Chewing the Gristle with Greg Koch
Listen in on Greg Koch's conversations with his guitar-hero friends. Every episode Greg unleashes his fiendish humor and unique perspective as "one of the most famous unknown guitar players in the world", asking his often-famous musical friends the questions that we all want to know the answers to! Each episode is brought to you by Fishman and Wildwood Guitars
Chewing the Gristle with Greg Koch
Albert Castiglia
When blues powerhouse Albert Castiglia crossed paths with Bill Murray, neither could have predicted the musical partnership that would follow. In this captivating conversation with Greg Koch, Castiglia pulls back the curtain on how a Hollywood legend became his unexpected bandmate through a series of serendipitous connections that began with Murray's brother John.
"If Bill Murray wants to play in your band, you let him in your band," Castiglia remarks with characteristic humor. But beneath the celebrity factor lies a genuine musical connection that has taken them from intimate clubs to prestigious venues like Red Rocks. Far from seeking the spotlight, Murray approaches their collaboration with refreshing humility, insisting on equal billing and content to play percussion while occasionally stepping forward for a song. The audience response has been electric, with fans sometimes appearing in Ghostbusters costumes, moved to tears by Murray's magnetic stage presence.
Castiglia's own journey through the blues landscape reveals the persistence required to build a sustainable career. From his early influences (discovering blues through Clapton and Johnny Winter's productions with Muddy Waters) to navigating the catch-22 of needing both a record deal and booking agent simultaneously, he speaks candidly about industry challenges. After cycling through five agencies, finding the right representation finally allowed him to expand from 100 shows annually to between 150-200 performances a year.
The conversation touches on deeper themes of artistic growth, with Castiglia recently incorporating Coltrane's "Afro Blue" into his setlists after being inspired by Derek Trucks. He also reflects on lifestyle changes that have sustained his longevity, embracing sobriety after COVID and taking up boxing and Kung Fu to maintain his energy for grueling tour schedules. "I do this for the memories," he explains, capturing the essence of why musicians endure the hardships of the road.
Ready to experience a genuine conversation between two musicians who've weathered decades in the business? Subscribe now and join us for more candid talks with roots music's most compelling voices.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time once again for another season of Chewing the Gristle with yours truly Greg Kauk. Can you believe it's already season six? We've got so many cool interviews lined up. Are we going to talk about music, you betcha? But what else are we going to talk about? Well, quite frankly, anything that comes to mind. So stay tuned, doggone it. Let's chew that doggone gristle. Season six come this week. On Chewing the Gristle we have modern blues leviathan, Albert Castiglia. He's a good buddy of mine and a heck of a nice guy. Great musician, guitar player, singer, songwriter he does it all. You've also seen him with the Blood Brothers, Currently on the road with the Blood Brothers with Bill Murray. We've got some good stories today Chewing the Gristle with Albert Castiglia. We were talking about how Jimmy Vivino was kind of your conduit to meeting Bill.
Speaker 2:In order to work Jimmy into this story, we got to go back to how it started. So Bill's younger brother, john, who's also an actor In fact you might have seen him in Scrooged he was Frank Cross's younger brother, james and he was in the scene with Wendy Malick where they were in the living room playing Trivial Pursuit and Bill was peeking through the window with the ghost right. Right was peeking through the window with the ghost right Right and it was actually John's idea to come up with the SS Minnow James line at the very end of the movie. Do you remember that part of the movie? I don't, okay shit. So I'm wasting my time telling you this, but John was an actor himself. He was in a lot of Bill's movies and John was a fan of Mike and I and we got to meet him through Chris Barnes, who was a front of band and was a writer for Jim Belushi and Carol Burnett. But he reinvented himself as a blues musician and we got to know Chris and Chris introduced John Murray to Mike and I and John became a fan of the Blood Brothers and our bands individually and John kept telling Bill about us.
Speaker 2:So Bill invited us, mike and I, and pretty much the Blood Brothers to do the Caddyshack Golf Tournament that the Murray Brothers put on in St Augustine, florida, and they have a jam session that's run by Jimmy. Jimmy Vivino ran the jam session. He was the musical director for the golf tournament, so he was part of the whole thing. That night when we first met Bill and Bill sat in and did five songs with us and John told us it was the most fun he'd ever had playing music. So when we and then he started crashing our gigs, bill was crashing our gigs. He crashed our gig at the Blues Bender in Vegas. He came to our show in Vegas. He let us know a few days before that he was coming. He spent the week with us and then he showed up and people just went nuts Right and he just played percussion for most of the set and then came out and did a couple songs at the end and people loved it.
Speaker 2:And then Bill reached out to Zito because Zito is very tight with Bill and told him he wanted to do more of it but they wanted to make some adjustments. So they added we added Jimmy to the mix because he was part of it from the beginning and he really adds a lot to the project. He's such a great player and he, I mean next to Lou Paulo, I think he might be the next King of inversions, cause he just finds, finds, other other parts to play when Mike, mike and I, you know, are playing and and and he's got. He's a great singer, yeah, and I think Bill Bill wanted him, him along for the ride, and I and we were all for it, you know, awesome. And then Jimmy Carpenter joined as well, saxophone player.
Speaker 1:Okay, and yeah, so it sounds like it's been fun, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot of fun. You know you get some grief on Facebook from people you know they're like. Well, how could you, as an established artist you know, cling on to an actor or a celebrity and play with them, and it's very easy. I mean, if Bill Murray wants to play in your band, you can let him in your band. It was an honor for him to want to do it with us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely what people say on social media, as much as we well know. It's like people are just. Most people are great, but you'll get the few people that need to express their but as artists we always remember that of course you can get a hundred great comments and the one is the one you're the one bad one is the one that's going to trip your trigger, but uh I just got one because of uh norman.
Speaker 2:Norman harris uh played me. Uh, I did some videos at norm's right guitar shop and it was great man, 80,000 views and everything and everything's awesome, and somebody goes oh, I played those licks when I was 20.
Speaker 1:It's like no, you didn't, and shut up and.
Speaker 2:I said, yeah, but I'm playing mine at Norm's and there's always people want to pee in the punch, but it's been so great. Number one he's a pretty good percussionist and he's a good singer. He's.
Speaker 1:Bill Murray.
Speaker 2:But he also has. What really sets him apart is that charisma he has. Oh yeah, I mean, when we do, like a Rolling Stone, the Bob Dylan song, I mean he's not singing it like Dylan would have sung it or like he would have sung it in the 60s, because Dylan sings it anyway. He wants now, right, but he doesn't stay true to the original melody, he just has he's behind the lyrics sometimes, but he's got this energy and so you see people in the audience dressed up in Ghostbusters outfits. You know crying in the audience. You know crying because he's just got this. He's just connecting with the audience in such a way that I've never, you know, I haven't seen before. It's pretty amazing to behold. And he doesn't want to be the focal point in the band, which is another thing that's very refreshing. He just wants to be a part of the band, right, that's cool.
Speaker 2:When we did our first show in Chicago with him, we felt we had a meeting and we all felt that maybe he didn't get as much love on the on the show, in the show that he should have, like he should have gotten a few more songs. And so we brought it to him and he said look, man, we're going to structure the set so that you get a little, you get a little more singing time. And he's like, no, that's not what I want. I want us to all just be this, have the same amount of songs, and that's what I want. Right, I said, okay, if that's what you want and it.
Speaker 2:And we were nervous at first because we, everybody wants to hear Bill sing. We thought, you know, but they're, they're content with the band and they, they, people are happy with the amount of songs he does and they're just. They like seeing them up there play percussion and have a good time. And the venues have been awesome, I'm sure go from playing the do drop in. And now we, you know, now, now we're doing a shoot. We got, we got red rocks with big head Todd and Warren Haynes. That's wild. It took Bill Murray for me, for me to get to red rocks.
Speaker 1:Man, I was like well, that's the thing that I think people you know again, not that we care too much about the, you know the peanut gallery when they get caustic in terms of commentary. But when you're a musician that tours around, and especially in this roots blues world, and you're hitting clubs and it's not like I mean you just take it a day at a time, it's like, hey, we had a good gig last night. Oh, tonight wasn't so great, but we had fun playing. I mean it's literally just being in the moment, enjoying what you're doing, because it just is what it is. So when these opportunities come across, it's just part of the adventure. And all of a sudden you're like pinching yourself. Well, now I'm doing this and all of a sudden, you're like pinching yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, now I'm doing this. Yeah, that's when I make a point of telling people, like you know, this is our livelihood. But I think personally I can't speak for you, greg, but I do this for the memories, the amount of memories this life has brought us. You can't put a price on man and this is one of those things I'm never going to forget. Right, and it's just, we're blessed, we're both blessed to be doing this, no doubt Because it takes us to some amazing places and there's no blueprint to it. There's no blueprint to life in general, but there's certainly no blueprint to this profession, man. I mean, it's just never know where it's going to take you, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about how you got into all this stuff. You were born in New York, but then your family moved down to Florida, yeah, so what attracted you to blues-oriented music early on? Was it something you were into from the get-go, or was it something you were exposed to later, or how did it work?
Speaker 2:Well, I was into what my dad listened to the classic rock radio of the time, which was the stuff from the 60s, and before that we used to listen to Waxy 106. It was the local South Florida radio station and they'd play like Dion and the Belmonts, all the way up to like the Strawberry Alarm Clock, you know, and things like that. But my uncle played guitar and I kind of got into what he was into and you know he was into Hendrix and Grand Funk Railroad. Yes, yes, grand Funk. Yeah, I think Heartbreaker might have been the first song I'd ever learned.
Speaker 1:How about that that Grand Funk live record? Good God almighty.
Speaker 2:Great record. That's the one and, and, uh. So that's how I got into. You know, I got. I I got into the guitar thing through him, his, his, uh, his buddy, my uncle and his buddy would come. His buddy would come over. He, like my uncle, was living in my grandparents house and his buddy would come over to the house and they'd just play drums and guitar. It was like the Black Keys, but not as good. They're pretty bad. But I was 12, and I was intrigued by it. And then he gave me a guitar and I just started learning from a Bob Dylan songbook that he had in his drawer along with his stash. That's how I got into it through the classic rock guys. The blues came to me indirectly through guys like Hendrix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing for me how else would it, would a middle-class white guy, get into blues? Exactly then, through through the gateway drug, which was rock and roll. Exactly correct, then I bought a Clapton album called Just One Night yes, one of my favorite records of all time, that's's how I heard about.
Speaker 1:Albert Lee.
Speaker 2:Yes, Albert Lee. Albert Lee and I think Gary Brooker was a keyboard player on that from Pro Call Harem. What a great album.
Speaker 1:Chris Dayton, I think, is on that record.
Speaker 2:Chris Dayton correct. In fact, his piano intro to Tulsa Time, I think, is the first song on the album.
Speaker 2:And then he goes right into Early in the Morning. The old Junior Wells song and that's when I first really got exposed to blues was through that album. It's like a third of the songs on that album were blues tunes. It was Early in the Morning. There was, further on Up the Road, double Trouble Rambling on my mind. Yes, absolutely so. That's where I kind of said, well, this is interesting. And then I started delving into the original versions of these songs. Right, I was about 15. And then, around 16, I bought my first Muddy Waters album.
Speaker 1:Art, Again the one that.
Speaker 2:Johnny Winter produced, oh indeed, which the purists like to skew, but you know, skewer.
Speaker 1:That's his best record.
Speaker 2:Oh, I agree, I talked to Johnny about it before he died. I said thank you for making that record. He goes oh man, that was an awesome record to make. You know we did everything in one take. That's awesome. And you know you hear that one take. That's awesome. And uh, you know you hear that. Yeah, the first time I heard that album you know the first when you, when you it was a cassette actually I played the cassette the first thing you hear is muddy's voice, his acapella voice, that booming voice, and it scared the shit out of me. I ran under the bed when I heard it. Whoa, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I ran under the bed and that changed.
Speaker 2:That was the album that solidified my path in terms of where I was going to go with the music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was one of my favorite records. That was all in at the time. That was one of my favorite records as well. And you know those four records that Johnny was a part of, you know Hard Again obviously was the best one of them, but you know I'm Ready the live record. And then King B I really liked, just because Johnny played more on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, champagne and Reefer yes. But you know Johnny told me. He said he goes man, you, he goes man. You know why I loved Hard Again so much? Because he did everything in one take. Yeah, Because you know why I didn't like the other albums that I did with him afterwards so much I go? Why he goes? Because he wanted to do them in one take. It's like the magic wasn't the same for him, although I really love those albums.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're great All the stuff on Blue Sky was amazing. Man, yeah, I mean he really I could love Johnny just for that Right.
Speaker 1:You know he had so many other things Plus I love that record that he did Nothing but the Blues with Muddy's Band. That's a great record. Mm-hmm, that was one of my all-time faves. Yeah, yeah, I love me some, johnny. There's all kinds of really cool bootleg stuff that they've been putting online on iTunes of Johnny from through the 80s. There's some fantastic stuff.
Speaker 2:That's when he had the guy he had on bass John.
Speaker 1:Paris, my buddy John.
Speaker 2:I, I love John. Yeah yeah, that was a hell of a band.
Speaker 1:It was John. Paris is a Milwaukee boy originally, is he really? Yeah, he was in a band around here called Ox for years and they were gods. And then, uh, he moved to New York and, uh, then ended up with Johnny winter and played bass. But he was actually well, he actually played bass as well, but great guitar player as well, yeah, I saw him on.
Speaker 2:I saw him solo in Miami when I was younger with his band. He was tremendous guitar player. Yeah, he's a good dude as well.
Speaker 1:He's a good he's. The reason why I ended up sitting in with Les Paul is because he arranged it, so that was I, my John Paris is my man.
Speaker 2:What was that like? Oh, that was awesome. I hate to turn the tables on you and be the interviewer. But what was that like? Well, what?
Speaker 1:happened was is that John Paris was doing a. I came to New York because a buddy of mine that I grew up with was a actor and singer on Broadway, uh, but was always kind of a latent rock and roller, and so in between shows he wanted to do a thing at a off-Broadway theater where he just was doing rock songs. So he flew me out there and it was like all the other musicians were like pit musicians out there who were awesome, and I did this gig. That's the reason why I was out in New York and I think the rehearsal with them was like on a Monday.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the exact timeframe, but I I do know that the first day I was there I went out and I sat in with John Paris at the, at BB Kings, I believe, yeah, and Rusty Paul was there, les' son, and so he went up to John and said we should get this guy to sit in with dad. And I'm like, yeah, you should. So then, after I got done doing my gig with my buddy which was earlier in the evening on the I think it was a Monday night that Les was playing I rushed, I took a grab to cab and went across town to be there for the second set. My name was at the door. I walked in and I was there for a few minutes and Les called me on the stage like we got a guy from Milwaukee here who's going to come up and play.
Speaker 1:And then John Paris and I got up there. John Paris played harp and we did Mystery Train and I did one of my chicken picking onslaughts and Les looked over after the end of that song. He's like turn that guitar over this way so I can see what the hell it is you're doing. Let's do another one. It was just like and I and Les hanging out and we were the last ones in the place and we walked him up the stairs to go to get into his car. Rusty was waiting for him and then off they went and I looked at John Perez, we're sitting there in Times Square. I was like, well, that just happened Precisely.
Speaker 1:This is why we do it Exactly All those little things the coolest thing about? Well, the thing happening was the coolest thing. But then years later, after Les Paul died, a local radio station called me up who I would go on and do little interviews with and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Hey can you come in and tell your Les Paul story? So I did. Hey, can you come in and tell your Les Paul story? So I did. And then somebody who was listening was there that night and had pictures and emailed the pictures to the radio station. Then they gave them to me so I've got pictures of it happening. So it's pretty awesome Wow.
Speaker 2:That's pretty awesome. Something about you Wisconsin people in music man. I went, I had a fan email me. He said and I had recorded a Bob Dylan song called Catfish, because I'm a baseball fan and he had written a song about Catfish Hunter back in the 70s An umpire came up to me, emailed me and said, hey, did you write that song, Catfish?
Speaker 2:And I said, no, Bob Dylan did. And he said well, I'm an umpire and I'm part of the New York Yankees fantasy camp in Fort Lauderdale. And he knew, he heard I'm a pretty well-known Yankees fan amongst my fans. And he said well, I'd like to invite you to the fantasy camp and come watch the games. And I said, oh, I'd love to, on the condition that my father can come with me, because he's a huge Yankees fan. He grew up watching them during their heydays in the 50s and 60s. It's no problem.
Speaker 2:So we go and we get to the stadium in Fort Lauderdale. It's no problem. So we go and we get to the stadium in Fort Lauderdale. It's not impressed by much, but we get to the front of the stadium and Don Larson is being driven in a golf cart, the man who threw the perfect game in the 1956 World Series against the Dodgers Drives by and my dad's like who? I said yeah, Don Larson. And then Tony Kubek walks up to me and he comes up to me and he blows my dad off and he goes hey kid, I heard you're a musician. My son's a musician in Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm Tony Kubek, Nice to meet you. And I shook his hand and my dad was like Wisconsin story with musicians, there's so many great musicians out of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the winter. You got nothing better to do than to practice do you know, reverend Raven, I do, of course oh my god he's a good fella man.
Speaker 2:What a great slide player. Yeah, he's a good dude too, jim liben. I saw uh jim liben playing in uh in milwaukee when I lived in chicago. I drove all the way to milwaukee to see jim liben play.
Speaker 1:Yeah uh, great harmonica player yeah, he's an old buddy of mine as well. I've played with him many, many times. Do you know Jimmy Vagley and the Jimmys, the Jimmys, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they're from the Madison area, but I've played with Jimmy every now and again as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. I played at a club in Madison with Junior Wells and Sandra Hall. It was a tavern. It'll come to me Probably the Harmony Bar, the Harmony Bar and Grill. Harmony Bar and Grill oh my God, what a great place. For a Florida guy, it was quite refreshing to be in one of those real Midwestern taverns. You had the tavern on one side and then the concert hall was. The hall was next door, right next door to the bar, and it was. What a cool place, what a charming little joint.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, with your own band, we did a gig together out there in beautiful Morro Bay, and that's what I was discussing with you the tour vehicle which I ended up getting, a Ford Transit as a matter of fact Did you. Yeah, I ended up getting because we needed a bigger one because of the Oregon, but I ended up getting a Transit 250, medium height, medium length.
Speaker 2:We got a cargo one Did that lead you?
Speaker 1:astray. No, it was awesome. It's been great. It's been great. So how many? I mean you've been doing this a long time and we know it. I mean it's down and dirty when we're on the road. I love it, but you know it's a lot of work. So how many days of the year are you out doing your thing and for how many years straight have you been doing it? Do you do it consistently for many, many years? Or, like certain years, you're like oh, I'm going to do X amount and next year I'm not going to do so much, I'm going to keep it local. Or are you on the road consistently throughout the years?
Speaker 2:Consistently Well, I took, I take whatever they could give me and the. But I went through five. Really I'm not going to say bad agents, but I had. I went through five agencies before I got to one that could get me out further and could get me out working more often, and that was seven years ago with Intrepid Artists, right. But you know, I would have, I was willing to work whenever, whatever you know, whenever they, whenever the opportunity arose. But you know, some smaller, sometimes the smaller agencies don't have the ability to get you out as far or as often. So I mean, in the beginning it was like a hundred, 125 days maybe. Right now it's more like it's between 150 and 200.
Speaker 2:We just did a and that's been like that for the last seven years. And in fact now with the bill thing, it's even great with, with, with the blood brothers. It got really crazy when mike and I put the blood brothers together because we had the blood brothers project and our own bands, right. So we were pretty busy. And then you throw bill into the mix and it's even crazier. We just did a six-week runzier. We just did a six-week run, six-week run, and in the middle of it the drummer and I were in the Bill project.
Speaker 2:We had to fly Also with the Blood Brothers. We had to spend the first week. We drove across to Vegas. It started in Mississippi and worked our way to Vegas. Then we had to jump on a plane the drummer and I to jump on a plane, fly to Clearwater and play with the Blood Brothers in Florida, had a day off or two off, then fly back, meet up with the bass player in Sacramento, continue the run all throughout the Pacific Northwest, all across, way across to Texas, and my bass player had to drop me and the drummer off in Austin so that we could do the project with Bill. We did two nights at the Paramount Theater in Austin. Bass player took the van, drove to Atlanta, we flew out to Atlanta, met up with him and finished out the run.
Speaker 2:We did this all in six weeks, yes, and that's the story of my life. But the right now right, but um, I can't complain.
Speaker 1:Well, let's let's talk a little bit about cause I, I, I think there's there's one thing. If there's one thing about the music industry of though there are many things that that the average person just doesn't understand, is how hard it is to get a booking agent and how hard it is to get them to book because they've just assume I mean I don't know if you've experienced this, but I'm sure you have is that you get people online going. How come you're not playing here, like like we're making a conscious decision to ignore certain communities? It's like listen, of course we we've got to figure out how to get a gig someplace where they're going to, where the deal is that we can actually make enough money to make it worthwhile and then route it in time where it coincides with all these other places.
Speaker 2:If you don't know, you don't know. Yeah, If you don't know, you don't know. I get that all the time. But yeah, it's hard and it used to. In the beginning it was really hard. They would tell you, like the agencies would tell you well, you need a record deal, right, right. And then the labels say, well, you need an agency, exactly.
Speaker 1:And then they would say and then, on top of that, they'd say we need airplay. Well, how do I get airplay? Well, you need to. You know, you need to be playing in the area.
Speaker 2:It's like you just had to find an agent. Like these kids now they ask me for advice sometimes and they're like should I sign with this agency? And then they're like how old are you? I said I'm 21. Yeah, I don't even know who the agency is. They could be a bunch of crooks for all I know. But you need to get your foot in the door, right? So just take a chance. If the guy turns out to be a crook, you know I mean. But you, what are you supposed to do? You can't. You can't pass up on an opportunity to get signed with an agent if you're young, right, it's just, it's very hard. And there I know a lot of great artists that don't have agencies, and it breaks my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it took me until I was in my 50s to get an agent. I mean, in Europe I always had an agent going back 25 years. But that's different. Over there. There's more of an infrastructure and when you're signed to a label over there, they set you up at least back in the day. They'd set you up with an agency because that's how they knew they were going to make their money. When I got my first, I mean I'd put out all kinds of records on my own, but my first deal was with that Steve Vai label back in like 2001. And I thought, fuck, this is great. Here we go. I'm on this thing. I'm getting write-ups on all these magazines. I'm going to get a booking agent now and I could not get arrested. They're like no, no, you need to be, you know, you need to prove X, y and Z. I'm like what do you mean Exactly?
Speaker 2:It's all about whether you can make money for them Exactly. It's not personal, right, but they got to feel like they can make money off you. It took me years to get with Intrepid and I thought I had come close a couple of times and Rick Booth, the, the, the, the, the head of of Intrepid, the owner of Intrepid, he said, man, I just didn't know whether I could sell you. You were in Florida, you know, you're way the hell down South, and I, I didn't, wasn't sure if I could sell you. And it took a long time to get in, get back and get in.
Speaker 1:His radar, man, it just it's well plus, it's a tough racket man, the thing that's. You know, when people talk about all the music industry isn't what it used to be. But on the same token, by the same token, because of the internet and because of social media, I mean that's the whole reason why we're able to do. What we're able to do is because, luckily, I've been able to get a toehold on various different you know, you know on Instagram and Facebook, and yada, yada, yada, uh, where you but? But but by the same, it's like I just the other day, you know, we've got a new agent now who was actually my original agent, but he went on to another agency and so we ended up going with him. I love my old guy, he was great, but he was a smaller agencies or a smaller guy, so he he wasn't getting the looks at some of the, you know, certainly not at the festivals and so on, and so forth, so we're with this guy who's with.
Speaker 1:You know we're with WME now, which is, you know, a big agency, uh, but you know you get, you'll get the email where it's just like hey, uh, we got low ticket sales here here, here and here and here and I'm like, okay, well, that means I have to do all the promoting because the club's not going to do it. Exactly. We interrupt this regularly scheduled gristle-infested conversation to give a special shout out to our friends at Fishman Transducers, makers of the Greg Koch Signature Fluence Gristle Tone Pickup Set Can you dig that? Signature Fluence Gristle Tone pickup set? Can you dig that?
Speaker 2:And our friends at Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, colorado bringing the heat in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. I like what you touched on about how you've used social media and you've used these mediums to promote yourself, because you do that really well. I mean those videos you do with your son, they really reach people and it gets me to thinking. I said, you know well, it's not like it used to be, but who knows whether I would have been looked at back then? Would a label have looked at me back then? Who knows Right? So I don't know how the business would have taken me. I was a side man throughout the 90s and the early 2000s man throughout the 90s and the early 2000s. So I just spent my time just working for front man, you know Right, but I didn't have a. I think I'm a lot better of a player now than I was back then and I don't know if anybody would have signed me back then. So I don't know if the good old days would have been so great for me back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that they weren't for me. I mean, I did other things then. But you know, as a result of the way things are now, you know, we know that we can go into a place and you know we can charge a decent amount of money and a certain amount of people are going to show up and and, and the next time we come through, more people show up. And then the next time we come through, more people show up. Um, and then you know, in the merch game, you know it's like when you realize like, well, you have to have various different things to sell to make it worthwhile, because people aren't buying music the way that they.
Speaker 1:You know they're, they're buying your brand. I mean, I hate to use that word, but they're buying you. Let's put it that way. They want to come and they want to support you. They enjoy seeing the band live, uh, and of course, they listen to stuff online. They like seeing the videos online. But if their way to support is like they might not have a CD player anymore, uh, there's a lot of people who have vinyl now or they enjoy the reemergence of vinyl, so they'll buy vinyl, but a lot of times they just want to buy a t-shirt. They want to buy whatever Exactly, they'll buy whatever you have, basically.
Speaker 2:Do you know? Are you familiar with Johnny Rawls? I know who he is, soul blues singer, guitar player, played with Sam, with sam cook back in the day, played guitar for sam cook. But he, he's like, uh, he's one of my favorite people and he's he's a hustler. He has his own, he doesn't have a label, he makes his own records and he hustles. He doesn't have a band per se, he just has people locked up in different regions.
Speaker 2:And I got to play at the Fargo Blues Festival the year we were in lockdown. It was one of the few festivals that were operating during COVID and Johnny was there and he walked up to me and goes hey, man, I got to show you something, man, I got to tip you to this thing. Man, look, flash drives. Oh yeah, flash drives, johnny. What are you talking about flash drives? He goes man, ain't nobody got CD players in their cars, no more, right? So I put five of my CDs I haven't put out in a while, put them on a flash drive. I sell it for $20. I sold 50 of them today. So he's the embodiment of that famous quote by Charles Darwin it's not the smartest of the species, nor the strongest, it's the one that can adapt Right, exactly, and that's what we're doing, exactly. And I'm not going to bitch about the music business today because those people wouldn't have given me a second look 30 years ago Exactly.
Speaker 1:I'm with you 1,000%, yeah, and I enjoy it all. I mean, I do. I love all the stuff I get to do. And you know what I've been kind of using this viewpoint lately.
Speaker 1:It's like if you're more about the music and just enjoying the music for what it is and not using it as a means to an end, I think that's where you know a lot of people could be extraordinarily talented and so on and so forth and they they get a level of success and then they're a slave to that means to an end, instead of just enjoying it for what it is, it becomes, you know, it becomes this, this purely, you know, profit motivated thing. I mean, we all got to make money and we all want to have opportunities where we can do things to uh, excel in that regard. But I think the happiest people in the that are pleased with whatever opportunities. They just love the music in a way that, as long as you're doing that and have a way to do it, uh, you're content. You know what I mean? It's not you're bitter about oh, why can't this and this and this happen? You're like, yeah, but this and this and this is happening, I get to. I get to frickin play and do my thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I agree, I I was thinking, I was thinking about this. Oh, when you told me to do this, I just kept thinking I wonder what he's going to ask me, and I hope there's an opportunity for me to say a couple of things. But it's funny, you're leading me into a great thought that I just had. So like when I, when I started, I was always I was a diehard blues guy and then when I moved to Chicago, I I in the nineties, I started to discover a bunch of artists that were going outside the box of the blues, a lot of gunslingers like Chico Banks and Rico McFarlane, amazing guitar player out of Chicago. They were pushing the envelope and that's when things started to realize well, there's more to it than just the blues, there's other things you can, and I learned a lot about music different music later on in life.
Speaker 2:And I was listening to a Derek Trucks interview with Rick Beato a few months ago and he was talking about when he joined the brothers, that they got him into some real deep Coltrane stuff, and he cited the Live at Birdland album with Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. And you know I was familiar with the Giant Steps record and everything, but this was something I'd never heard. And then about a month ago I listened to it and that song, afro Blue, comes on the first track and it's like man, this makes total sense why the Allman Brothers are the Allman Brothers. These guys were like the Black Allman Brothers, right. I mean, these guys were just it's like rock and roll. It's like these guys were just wigging out and I couldn't stop listening to that album, just wigging out, and I couldn't stop listening to that album. And then during this six week run, I played the album for the guys in the band and the drummer my drummer was familiar with the album but he hadn't heard it in a while and then the bass player had never heard it and we couldn't stop listening to the record during the tour. And then we started working Afro Blue into the into the into the. Well, in the beginning we were doing it at soundcheck Because we were practicing to see if we could pull it off and it was fun, but we weren't quite ready. Then the next time we had a soundcheck we did it again and then we brought the song and worked it into our set and we just played it a couple days ago and it was as good as we've ever done it. It was one of the.
Speaker 2:It made me so happy to have been able to pull it off To look back and to see how I progressed. I mean, you know, I was never the best guitar player in in in high school. There were guys that could play, uh, the Hotel California solo, note for note, and I could barely get through that and and and. But I just had this love for the music that that wouldn't let me go and I had to keep doing it and keep doing it. And it's all about the music. For me To be able to have gone from just playing the blues, to be able to do a Coltrane song with a group of friends and just be locked in in that zone with them. There's nothing like it, you know, absolutely there really nothing like it.
Speaker 1:You know, Absolutely. There really isn't Absolutely. Music is glorious, that's the bottom line. It is, and there's nothing better than being in the moment and just going for it. It's the most glorious thing.
Speaker 1:And you know, I don't know if you get a lot of people that are your age or people you grew up with or something, and they'll say something to the effect of man, doesn't it get old? The traveling, and you're like I always just say here's the thing I go. You know we're not to the level where we got to worry about a crew and a road manager and a bus and all the different logistics. It's a couple of dudes and a vehicle. The tour is put together in such a way where the drives aren't horrible so we're able to stop where we want to stop. We stay where we want to stay.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we don't book hotels until a lot of times the day of hey, you guys want to stay here tonight, or you want to go down the road. You know where. Do you want to eat? It's, it's all. Hey, we're going to be within X amount of this particular landmark. Do you guys want to go and check that out? And we do it. And when we get to the gig you know people want are only coming to see us. It's not like oh look, there's a band here, they're going to see us. They. You know, I hang out, I do the merch table. I hang out with people before we play, I hang out with people after we play. You get to meet all these cool people from all over the place and then you're done. We start early, like seven, eight o'clock at night. By midnight you're in your hotel room chilling like a villain. I'm traveling with my kid. It's like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:This is awesome and we don't have and let me tell you, I have a playing with Bill Murray. I have a total, I have total respect for that dude, because that dude, he's trying to be like a regular guy in a world that doesn't see him that way. Right, and he gets hounded, he gets stalked, I believe it, and we don't have that issue. We get to be rock stars for the moment, you know, the moment that we're playing, and then when the gig's over, we can just go chill out and be cool. You know, we can deflate back into our normal size and shape.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know about you, but I also think that, because of social media and, you know, just doing kind of videos where you're just being yourself, that it's kind of taken away the weird us and them mentality. They feel like you're just their friend and then, when you're just the same way you are, as you, as you appear to be, you know what I mean they're like it's like you're just friends with people instead of this weird lording over them as an other. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like when people ask me how my mom's doing, cause my mom has a a very similar fan base to me. I think she might have a greater fan base. I have people asking how my mom's doing and and and. They're like, oh, how's the dog? Cause Ella's always making appearances on my, on my page, and and.
Speaker 2:Uh, it feels good to be, yeah, to to be in tune with the fans, like we, we, we gotta it with the fans. It's a great thing. The level we're at, I mean we thrive to make. We want to make more money, of course, we want to keep doing this, but I like the intimacy that we have with our audiences. The connection we have with our audience is very different. The connection we have with our audience is very different from, say, somebody like, maybe Beyonce? Right, no doubt, and we get to live this life where we can play, we can go from playing the small rooms to playing the big halls. Right, we're not just contained to being a bar band. We, we are. It's taken us to so many different stages, right, you, especially man, I mean, you get to share, share stages with joe bonamassa and and and les paul and and they just, it's just, we're just very charmed. I know that'd be probably boring the shit out of me.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I'm I'm down with it A hundred percent. Well, just to your point about playing the John Coltrane tune the other day, I mean we're at a level where it's like hey, let's try that tonight. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we can do it because you're not going to hits right, right. I, yeah, I saw clapton. I saw clapton on that, uh, on the from the cradle tour, the blues rep, the blues tour, and uh, I knew what I was getting into and it was awesome and I and I remember people bitching that he didn't do leila right and and he didn't do wonderful tonight and he didn't do sunshine of your love, and I'm like yeah, we don't have that problem, do we?
Speaker 1:yeah, there's a certain. You know what you trade for. That iconic status is the freedom to do whatever the hell you want to do. Basically yeah, I wouldn't trade my life for anybody else. I'm cool with it.
Speaker 2:Plus, you know, you got Dylan going on tour with you. You got your kid going on tour with you. I found out seven years ago that I had a daughter that I didn't know. Yeah, I remember that. So those kind of things just add to the fun of life. And, yeah, I love my life. It's not always easy, man.
Speaker 1:And for yourself. I'm sure you foresee doing it, as long as you can do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I don't think we have a retirement plan. Well, that's a fact. That's a fact, that's a fact.
Speaker 1:I was just up with some people yesterday that were talking about retirement. I'm like what is this? You're talking about this retirement.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess our plan would be to cut down, just cut down just a little bit as we get older, maybe just cut down the touring a little bit, but still have to make enough money to, like Delbert McClinton does. He already did. As he got older, he gradually cut down his tour schedule now. He's just fully retired now and he's 85 years old bless him. But I do want to say that that I, we are human, and when you've been on the road for six weeks straight, you get home and then you don't have a moment's peace. You tend to to uh lose it every once in a while. I, I had an argument with my wife and uh, I, I said this to her. I said I, I, I said, know, I give a left nut for one day off, one day off. I did say that a couple of days ago, I did confess. I do confess that I did say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is no day off. That's what people don't understand. It's like you know, you get off the road and then you got to deal with all the stuff, the honey-do list, exactly, exactly, exactly. But then you know, by the same tokens, like all these other people, including our, you know, not to mention the fact, our spouses and so on and so forth. It's like they all have to do shit they don't like doing. We do stuff that we want to do Ninety nine percent of the time. That's true. That's true 99% of the time.
Speaker 2:That's true, that's true. And sometimes they're lucky enough to come along for the ride with us. And right now my wife she's doing dirty work. Right now she's doing my EPK for a European tour for next year. Ah yeah, see, europe is a struggle for me. You're talking about how you did really well in Europe, but in the States you were kind of back in the early days. It's kind of the reverse for me now. Europe has always been a struggle for me, so she's helping me get it together and, you know, maybe I'll break through one of the one of these days.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I, what I learned about the Europe thing years ago was that, um, you know, I've had the same guy booking us in in Germany and around area. Um, of course it's very political over there as well. You know, it's like, right, my guy's really good at booking certain regions, but then he butts heads against these agents in the Netherlands. So, as a result, we barely ever play in the Netherlands. Uh, france was off limits. Oh, now we got a guy in France. It's going to book it. Now we've got a guy in Italy that's going to, and we've had the same guy in Italy for many, many years. So it's, it's a political thing. And then we finally got a guy in the UK, a separate guy.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, at one point you're wanting to like God, I'm playing these same places. I've been playing for 20 years. And then you realize you're lucky to be playing those places, Right, you know what I mean. So, what I like about going over there, it's the same thing as it is here. It's like you show up and play at places where you know one night it's a, you know it's a 300 seat place. The next night you're playing at a place that sits 75 people. You know Um, but you can charge us an amount that people want to come and see you do your thing. They're showing up to see you, their fans, they're going to buy your stuff and um and then on to the next place. But it's done.
Speaker 2:It's down and dirty, but it's a similar thing where are your strong uh regions in in europe you live more germany. Uh well, we've done.
Speaker 1:We've done okay, everywhere I mean, but but not like you know, we're not playing like theaters, we play clubs, clubs. You know, every now and again we'll play a theater, we'll we'll get on a festival and people will come on out, uh, but for the most part, you know we're we're playing clubs and we play them. You know, all over Germany, I mean, I've played every nook and cranny in Germany, let's put it that way. Uh, a little bit in Denmark we've done. You know, when I did the Fender thing we would have like Fender-sanctioned shows and then we'd play. You know we've done Poland.
Speaker 1:And you know, with Fender I've done like every nook and cranny of the East. You know, from Serbia, croatia, hungary, romania, I've done Greece, all over Italy, france has been a little weird. I mean, I've done a few things in Paris. We'd always do, you know, but that was more Fender stuff. But then we finally got an agent to book our stuff down in the south of France and that went fantastic. But you know, it's one of those things where I'm able to. You know, especially over the years, I was always able to kind of do these combination things where we would do gigs with the band and then we would do some kind of clinic or, you know, um, uh, sponsored events by either Fender or whoever it was at the time. But now we just go over there and just play with the band. But there's a lot of, you know, music colleges will have us come in and do stuff as well, so that's a thing that underwrites it. There'll be like a guitar event and that might be the anchor gig. We'll put a bunch of stuff around it, but it's changed. I mean, it's changed over the years.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that's always been good for us is is that, um, you know, klaus, my agent would always say he goes, you are one of the only guys that makes money over here that I tour with, and I went what do you mean by that? And he's like well, a guy will come over and he'll bring name guys as their, as the rhythm section, so that they have more marquee value, but then he has to pay those guys accordingly, and so all the revenues for the gig goes towards the expenses of paying those guys and all the other kinds of stuff, and then that individual just make money on the merch, whereas, you know, we've always done it in such a way where I always bring my boys and we do it in such a way where you know we share everything. So I mean I share the merch and all that kind of stuff, but at the end they're all making a decent amount of dough. So they're all like hell, yeah, let's go. So, um, you know it's, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:I mean we, you know we go over there, you know we might be there. If we're there for 30 days, we might do 32 gigs. You know what I mean? Cause there's a couple of doubles, yeah and uh. And so by the time you get home you're fried, but you've made dough Right. And I haven't done anything like that since the Roof Caravan.
Speaker 2:I did the Roof the Blues Caravan with Roof Records, oh yeah, and those routes, the itineraries were killer. Oh, they're brutal, brutal. The routing was crazy too. Yeah, well, that's kind of one of the were killer. Oh, they're brutal, brutal. The routing was great. Work was crazy too. Yeah, that's kind of one of the things.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like what it's like I've been many, is the time where it's like, okay, monday we're in cologne, and then tuesday we're in dresden, and then on wednesday we're 20 miles from cologne, we're just going back and forth. But you, you know, that's I mean my guy. It's like he'll book Mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays I mean, every night is booked, yeah yeah. So in order to make that happen, there's a lot of zigzagging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did Luxembourg once and we had to leave right after the show and drive to Frankfurt, stay at a hotel near the airport and drive to Frankfurt, stay at a hotel near the airport, sleep a couple hours and then fly from Frankfurt to Ulm, sweden. Oh yeah, way the hell up near the North Pole there. Yeah, we've done some crazy shit with that man. We live to tell the tale.
Speaker 1:Well, what's funny about it? I don't know about you, but I quit partying years ago and I think I could never do what I do if I was partying. There'd be no way. No.
Speaker 2:I stopped partying after COVID. Before COVID I was feeling like I was never a. I wasn't exactly Charles Bukowski or anything, but I was. Sometimes I'd have a little bit of a drink. You know, sometimes I have a couple of beers and if I was, if it was a long run I would, I'd have a beer or two, and then I'd get near the end of a run and we'd have a day off and I'd have to hit the harder stuff and it just added up. It started building up and I was always a social drinker. I was never, you know, I never didn't drink every day, but and I only drank when I played. But we were working 200 days a year for a while and it started to add up. And then I got COVID. So when we went on lockdown, I slowed down. I was home a lot and I didn't drink that much. So I started to feel better. And then I got COVID On 2021.
Speaker 2:And after quarantine I had my first drink. I had a double tequila with a friend of mine. I couldn't get out of bed for a week. Oh, no shit, made me into a lightweight and so I started weaning off it. Now I've kind of lost the taste for drink. I kind of don't drink much anymore. I might have a drink every now and then but I couldn't. I think being on the road with Zito, who's been sober for 20 years, right, and that dude's got so much energy. And we were doing with the Blood Brothers we were doing seven nights in a row With a day off, and I'm in my 50s man. I can't do that what I used to do anymore. I can't drink every day.
Speaker 2:I just kind of don't do it, and I feel a lot better. I started taking better care of myself. I took up boxing. I got back into boxing and I took up Kung Fu. In fact, I got a Kung Fu class after this. I used it on Zito a couple of times too, on the road. I won't talk about that.
Speaker 1:You guys have a humorous dynamic between the two of you. It's glorious.
Speaker 2:He's the brother I never wanted. I mean the brother I've always wanted. He is my brother. He is truly the brother I never had, because he gets away with shit that only a sibling would allow. If we were friends I would not be friends with him, but he's wonderful to me and he always. You know, there's nothing he hasn't accomplished since he's gotten sober Right and it's a joy to be a part of these adventures with him. I wouldn't be with Bill if it wasn't for him. I wouldn't have had the Blues Music Awards if his label hadn't picked me up Right and hadn't believed in me. So you know he's my brother, man, yeah.
Speaker 1:You guys sing great together too. I mean, it sounds glorious.
Speaker 2:We got good chemistry. There's something about when we get together. If we ever got to the ZZ Top type of level, we'd probably have our own buses, like they had. I think Dusty and Billy had their own buses We'd probably have our own buses when we get on stage, though it's. It's uh, the guitars seem to to to to mesh together really well, and sort of the voices, and we're going in the studio next week to do another blood brothers album. I can't wait. We just messed around with an instrumental during during, uh, one of our sound checks with Billy and uh, yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so you're headed to Minneapolis next. Right, I am Minneapolis uh with Bill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got Minneapolis, uh, des Moines and St Louis, and then we stay in St Louis for for a week to record the blood brothers album. We're hoping to get Bill on that, maybe get him on a track or something. Oh, that'd be cool. Yeah, I think he deserves it. He deserves to be on the album. Let me tell you something speaking of vans. I had to get a new van. The rear end on my old van just was shot and it was going to cost nine grand to fix, oh Jesus. And we did two nights in San Francisco with Bill and I made enough money to put a down payment on a new van. Thank you, uncle Bill. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I bet guys like Bill Murray are so sick and tired of people quoting various different quotes. But just the other day, when I was just today, as I was walking out here, I was like chicks dig me, because I seldom wear underwear. When I do, it's usually something unusual. I use that one.
Speaker 2:I use that one all the time. Yeah, no, he doesn't. He doesn't want to be defined by those days. Um, like he lives for the moment, you know, and he has things in his life that he wants to do and you know he's taking on more serious roles these days, but he also, you know, when he's in musician mode, he doesn't want to, he don't want to hear about that. He doesn't want to hear about that boom shakalaka, shakalaka, boom shakalaka. Or he doesn't want to hear those quotes boom shakalaka, shakalaka, boom shakalaka. Or or, uh, mass, he doesn't want to be. You know, he don't want to hear those quotes, although he's very cool about at the meet and greets. We do meet and greets and people show up with those quotes and then he, he kind of laughs it off and right and stuff. But I don't think he likes being defined by those days anymore. He's, he's just, uh, he's an inspiration man, man At 75, the energy that he has, he's doing things on his own terms.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have a manager, which is amazing. You've got to really know somebody in his circle to get a hold of him. Like screenwriters, directors, they can't get a hold of them unless you got to work hard to find them. That's wild and that's amazing to me because it inspired a song. I wrote a song about it because he's and it's hopefully Zito will like it but it's about how he busted his ass doing what he had to do until he got to a point where he could do what he wants to do now.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah yeah, yeah, and I think that's.
Speaker 2:I think it's amazing. We played in New York. We did two nights in New York and it coincided with the Saturday Night Live anniversary weekend. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we were like, how are we going to pull this off? So we did the Capitol Theater in Port Chester and that was the same night that he had to go to Radio City and sing at that music event on the Friday. He did that, got on a shuttle, showed up 10 minutes before the gig, made it on time for the gig. The next day we played at Sony Hall in Midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 2:He decides he wants to go see his son in Connecticut. His son is an assistant basketball coach at UConn. So he goes up to Connecticut the day of the show, catches a 2 o'clock game against whoever gets on the train from Connecticut, gets into the city, makes it in time for the meet and greet around 6 o'clock, leaves the meet and greet, goes to 30 Rock to do pre-production for the Saturday Night Live show on Sunday, zips right back and makes it in time for the show at 8 o'clock or 8.30. The man has no. He's no quit in a man, he's just a. That's awesome Freak of nature. It's very inspiring.
Speaker 1:I heard I can't remember the details of the story, but I was one of my favorite stories Like apparently someone was in the bathroom, like at the urinal or something, and all of a sudden Bill Murray's peeing right next to him. The guy looks up and he sees Bill Murray and Bill just looks at him and goes no one's going to believe you. And then San Francisco.
Speaker 2:We played at the Great American Music Hall and the Grateful Dead played there on my birthday in 1975. So that was. That was an honor in itself. We're downstairs in the green room, Bill walks up to me. He goes, Albert, I want you to meet a friend of mine, this is Don Novello, and I go. And I look at him and go Father Guido Sarducci, Are you kidding me? He goes. Yes, my son. And we. Are you kidding me? He goes? Yes, my son. And we spoke for an hour. We talked about Italy for an hour. It's just been crazy, man, it's been wild Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule to converse. It's been glorious, great catching up with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for reaching out to me. I so respect you so much, on so many levels Likewise my friend as a musician and as a person, I love your family. Man. I just think the world of you. It meant a lot to me, you reaching out to me yesterday. I was having a rough day yesterday and you just freaking made my day.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you so much. I'm so glad you were available to do it. It's been a pleasure catching up and hopefully we'll cross paths again one of these days. I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Grizzle Meister. All right, say hello to Zito for me I will.
Speaker 1:I love you brother. Likewise, travel safe. Thanks, man, see you later Later. Well, thanks for tuning in, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Chewing the Gristle. We certainly do appreciate you stopping by. Make sure you tell your friends all about us, I think they might enjoy themselves. So thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
