with you know, there, you're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to do what you do in the prime of
Speaker 1: your life for every year of your life. And so
Speaker 1: I've always felt like things kind of dwin to let
Speaker 1: their own pace, and um, whatever slowing down occurs, it
Speaker 1: occurs because it needs to and it's the right thing.
Speaker 1: And uh, I feel it's very organic, you know. So
Speaker 1: do the hundred hundred twenty dates a year, you do? Now,
Speaker 1: how many of those are Government Mule and one are
Speaker 1: the other ones mostly mule? You know. I do a
Speaker 1: handful of solo acoustic shows. Uh, do a handful of
Speaker 1: shows with Phil lash and and uh a handful of
Speaker 1: other things where something really interesting will come along. You know.
Speaker 1: I did the last Waltz tour, which was a bl
Speaker 1: asked um. But Government Mule is the main priority, and
Speaker 1: and any work as a solo artist beyond that, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to making another solo record, but
Speaker 1: I'm also looking forward to making another Mule record. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I'm so lucky as a songwriter.
Speaker 1: I'm lucky in every aspect of my career. I'm just
Speaker 1: really grateful for the opportunities that I've had. Uh, it
Speaker 1: really kind of played out exactly like I hoped, in
Speaker 1: a way that one could never predict or expect. But
Speaker 1: I'm lucky in the way that I write all these songs.
Speaker 1: Some of them are not meant to be government mule songs.
Speaker 1: Some of them were not meant to be all them
Speaker 1: brothers songs. Some of them maybe we're not intended for
Speaker 1: for me. But the fact that I have all these
Speaker 1: different outlets and that you know, maybe somebody else will
Speaker 1: wind up recording it, or maybe I just wrote it
Speaker 1: for the gratification of of writing the song. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: when all those situations were happening, I would find myself
Speaker 1: writing for the sake of the song. And when the
Speaker 1: song was written, as we talked about earlier, then I
Speaker 1: would think, oh, is this a mule song? Could this
Speaker 1: be an Allam brother song? Is this something I would
Speaker 1: do on one of my solo records. But I never
Speaker 1: wanted to think about that during the writing process. I
Speaker 1: wanted to wait and back up away from it and
Speaker 1: figure it out after the fact. So at this point,
Speaker 1: and don't be humble, what is the dream? What is
Speaker 1: it that you want to achieve? Certainly you can play,
Speaker 1: But what is the goal now, whether you achieve it
Speaker 1: or not. Well, it probably sounds stupid to say, but
Speaker 1: I don't think I've made my best record, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I've written my best song. Think the goal
Speaker 1: for me is to keep going in a way that
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm breaking new ground because I've been
Speaker 1: really lucky to have that opportunity to keep not repeating myself.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, somebody asked me, like role models, not
Speaker 1: so much role models in a humanitarian way, but he
Speaker 1: role models in a in a career way, or a
Speaker 1: history way, or a music way. Miles Davis to me,
Speaker 1: the fact that he was constantly reinventing himself and by
Speaker 1: the time people got used to his new music, he
Speaker 1: was already thinking about something else that they weren't going
Speaker 1: to get used to for another couple of years. That's
Speaker 1: been such a wonderful example for all of us that
Speaker 1: I tend you know, I can only take a small
Speaker 1: amount of that advice for in the parameters that that
Speaker 1: I'm given, But I think of it like that. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to redo what I've already done,
Speaker 1: you know. And and as musicians, we don't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of choice in that matter, and I somehow
Speaker 1: have managed to have a little more choice than the
Speaker 1: average person, you know, to to make those decisions that
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna remake my first record and my second
Speaker 1: record and my third record. I'm gonna make something that's
Speaker 1: completely different and if people get it, great, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's something I need to do. Well. Just staying
Speaker 1: on that point, how lucrative is your career been? Uh,
Speaker 1: I have no complaints whatsoever, you know. I've been successful
Speaker 1: as a musician, as an artist, as a songwriter, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and lucky enough to have written songs for
Speaker 1: for people that uh, you know, like when I wrote
Speaker 1: Two of a Kind working on a Full House for
Speaker 1: Garth Brooks. Uh. When I co wrote that song, I
Speaker 1: had no idea that it was going to become such
Speaker 1: a huge number one song that would keep generating income
Speaker 1: for years to come. Um, and I'm I'm very thankful
Speaker 1: for that, you know, George Jones recording one of my songs,
Speaker 1: and he's one of my heroes, so that, even aside
Speaker 1: from the money part of it, I was just so
Speaker 1: honored to have people like George Jones and John may
Speaker 1: All that I grew up listening to recording my tunes.
Speaker 1: You know. It's uh, that's there's some gratification from that.
Speaker 1: That's that's beyond the business part of it. Okay, needless
Speaker 1: to say, well, you've been on this path. The whole
Speaker 1: business has changed, certainly the business element, but also the
Speaker 1: music element. Certainly you were there at the right time
Speaker 1: when jam band scene was very big early to mid nineties.
Speaker 1: There's certainly a scene at this point in time, but
Speaker 1: it is not the dominant popular music. You're essentially a
Speaker 1: rock artist. How do you feel about being rock artist
Speaker 1: in a world where all the hype and a great
Speaker 1: certainly percentage of the recording revenue goes to pop and
Speaker 1: hip hop. Well, you know, I have to look at
Speaker 1: it in a similar way to the way jazz artists
Speaker 1: have looked at their entire lives. You do what you
Speaker 1: do because you love it, and if there are times
Speaker 1: when it's in vogue, then that's great. And I've had
Speaker 1: more of those times than I could hope for. Um,
Speaker 1: But I've never felt like I could change what it
Speaker 1: is that I love because I feel like it's not
Speaker 1: mainstream or not enough people would support it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I remember maybe it was went and Marsava. Somebody said
Speaker 1: about Jazz that they asked him a similar question and
Speaker 1: he said, well, you have to realize that what we're
Speaker 1: doing is filet mean on a lot of people would
Speaker 1: prefer to eat to McDonald's. That's pretty definitive. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other thing, of course it's been changed, is that you say,
Speaker 1: you know the al the tour used to be the
Speaker 1: advertisement for the album. Now the albums the advertisement for
Speaker 1: the tour. How is the shift to touring? Let me
Speaker 1: put it in a different way. If you had to choose,
Speaker 1: or maybe with percentage, are you more about the live
Speaker 1: experience or more about the studio writing experience? Well, I
Speaker 1: can answer both of those. Um, if I had to choose,
Speaker 1: the live experience is more gratifying, you know because for me, uh, improvisation,
Speaker 1: which is just momentary composition, that's my most favorite thing
Speaker 1: as a musician. As a songwriter, it's a little different.
Speaker 1: As a singer, it's a little different, but performing is
Speaker 1: still always gonna win out for me. Um. The business
Speaker 1: part of it, you know, we were always one of
Speaker 1: those bands and the Allman Brothers, Government Mule, all the
Speaker 1: bands in that sort of scene. We're always one of
Speaker 1: those bands that touring generated the better income. So when
Speaker 1: that changed, it wasn't a huge change for us like
Speaker 1: it was for bands that were selling millions and millions
Speaker 1: of records. Um, so we were maybe ahead of it
Speaker 1: a little bit because that's what we had always done.
Speaker 1: It is a little tough when they start taking a
Speaker 1: zero away from all the budgets. And you know, it
Speaker 1: used to be if a band sold a million records,
Speaker 1: well now they're selling a hundred thousand. If they sold
Speaker 1: that a hundred thousand, and now they're selling ten thousand,
Speaker 1: so you know, and budgets are corresponding with that. You know. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the in the seventies, bands were making records, spending
Speaker 1: like half a million dollars on a record, and then
Speaker 1: you fast forward to now and you gotta make a
Speaker 1: record for twenty grand. Uh. It's it's challenging, and it
Speaker 1: means we're never gonna get Dark Side of the Moon
Speaker 1: or Stillly dan Asia or Fleetwood Mac rumors. We're never
Speaker 1: gonna get those records ever again unless something changes in
Speaker 1: a way that would allow that to present itself, you know,
Speaker 1: because bands don't have the opportunity, artists don't have the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Even if you have a home studio. A, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna be as good as the studios those records were
Speaker 1: made in. And B. You don't have a year and
Speaker 1: a half to make a record uh or six months
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know, some of those records took um.
Speaker 1: I love making records, but playing live is is definitely Uh, well,
Speaker 1: it's more fun because making records is tedious. Making records
Speaker 1: you is not. It's not so much the creative side
Speaker 1: of your brain at work all the time you're you're
Speaker 1: it's more work and less play. You know, when you're performing,
Speaker 1: the ultimate thing you can do is to shut your
Speaker 1: brain off and go on autopilot where you're not thinking
Speaker 1: at all. And that's something that you try to do
Speaker 1: in the studio, but it's not as achievable. So what
Speaker 1: is your favorite Allman Brothers song to play? Uh? Maybe Dreams.
Speaker 1: I really loved playing Dreams. Uh. A whip and post
Speaker 1: is great because you can take it anywhere you want
Speaker 1: to go. You know, sometimes we would stop in the
Speaker 1: middle and go off to a unchartered territory and nobody
Speaker 1: would even know how it was going to come back.
Speaker 1: And the same with songs like in Memory of Elizabeth Reid.
Speaker 1: But there's so many great songs in the catalog. Just
Speaker 1: playing the song itself sometimes is a joyous feeling as well,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But I love the ones that we
Speaker 1: can reinterpret on a given nine. So you know, you
Speaker 1: do a great version of Don Henley's Wasted Time. Are
Speaker 1: you someone who's very broad in your musical knowledge and
Speaker 1: musical taste? Uh? Because many people would pooh pooh that
Speaker 1: music relative to the Almond Brothers music. Uh. Yeah, My
Speaker 1: taste runs extremely wide. I love so many types of music,
Speaker 1: and I try not to be um, try not to
Speaker 1: be a snob about the actual music that I like
Speaker 1: on a song by song basis I can be a
Speaker 1: snob about Uh. Let's say it differently. I want to
Speaker 1: open myself to every genre and whatever the best is
Speaker 1: in that genre, I'm open to. Um. And for the
Speaker 1: most parts, I think that's that's true. You have to
Speaker 1: take it. Uh. If I hear music, either I get
Speaker 1: or you don't like it, you know. And I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not the dude from Big Lebowski that I hate the
Speaker 1: fucking Eagles Man that I'm not that, although I love
Speaker 1: the dude. Uh. And I know it's it's not uh,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not hip to say this, but nobody can
Speaker 1: deny a lot of the great songs that those guys
Speaker 1: are unbelievable. I'm a huge fan and I and and
Speaker 1: the poppy stuff is is incredible on its own merit.
Speaker 1: But then when you talk about songs like Wasted Time
Speaker 1: that wasn't written to be a pop song, it's just
Speaker 1: a great, well crafted song you can go on with
Speaker 1: your life, baby that I can go on with mine.
Speaker 1: Just for the first time, I heard that lyric whole
Speaker 1: and the other day I've thought about which I think
Speaker 1: I did solo acoustic once or twice? Uh, the song uh,
Speaker 1: the Last Resort, that's not meant to be a pop song.
Speaker 1: It's just a beautiful song, and nobody can deny that.
Speaker 1: To what to greedy to keep up on new music?
Speaker 1: I wish it was more And I'm sure some of
Speaker 1: it's my fault, but I blame a lot of it
Speaker 1: on the new music itself because it's really hard for
Speaker 1: me to connect to most of it. When I hear
Speaker 1: something that I like, I'm really grateful and and and
Speaker 1: uh and and I'll open to it, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it I think is just aspiring to the lowest
Speaker 1: common denominator, lowering the bar. Uh. People are selling out
Speaker 1: at every turn. The thought process from the very beginning
Speaker 1: is what can I do to get more likes or
Speaker 1: make more money, or get more attention, or sell more
Speaker 1: records or more streaming or more downloading or whatever. It
Speaker 1: should start with the music and all that should be secondary,
Speaker 1: you know. And and Uh, when you start compromising your
Speaker 1: music before you even make it, I think you're looking
Speaker 1: at it backwards. There are things. How did the fifty
Speaker 1: at the anniversary Almond Brothers gig come together got a
Speaker 1: rousing reception? Is that a one off? Do you think
Speaker 1: there'll be anything like that in the future. It came
Speaker 1: together because Jmo called all of us and said, we
Speaker 1: need to do a fiftieth anniversary show, and it it
Speaker 1: was the opportunity to do that show at Madison's Corpy
Speaker 1: Garden that we never did that We had talked about
Speaker 1: being the final show before. Uh. It's always been our
Speaker 1: intent for it to be a one off and and
Speaker 1: not not do it again. The odd thing is, after
Speaker 1: all this coronavirus and the new norm, I don't know
Speaker 1: a if it would even be possible to do it
Speaker 1: on the other side and be would we look at
Speaker 1: it differently, more favorably, less favorably. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: really know, but our intent was always too for that
Speaker 1: to be the finality and be done with it. Well,
Speaker 1: this has been wonderful Warren. We look forward to you
Speaker 1: being back on the boards and certainly your new recordings.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this my pleasure. Nice talking
Speaker 1: to you until next time. This is Bob left sus