Latest / The Other 22 Hours / Derek Trucks on collaborative marriage, mentorship, and the healing power of a soundcheck poodle.

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Derek Trucks on collaborative marriage, mentorship, and the healing power of a soundcheck poodle. · The Other 22 Hours

0:01
[SPEAKER_01]: My band, I think we were in a win-a-bago at that point sharing holiday in double beds.
0:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And the homic brothers were tour buses and trucks and like a nice marriot.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And the claps and was private plans between shows and Ritz Garleton.
0:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were all bouncing between all three within the same month.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And it hit me.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That shouldn't matter at all.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We often define artists by their output, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
0:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But the art is made in a quiet, the struggle and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
0:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm McKinna Ann.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Aaron Kray for his.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the other 22 hours.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: An exploration of the creative life, lived in the in-between.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're featuring our conversation with guitarist Derek Trucks, who at not yet even 50 years old can easily be called a legendary guitarist he has been named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 greatest guitar players of all time twice and has won multiple Grammys on top of his own band that he has with his wife Susan Tedeski, he has played with and I'm sorry I need to read this buddy guy Thunderhawk Bob Dylan Joe Walsh, Phil Lesh, Eric Clapton and was a member of the Almond Brothers band.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: He has played everywhere with everybody, and as you'll hear, he has lots of anecdotes of being on private plans in air-claptance band at the same time that he's on buses in the armored brothers at the same time that he's in a win-a-bego with his own band.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and this is such a joyful conversation.
1:45
[SPEAKER_03]: He has lived such an incredible wildlife that's still not even 50 years old.
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the reoccurring themes throughout is the grounding in the music, in mentorship, in family, in taking time away, and there's just so much to gain from this conversation.
2:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's Derek Trucks.
2:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So we always like to start with just how are you?
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you today and where are you physically and creatively?
2:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm home, which is really nice and rare.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And in our studio behind our house, and we're good.
2:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're kind of winding into the year.
2:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a really busy year.
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: All of them seem to be busy, but
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: This one may have a new album coming out in March, so this is the calm before the storm for us.
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think probably later this week we'll start getting into game shape and being in the shoes and we'll come out to the studio and try to remember all of our material and work up new tunes for the tour.
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're starting this year at the Beacon Theatre in New York, which is kind of home turf for us in some ways.
2:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I did 175 shows with the almond brothers there when I was in that band.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I think we're up to maybe 70 or 75 with this group.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's home turf, but it's also when you show up there, you kind of got to be the best that the band has played that year because everyone there knows you and they've seen all the different sides of it.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of, I feel like it's where we check in every year.
3:12
[SPEAKER_01]: If we've made progress or not, musically here is a one.
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's something we look forward to, but it's always a heavy lift.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You definitely leave New York after Tim shows a little bit run out, but it's a good run out.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this year we're doing it in March, which is what the almond brothers traditionally did.
3:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We kind of moved ours to, I think most of the to-deski trucks ban shows that the beacon have been September October, but we decided to kind of switch it back into the start of the year.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
3:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you're doing 10 shows in a row, how different is each night?
3:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And are you guys like conscious of, obviously you guys have die hard fans?
3:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Like some of the same people are coming every single night.
3:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And are you conscious of the pressure of like, oh, we want to make it feel new and different every night?
3:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And what does that feel like if that is there?
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, we see a lot of familiar faces, a lot of people will be there for if not the whole run for a big chunk of it.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually the first three or four nights, we won't repeat any tunes and we'll get through three or four before we have to kind of dig back into some of the originals that we want to play again.
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, we try to change it up.
4:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You try to have a curve ball or two every night.
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not fully in that realm of some of the, you know, grateful dad or some of those bands where it's, you won't repeat for the whole run.
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We're kind of somewhere in the middle, but we always have, wherever we get, we always have a rehearsal room set up backstage with small gear and we work the band as a 12-piece band.
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a lot of incredible musicians in the band really highly functional crazy people.
4:43
[SPEAKER_01]: All improvisers and they're most of them are band leaders in their own right and I found the best way to keep Everybody's head in the same direction as the kind of keep new material in front of everybody keep everybody interested So we do that every night.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We try to either you're working towards a song that you're going to add into this set or you're working up new stuff Also, it's a way to get everyone in the same room before they gig and kind of check in so we found that that's been really helpful on the road
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, with so many such a large band and, you know, so many independent characters like that that are band leaders and all that, how do you handle all the cooks in the kitchen?
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you keep it shepherd and sheep?
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it really communal?
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there some people that do guys or girls bring in arrangements on things?
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it kind of coming from you and Susan?
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: How does that all wear?
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's communal until it's not.
5:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still a decision as to be made.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So that everybody understands that.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a lot of times, it's kind of my natural function to band lead, but I mean, Susan's a band leader too, and into the day, if she doesn't want to sing something or do something a certain way, then that's the way it's going to be.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone understands those dynamics.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, we, we do tap into the, the band's creativity quite a bit.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if somebody has an idea and it's good,
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We use it and it flows to the top and when we record a right a lot of times it's kind of the core of the band down here instead of the full 12 is the rhythm section me and Sue and Mike Madison one of the principal songwriters and almost without fail the best ideas just kind of rise to the top and there's not a lot of pushing polls and
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rare that there's a few competing ideas that you really have to have a discussion about it.
6:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually everyone just feels it and knows, but I think that's the chemistry part of it.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we spend a long time finding the right people and some people have come and gone and some of that is instinct and some of it is just everybody has similar taste and so things kind of flow naturally.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I find with this band as 12 pieces, but you have the horn section as three people there.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of leave it to them to sort out their things unless you really have to get in and micromanage.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But usually there's the background vocalist, there's the horn section, there's the two drummers.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like a smaller band when you break it out like that.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not as crazy.
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is that crazy.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But it doesn't feel like that all the time.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, kind of give each section some autonomy in a way.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a lot of that.
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, the reason you hire people that are great at what they do is because you want to hear what they do and hear their ideas.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're really conscious of that.
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we're conscious of any given night who gets past the ball on the fly, you know, solos are not the same in the same spots all the time.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You can tell that somebody's feeling the spirit.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of lean on them a little bit more.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of the things that I think keeps this band interesting to us and our audience.
7:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So everybody is ready at any time to take the ball and run with it.
7:32
[SPEAKER_03]: You've been playing music professionally from a very young age.
7:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious what your insight is as someone who hasn't been playing professionally in my entire life, but went to conservatory and like the maturity that I've seen in myself and my peer group and in
7:50
[SPEAKER_03]: the generosity that develops, you know, maybe when you're younger and like people are trying to prove themselves, you might be like dealing with personalities and egos more of like, well, I wanted that solo, or I wanted them.
8:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
8:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think you observe as people grow and mature, there's hopefully more of a intention of serving the song in the group as a whole, rather than I wanted my idea in there, just so I could say that my idea, like,
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a huge part of the chemistry with, if you're going to have a 12-piece band, that has to be first and foremost for everybody, like you have to serve the tune, you have to serve the set, the record, whatever it is you're doing, and we're really lucky that way.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody is about the cause and holding the thing up, because yeah, you're right, not everyone thinks that way.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a big part of it, no doubt about it.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you mentioned something, you know, about hiring the right people, you know, that's something that it took me some years of producing a record till I realized it just how important casting is is getting the right people individually, but then also interpersonally and it's like, once you figure that out, 85% of your job is done.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a huge part of it.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You can let it sail and yeah, because sometimes one plus one can be like minus seven.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done all of those things, we've tried every combination, and sometimes it just kind of naturally settles in, but when we put this band together, we took some big swings at it.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted a band full of people that were as good or better than me and Sue at all times.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we've been pretty good at accomplishing that.
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've had some coffee barbids who was with me for close to 20, something years.
9:29
[SPEAKER_01]: He passed away, I think, seven or eight years ago now.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's one of the few geniuses I've ever been around and you want to surround yourself with people that you want to impress every night.
9:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, every night I was on stage with him for those 21 years.
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to play one thing that would make him like,
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But turn his head or just like anything that would make him perk up.
9:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, oh, yeah, tonight I did something and you're really not even worried about the audience at that point.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to let the people around you down.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's, that's a lot of the energy in our group and that's carried forward.
10:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
10:01
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you carry a new and Susan together being a team in life and professionally and creatively?
10:07
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you carry the like, I guess I would say the pressure or the responsibility of continuing a production as large as this, of all these other people that also are dependent on this work, have there been times that it's been more challenging than others or as it really felt like an organic
10:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not easy.
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when we took on this project, we did it.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was what I'd open, I think.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we, I had been in the Almond Brothers for close to 15 years.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I had had my solo band for a little bit longer than that.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was ready for a change.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I told Sue that I was going to start a new project.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If we were ever going to do something together, it felt like the time to do it.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had watched that mad dog in the Englishman film a few times and there was something about that traveling circus that was appealing and we talked about the fact that if we were ever going to do something like that, we were still young enough to have the energy to do it, but maybe wise enough to pull it off and still don't enough to pull it off.
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we, we went out of it, but we knew we would be difficult.
11:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when we were first talking about it management booking agent everybody was like, why would you do that triple the amount of salaries and play the same venues because it'll be great.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of challenges that go with it and then once it starts working, it's exciting and then you always want to build it, you know, you want the production to be better.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You want the the crew to have less work and wait on them.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole thing builds it goes from one bus.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and one truck to two buses with a trailer and a truck to three buses to whatever we are now.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a heavy lift, days off for expensive, time off as expensive.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things we've from the beginning we always thought was, all right, we're going to have this many people on the road.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How does everyone make a living wage?
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: How many shows is that a year?
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, well, there's a lot of shows a year or so.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where the stress comes in.
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Susan's seven or half years older than me, eight years older.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 46 now.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We're both at an age where I've been doing this since I was nine years old and it's like, I love touring.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I love being on the road, but being on the road 150 days a year is less and less appealing.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Trying to find a way to let people know far enough and ahead of time that we're not gonna work.
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That many shows next year, maybe there's ways to bridge the gap.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The time that it was hardest was the pandemic, when it was stuck at home.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have 20, something, 25 employees that we were able to keep somewhat paid to the whole thing, and there was just no gigs and no income, so that's,
12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when it got really stressful, where you're like, I don't know how long we can carry this without something given, but luckily just in time.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: In our fans helped out, there was GoFundMe's to help the crew we were doing shows from up at our farm, where we would film, and they were free shows where the people felt like helping out, they could do that.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And made the community that much tighter, you realize everybody really did appreciate what was going on.
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are times where you, I don't want to say you question it, but you question what's possible.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything has a breaking point.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We were getting close to finding it, but we came out of it.
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like we were shot out of a cannon when we came out of that, because everyone was so, it was just a different appreciation for being on the road, a different gratitude for touring, and people were less whiny about catering and things that,
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You can feel it from the audience, you can feel it from the crew, it was, you know, you try to remember those things now when the going gets tough.
13:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, remember what it cannot be, you know.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody felt that.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we remember people like BB King and Willie Nelson and people we've been on the road with and you realize that if those guys aren't whining about it,
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We have some heroes and friends that are mentors and some ways that they know and some ways they don't, some ways just from observing the way they go about their business.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the things you kind of lean into as well.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, just a quick pause from this conversation.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet on this conversation's matter.
14:21
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14:27
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14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a small action that we say massive difference for us.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
14:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get back to our conversation.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, you're touching on something that I was really looking forward to talking to you about just giving to how you erase, how you came up, how you started playing with literally everybody when you were so young.
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Child, you know, and there's idea of mentors and coming up like that.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just kind of want to hear your take on that, you know, like my kind of mentioned, we went to Jazz School.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of like,
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, learning from what has already been done, who has already been there a whole, you know, a deep tradition in such, but then how do you shift from being the student to the teacher or to just being independent, how do you move out from under that wing and what did that look like for you creatively.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a really gradual thing.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I started, it was here in Jacksonville, Florida.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad was a rougher at the time.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom worked teaching special needs, kids of elementary school.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to, I mean, we were, it was lower middle class lights would get cut on and off.
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was a, it was a grind.
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But my parents were in and around this music scene and they worked hard.
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They played hard.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a guitar to garage sale around nine years old, and I knew my dad had played a little bit.
15:47
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't playing at the time, but I bugged him until he showed me a few things, and then, you know, sometimes when you're that age you just take the things and you don't think about it.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It just happens or it doesn't.
15:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had a few...
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends, one, this guy Jim Graves that used to play with my uncle, the almond brother's drummer, but she had a band called Trucks back in the 80s, and Jim Graves was an incredible guitar player.
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I started taking lessons from him.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: The invited me into comes sitting at this local club called Apple Jax.
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I sold John Lee Hooker there, Coco Taylor, like it was an incredible place.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was nine I ran into Coco Taylor and those are those early memories where it's kind of larger than life And you're not sure why you're there, but it's you enjoy it I was around this scene of like old drizzled blues veterans and I started sitting with a band
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: called Ace Moreland, the West Side Story, Ace was from Miami, Oklahoma, and he was full blooded Cherokee, left handed guitar player, just incredible singer, and it was just these crazy old blues musicians from Jacksonville, and him, and I sort of traveling with him.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did the Toronto Jazz and Blues Festival, I think in 1989, I was nine years old.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: First time I was out of the city.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So it just kind of happened, and then on weekends I would travel and go sit in with his
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: one thing led to another and then words start spreading and then there's like this little circus freak child that plays music and it blows up and then you don't really know what to do with it but my parents were always good about letting me know that look if this is ever too much we can I was still playing little league baseball and other things it's like we just go back home there's no there's never any pressures
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't living out there, musical dreams through me.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They just realized that there was something happening that they should probably nurture and they enjoyed being around it.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was lucky that I had supportive parents.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was lucky that I had parents that weren't.
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't shield me too much, because there's a lot that goes on, especially then early 90s.
17:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a different world.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: People were all doggy.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: like people were bars that it was a different scene and I was arms a length from it, but you could see what was going down.
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So you would you would see people's habits and you would see the way it turned out.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd see kind of the whole arc.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So from nine to 14, 15, I was just kind of doing that thing in this weird blues scene and in the southeast.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we venture a little further.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But then along the way, you meet mentors, what we were talking about.
18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them was this guy named Colonel Bruce Hampton from Atlanta, Georgia.
18:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Dwayne Ammon got Colonel Bruce a record deal with Columbia, and Bruce was proud.
18:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the second lowest selling double album of all time behind the end of the record.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: the kind of person Bruce was.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the things that like really made him excited.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was maybe 12 or 13, I met Bruce and he was just that guy that he would drop the right book or the right record on you with the right time.
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: He would always like, are you ready?
18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know when they do drop a picture?
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: a love supreme or whatever it was.
18:42
[SPEAKER_01]: He really opened my head to a whole different world of music.
18:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you start finding like-minded people on the road and your tastes shift.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's when I met Kofi Barbig who was in our group forever and Yon Rico Scott, all these musicians that just became band members but mentors without a doubt.
18:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You learn a lot from them.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you just beat the pavement for a decade or two and you've
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, we were doing 300 shows a year in the van with the trailer and I didn't think twice about it.
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in my mid-late teens and it was just kind of to me it was the best education.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Every night you were experimenting musically you were trying new things in front of new people and we weren't worried about making a living.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean it was if you got enough fuel for the next gig and there were hotels and a food buyout you were pumped.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no thought of career or any of that stuff.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We had people around us helping us try to build something, but we were just out there fan in the flames where we could.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to say if I feel bad for up and coming musicians, but I don't know if that thing is available the same way as it was then.
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: There were a lot more independent venues and record stores, and it was a different scene.
19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were no cell phones, so you could experiment musically,
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: There were people that would follow you and they were tapers, but that's a much more organic slow process.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not seeing what you played last night in real time, which I'm glad because I'll probably would have stopped.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they're supposed to happen in the dark.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you were talking about like when there was a point, maybe mid 20s, maybe when I was pushing 30 years old, when you start hearing people play and you're like, wait, I think I think that's my riff or you're playing here, you started hearing your influence and I was always the youngest guy in the room until you're not and then that's a weird process when I realized I had guys in my band that were younger than me, like Saunders, Serb and
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, can you tell us more about that kind of identity shift like where you'd start seeing your influence, but then you also like I would assume that there was probably some imposter syndrome there you'd have to be super human to not feel like an imposter
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: for so long like it was I was doing my solo band thing and then I got a call to join the almond brothers at like 18 or 19 and that was probably the furthest I was in my head from that music that had ever been because that was first and biggest influence but then we were playing things that were it was almost all instrumental music for a while with my solo band and we were kind of pushing against that and that's of course that's when you get the call to like come back home so but I was able to keep both tracks going at the same time like one
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: then it just became more and then the Clapton thing came up and I don't know if there was any time to try to pull the lens back and assess what it meant or what it was you just doing it you know so and there was always something to learn and there was always something you were striving for you never felt like you had figured anything out any time I would hear a live version of something I was frustrated with the things I played or you know you're always pushing and you're always trying to sharpen the blade anyway you can
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm less annoyed by what I'm doing now, that was a nice revelation where I was like, oh, I can almost listen to that, like it's somebody else, not want to change it in real time.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So, part of that was building a recording studio and getting more into that side of it because I was almost anti-making records unless they were recording something live, just because the way we thought and the way we played, it wasn't about
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: refining a thing or refining ideas about just on to the next at every moment, you know, that's the way my solo band played and then you get in the studio and everything just got real sterile and real safe and that was always frustrating.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we met a few producers along the way where you realize, oh, this is a totally different muscle, creatively, like this is not.
22:47
[SPEAKER_01]: These two things are not necessarily the same.
22:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you kind of surrender to that, then there is freedom inside of it.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: There can be
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: improvisation inside of it and then you start hearing things we were working with this producer named Jim Scott who did a lot of the Tom Petty stuff and tons of great music along the way total master but he would say things when you're in the studio You're over-dubbing a solo and he's like sounds like a record to me.
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, oh yeah
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That does sound like a friend of mine.
23:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's actually what we're looking for here.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always what you think it is, but sometimes somebody will sing something and it sounds like it's been there forever.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing you're looking for.
23:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, you learn from a lot of people along the way.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of Jim Scott, one line is written down in a book here in our studio.
23:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious because like you said at one point you had your own band, you were in the Almond Brothers and you were playing an Eric Clapton's band.
23:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Was this when you guys were you and Susan were getting married and starting a family?
23:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious two parts so like I'm curious about parenthood and how having a family and balancing all of that even though I hate the word balance because nothing ever feels in balance but with two children we have a one-year
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: you're in the thick of it.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We are in the thick of it.
23:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody's sleeping through the night.
24:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So, but also like the other 22 hours.
24:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have other things in your life that you like to do or think about whether it's like to help the music or just because they're other interests?
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one of the things that me and Susan connected on in the beginning, I mean, it was obviously music first, but we're both in the sports, playing sports.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of musicians just like one or the other, but we both came from households where your dads or die-harts, sports fans, and then you, we both played baseball, basketball, growing up.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we connected on that, we always like being outdoors and whether it's hiking or camping in the woods or fishing there.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So we always did those things, even on the road,
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And early on, that's something that we did and always kept that in balance.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and Sue did everything out of order, you know, we met on the road.
24:56
[SPEAKER_01]: She was opening for the almond brothers in 1999, just a few months after I joined.
25:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I met Kofi Burbridge, who I was telling you about earlier, who passed away.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I met him.
25:05
[SPEAKER_01]: He joined my band.
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I joined the almond brothers, met Sue all within like a few months in 1999.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I took a lot of life-changing things, but I remember she was opening for the almond brothers in New Orleans at the Sanger Theater, and I went out and saw her sound check.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, all right.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was trying to track her down to get to know her and hang out.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And her band at the time was double trouble, Stevie Ray Vaughn's old band.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And they knew Greg Omn from his like, junkie days, like his hard party in days.
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think they were too.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So they would not let Susan come hang on the bus with, I was on Greg Omn's bus.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: you are not going over there.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: In that time, it was the most boring bus in the world.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Greg had his toy poodle, his wives, they go back to the bus, watch Matt Locker, whatever.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It was nothing.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What they thought was going on was not happening.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But I applaud them for keeping her safe.
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had to win over Sue and her band had to court her band to until.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we started dating.
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We started dating.
26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We were traveling a lot, staying close.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a place together here in Jacksonville.
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Then she got pregnant.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we got married and then 10 years into it.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I think we might be ready to start a band.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like the band was the thing that we were mostly about.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But everything happened really quick.
26:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we first got pregnant, we had us, you know, a series talk, because I had been around a lot of these original rock star musicians from that era where there were a lot of broken families.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: There were a lot of really close second families after that.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: After they blew the first one and then 20 years later, they started again.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were just like, that is not going to happen.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do this right, our kids are going to be first and we're going to figure out a way to make the other things work.
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So for a long time, it was Sue with her band, me with my band and we would on days off, no matter how short the window was, you'd fly to see the other one or the kids were on the road until they were in school in public school.
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: They were on the road with one of us at all times.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a lot of travel and it was intense.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Susan is a superwoman.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she's a road dog.
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she was on the road doing her thing long before I met her.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: She was in a blues band, traveling just with just dudes and like she was just surviving in that world.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you're up late.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a different life.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the way it is.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: She got pregnant and it just...
27:32
[SPEAKER_01]: all switched for me it was like I had to intentionally try to do with her it was just instant super mom she gave birth to was up early like it was the most incredible thing watching that thing happened it's like it was really something and then I was like all right this is how it is this is how it goes and that was the focus and for 1819 years that's kind of how you did it our kids are up and out of the house now which is
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of wild or empty nesters or sun just got married and him and his wife are pregnant so we're going to be grandparents.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long and fast, but we are incredibly lucky our daughter lives 15 minutes down the road or son and his wife for.
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: 15 20 minutes down the road.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very lucky that it's shaken out the way it has, but I mean, there are bumps in the road.
28:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no doubt about it.
28:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, tough life being on the road is tough going from the adrenaline of being on stage.
28:22
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that to just, well, now you're driving your kids to school at 6 30 in the morning.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, two days after you on stage at Albert Hall or whatever, like, it's a wild thing, but it keeps you humble, it keeps you in check and you do what you got to do because they didn't sign up for it.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're like this is.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our job.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we do.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm lucky Sue was the superwoman she was and is right out of the gate because it wouldn't have happened the same way.
28:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, my parents and family and her parents and family, everybody chipped in, my parents lived down the road and it was a small village that helped raise our kids.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: that's amazing what's your kids perspective on it now i think i know but i'm not fully sure i think you know phases and stages i think there were times i would just like this is too much this is crazy and i think there's times where
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the band members that are here that we're here, were family and our family.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I think there's something really amazing about that.
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Our kids are comfortable in a most any situation in the world.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they grew up just being around BB King and Greg Omen and Paul Allen.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And like these just larger-than-life characters and they were always comfortable in their skin.
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that will serve them well, but they're super humble and we're really lucky to have kids that still like us.
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We see them talk to them every day and but I think at a certain point probably the last four or five years they've come around to like almost I think they're actually fans of the music and they see what their mom does and I can tell there's like a real pride and like oh my god she is whooping ass up there yeah yeah yeah yeah it's fun to watch that happen even with their spouses like when they realize that oh yeah she's different yeah it's incredible to watch that
30:13
[SPEAKER_03]: That's amazing and it's interesting because I think sometimes when you're living your life, obviously like you've said, even asking about like you growing up with a U-tid like you're not often like stopping and reflecting or trying to understand how this might be unique or different.
30:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I grew up a military family, so I grew up with my dad going out to see all the time.
30:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And like it's kind of taken a while to understand like, oh, that's different.
30:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And like how drastically different our kids are growing up from the way that we did.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for sure.
30:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and we don't do it the way that you guys you, but I tour, but I'm playing a lot of small folk clubs and going on my own and taking the babies or now that Georgia's older, she stays home.
30:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other day, it's so interesting when you see them, the stories that they're internalizing, because the other day, our daughter, Georgia, she's a big Taylor Swift fan.
31:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And she was like, Mommy, let's play family.
31:05
[SPEAKER_03]: That's her code for pretend.
31:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And she was like, I'm Taylor Swift, you are my husband.
31:10
[SPEAKER_03]: You stay home and you watch the two kids.
31:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I have some shows to go to.
31:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to go play and then she goes and then she goes and make sure you give the baby some milk or some that I pump from my boobs.
31:23
[SPEAKER_01]: In it.
31:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What they can on it.
31:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
31:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, wow, I had no concept of that growing up.
31:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I didn't even know indie musicians like existed when I was a kid.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's just like, you know, she grew up in it.
31:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she's like, going to festivals.
31:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And she's been on tour in Europe with us.
31:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just like, okay.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: She asks where the green room is.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, hey, is the green room over here?
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's my prudium?
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I've also carried her out of catering.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It festivals just like hitting me screaming.
31:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when she was like first getting to talk, her favorite thing to say was my body, like her preschool a toddler like cause like two years like to push each other.
32:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know how I know my body.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So I remember where it was festival and she was being too and kind of constantly seems like I was like, you gotta take her to the figure out to go back to the hotel and she's screaming my body, my body and I'm like, I'm like, it's my kid, I'm sorry.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't get tackled by the cops.
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Our kids develop a lot of core memories on the road that you don't know what they're going to key in on or what they're going to take from it.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them that really struck me is when when our son and daughter were, I think probably five and three.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that was their age as we were in Japan for a while on the Clapton Tour and everyone flew over and hung.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just, we did a lot of exploring it.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Japan isn't a credible place at any age.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just the feel, everything about it is just, it feels like you're on another planet at times.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And when our son and his wife, Kali, got married, they decided to go to Japan for their honeymoon.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, that's a core memory for him.
33:02
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to share that with us, it's just, it's their favorite place.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You never know what's going to click with him.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun to see the things that they really lean into later
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that our youngest hasn't been able to travel as much just because it's schedules and album cycles as it is and But our daughter traveling so much when she was little and just every place you show up people are welcoming They're excited to see little kid and so they get to experience whether they know or not of like oh, like the world can be a good place Yeah, I can beat myself and I can see the best of it
33:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and actually I would say our one-year-old has traveled a lot.
33:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just been different this time because I have it because you have it Yeah, I've taken the baby with me and like flown by myself with a baby and like gotten childcare at venues and and he already has experience too Like I'm like traveling with gear and a guitar and a baby and a suitcase and people are like can I hold your baby for you and I'm like Totally sure what's your name?
33:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I remember picking Sue up from the airport with that image, her with a guitar in her back and two kids.
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, who is that?
34:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how is this even happening?
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I go with it.
34:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Really amazing.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I know some of that stuff gets in there because she was on stage, pregnant with our kids, you know, like, whether it was on stage with the almond brothers or our band, these are not quiet bands.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Those children are hearing that stuff.
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: At least the low end is getting through.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's I think that stuff that gets in the DNA a little bit too.
34:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you were young then when you guys started having kids, right?
34:34
[SPEAKER_03]: You're still in your early 20s.
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I was 22.
34:37
[SPEAKER_03]: How has that?
34:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you can remember how it influenced or changed your creativity, like, in our experience, parenthood changes everything about your life.
34:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And we, we started later, you know, I was 34 when we had our first child.
34:51
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's like, we were really ingrained, like, of, we had this freedom.
34:54
[SPEAKER_03]: But you had a deep course on the freedom of being on the road forever.
34:58
[SPEAKER_03]: How is that kind of changed your relationship to your,
35:03
[SPEAKER_03]: writing and you're playing as well as the time of even like career ambitions.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been thinking about that lately a lot because we're different phase of our life now.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're trying to figure out what motivates you and what keeps you locked in now.
35:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you're, I mean, it's a wild feeling when your kids leave the house.
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, wait a minute.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this has been the pretty much the sole focus for the last 18, 18 years.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And now that it isn't now, but it's different.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's our own people.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking back at when I was 20, 22, I think being married and having kids at that age probably saved me from a lot of things that would have happened otherwise.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not that I was like always just on the straight and narrow even through that.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I would definitely focus me and your priorities are totally different and you go from when you're young and single and on the road and just total freedom being the first and line with what your once and needs are to when you have a child and a wife you're like third you're lucky.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So like you it's a humbling thing just on its face if you're not just a selfish
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But it humbles you and it makes you think of things differently.
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that extends into your whole life to, you know, musically and otherwise.
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it matures you in a way that's real and honest and you kind of put your feet down in the dirt and you start growing roots and I think musically I probably went from thinking that everything had to be full feet over the cliff, just improvisation, burn the place down to actually it's kind of nice to write a song.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I listened to a lyric until I was 21 or 22.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all I got amazing.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all feelings and sound and how the voice hit me or like it was, yeah.
36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think your whole perspective, it doesn't shift immediately, but it's working on you the whole time.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It probably saved me from a lot of problems early on, because you know, I was hyper focused as a teenager and just nothing would get in the way of what you were doing on stage.
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: you didn't smoke, you didn't drink, you didn't do anything that would affect the music.
37:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get into another phase and I think that probably would have not stayed so true if I had not had kids.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to call them and thank them, actually.
37:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, all of this.
37:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and one thing I've thought about recently is like, everyone talks about how, you know, what you said, like, your selfishness gets realigned.
37:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you can't only think about yourself.
37:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, definitely there are parents out there who don't evolve.
37:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And miss the people.
37:33
[SPEAKER_03]: But the other thing of like having a successful family that stays together, not only does your focus become Okay, I put my kids a lot of times in front of my needs, but also your partner like you said when you have a wife I think about that a lot of just how to be like successful co-parents and partners and then you're navigating Creative partnership business partnership a lot of times you're also negotiating like man I would love to have a day off, but I think my
38:01
[SPEAKER_03]: partner probably really needs a break or maybe they really need this win professionally and I'm going to sacrifice a little more of my own thing or time because they need the priority.
38:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you talk a little bit about that?
38:15
[SPEAKER_03]: What that kind of seesaw is?
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: no one gets out on scales, you know, like relationships with a tough, best relationships that have ever existed or tough, you know, so you just have to realize that.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's going to be some thin times and there's going to be tough times.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, what are the things that keep you together in those times?
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it's your kids, sometimes it's the music, sometimes it's just this underlying feeling of, oh, we're going to be fine.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel fine now, but we're going to be fine.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think both me and Susan were lucky in that way were our parents, her father passed away last year, but her parents were together until the very end.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And my parents are still together.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have not been as expected.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's kind of what you know.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that helped us in some ways, and not everyone has that.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So we realize how lucky we are.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's a constant push and pull.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we're in a really good place now.
39:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Once our kids are out of the house, we got to realize that they were actually allowed to go do things again together.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, we went on a vacation.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We took our honeymoon after 20 years, because it was no time.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We were like, we stayed at the end of a tour and went up to Alton, Norway to see the northern light.
39:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, this isn't trying to work allowed to do stuff.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know, to like rush home because our kids are waiting for us.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: All this year, lighter, but you know, even then it's tough because we're still she's an incredible artist whether I exist or not and was before I got here and I was doing my own things.
39:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're doing it together now.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You realize it sometimes you're gonna butt heads.
39:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have to
39:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we're going to disagree, we just got to figure out what that means, but it's communication and patience and realizing that it's not always going to be good.
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it was your full of shit.
40:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, if there's no, if there's no rub, then there's way bigger problems than if there is rub.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to me, that's part of the passion a lot of times, too.
40:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that same energy that feels awful at times on the other side of it is pretty great.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, you know, it's that balance and Colonel Bruce Hampton, one of our mentors, he would talk about musicians.
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, I don't want to hear somebody that sounds the same every day.
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: If you hit the lottery, your grandma
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to I want to feel that you're going through something.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to and you don't carry that stuff to the stage like the stage is is your church in a lot of ways and you never you never phone it in But there are days where you're fiery than others and there's and with Sue it's kind of funny because when she's when you kind of prodder or poker a little bit She plays the best guitar you've ever heard
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're a drummer who's known her for 20 years.
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Falcon is in our band now, was in her solo band.
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: He's always known this too.
41:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if she would mess something up in the next four bars or just be fire.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I will needle her, but can't go too far because then there's hell to pay after.
41:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a funny thing.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotions are real and they do come out in music and they're supposed to.
41:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean that's like one of the many foundations and motivations behind this podcast is like we live in a world that's progressively more and more like let's just show the highlight real.
41:33
[SPEAKER_03]: and especially as musicians like promoting, always trying to be like, look at this good thing, look at this good thing.
41:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're like, we felt like this kind of soul disconnect.
41:42
[SPEAKER_03]: We live in Nashville, all of our community or musicians.
41:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And it would be like, everything's great.
41:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we'd have dinner and be like, actually, this is really hard.
41:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're like, why are we talking about this?
41:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so straightforward, exactly.
41:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you said, like music is formed out of this, out of the struggle, out of like heartache, out of all of it, it's essential to life.
42:02
[SPEAKER_03]: But for some reason, I think it's more than our brains when we think we can only share publicly the highlights, because that's how we get attention.
42:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about my favorite music, whatever it is, and most of it came out of not great circumstances.
42:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, it's like all the Delta blues stuff.
42:20
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of, I mean, a lot of the stuff I listened to, even though the great straight ahead jazz or pole train in the 60s, I came out of really tough times and really tough backgrounds and circumstances, and that's what you're hearing is that being manifest is sound and release, and that's what the blues actually makes you feel good because you're laying down the burden, and that's the whole point.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like music, it's too good or safe, usually.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't want to hear somebody that never messes.
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're not trying very hard.
42:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's got to be some threat.
42:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There's got to be some danger.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite things about the way suit plays guitars.
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like at any moment it might just implode.
42:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it might just fall off the horse.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he doesn't.
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're just like, that was incredible.
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a funny thing so yeah I think that's the whole game is how do you take the tough things and and make something good out of it make a joyful noise out of it or make an uncomfortable noise you know that's great too I mean there's a lot of room for that there's plenty of people doing the other stuff so we don't have to do that yeah you don't have to lie
43:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it also taps into like what is unique about us musicians as part of the human race is the ability to tap into those emotions and to embody them in a way that maybe words can't that gives the audience permission to also go there.
43:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I mean they'd something maybe in their life that they hadn't really realized or put words to and when they hear it in your music it gives this kind of permission to become more human.
43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: which is really good.
43:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a release valve for a lot of people.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where you go in the worst of times and the best of times.
43:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of an amazing thing.
43:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The most difficult moments I've ever gone through, you almost always at some point go to a certain song or there's music then you go to that comps you.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: or whatever it is, you play music at weddings and funerals and all the stuff.
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason for that.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when they played taps at my grandfather's funeral.
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember it was just the sound.
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just one of the most incredible things.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel all the things in those moments.
44:22
[SPEAKER_01]: another carnivorous thing he always he always made sure that musicians didn't take themselves too seriously you like that was part of the thing is like you've run your hand over a piece of wood for a living you like you're a cat or the same time he realized that it serves a great a great importance you know and and times of need it's in right now I mean
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: there's not a lot of times you can turn on the TV and feel good about the world that you live in but you go down the street and see a concert and usually leave feeling pretty good or better a little bit more hopeful and I noticed that during the COVID lockdown and right out of it it's like people need that community and they need that sense of release and it is a real thing that we do and you have to nurture that and honor it.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It can get away from you too even as musicians.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you take it too seriously, it gets pretentious and no one cares.
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't take it seriously enough, it gets sloppy and then no one wants to hear it.
45:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is a practice and you do have to keep it in mind and part of that is what you were talking about earlier.
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to get away from it from time to time.
45:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to take a break and get out and breathe and see a mountain or just like it.
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I noticed when we come back after I haven't played in a week or two, it's so exciting to play again.
45:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all of the things that we're kind of wearing you out about it before all gone and it's kind of like the first time again So that's it is important that that Evan flow turn the crops
45:45
[SPEAKER_01]: little while.
45:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we like to always just be really mindful of the time that our guests are giving us.
45:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So we always wrap our conversation with the same question and you can choose your own adventure on this one.
45:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And it can be either something that somebody's told you along the way that continues to resonate with you and fill your cup and put fuel in the tank or conversely, it could be something that you would tell younger you that was just getting in the business
46:12
[SPEAKER_03]: at nine, there's a lot to tell like I know.
46:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, either of those, whatever comes to mind for you, I'd love to, you take.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a tough one.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's been, I've been really fortunate along the way to meet a lot of my heroes and people I didn't know they were my heroes yet.
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember one time at 14 or 15 years old being in the car, I was playing a Greg Almond solo band.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: He was still kind of in the middle of his addiction.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember it was more of a warning than anything else, but he took me for a drive up.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: U.S. Juan and his core vet.
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We went up to the Lucas Ranch.
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the whole thing feeling surreal because he was he was kind of a myth to me at that point before I'd met him.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the first music I heard, but remember him pulling over the car and and kind of getting real serious, which I haven't had a lot of people give me direct advice over the years as you see you watch them more.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But he was like, he was like, with your talent, the world's kind of, it's going to be your oyster.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can be able to do kind of anything you want.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got to be careful and there's something you can't do.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And he showed me the heroin tracks in his arm.
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And he just kind of looked at me and I remember his feet terrified.
47:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, yes, sir, what do you want to remember that?
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's a hardcore answer to it.
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, there's some things that you just realize are a no-go.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe if somebody hadn't done that, it wouldn't have been as terrifying.
47:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's one that always stuck with me.
47:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember another one Tom Dowd, the great Tom Dowd, who recorded the Layla record in John Cole Trans Giant Steps and great Charles, I've got a woman and just incredible him and being.
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I recorded down at Criteria probably a few years before that great thing.
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember him taking my dad aside and just saying, he's probably going to be a lifer.
47:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tough business.
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't make a living, but you can get rich.
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It is kind of the truth, it's going to be like, you just toil for 20, 30 years and you just can't make ends meet and then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, what happens to you?
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And you never go into it for that.
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a funny thing.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember after him telling me that being on the road and just thinking, you know what?
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This is awesome.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: If we can keep gas in the van, I will do this until I drop.
48:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was no.
48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I was living on my parents' couch.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I was.
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's happy then as I am now and there was one time during that that year I was out with my solo band, the almond brothers in Clapton where my band I think we were in a win a baguette at that point with a trailer and sharing holiday and double beds.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The common brothers were tour buses and trucks and probably like a nice Mary-out and the Clapton was private planes between shows and Ritz Garldons and they were kind of bouncing between all three within the same month and it hit me that shit doesn't matter at all like a good gig with my solo band feels as good or better than any bad night with any of them you go to bed just feel and terrible and like it's a nice gig we want to get it back
49:06
[SPEAKER_01]: but it made me hit me that all this stuff is nice of it's there, but this is not why you do it.
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: This doesn't change how well you sleep at night.
49:14
[SPEAKER_01]: for me that was a big revelation that it's not something to be invious of others and it's not something that you need to base your life and career decisions on.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: The sleep of the just is important.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be able to sleep well at night.
49:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
49:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
49:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Man Derek, thank you so much for giving us your time this morning.
49:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, appreciate you guys.
49:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
49:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate you.
49:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
49:36
[UNKNOWN]: Bye.
49:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We know your time is valuable and we're grateful you chose to spend this hour with us.
49:42
[SPEAKER_03]: If this conversation resonated with you, know that it is just one of many.
49:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We have an archive of over 140 conversations.
49:49
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49:59
[SPEAKER_03]: New York Times bestselling author Maggie Smith, Lucius, Jade and meferson, and many others.
50:04
[SPEAKER_00]: This shows produced by me and Aaron Shaveer based with help from the Kayla and all the music he hears written, performed and produced by me as well.
50:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leland Holden at Pod Punch and we are proud members of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
50:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
50:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.