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
Tom Bukovac: Strings, Stages, and Psychotic Bengal Cats
There's something uniquely captivating about listening to two master musicians simply talk shop. When Nashville session legend Tom Bukovac (affectionately known as "Uncle Larry") sits down with Greg Koch for this episode of Chewing the Gristle, their conversation unfolds like a masterclass.
Bukovac pulls back the curtain on the Nashville session scene with refreshing candor. "It doesn't matter if you're playing for a barely signed new artist or Paul McCartney," he explains. "A sideman gig is a sideman gig. The only thing that changes is the dough and the prestige." This hard-earned wisdom comes from decades navigating an industry that demands technical perfection, psychological resilience, and emotional intelligence.
The episode weaves through fascinating territory – from Bukovac's journey giving himself just one year to make it in Nashville (spoiler: he was on a tour bus within months), to the psychological challenges of session work. "I've been on sessions when people hated everything I played," he admits. "I remember coming home from sessions crying because I felt like such a failure." Yet this vulnerability transformed into strength, creating an iron-clad professional who now plays alongside artists like Vince Gill.
Guitar enthusiasts will appreciate their deep dive into vintage instruments, including Bukovac's prized 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior. Their shared language of influences – from Hendrix to Albert King to Jerry Reed – reveals how deeply personal guitar playing remains despite its technical dimensions.
Perhaps most illuminating is Bukovac's perspective on what truly matters in music: "These are people's dreams you're working on. This is not just a session." That blend of technical mastery and emotional intelligence perfectly captures why some musicians remain eternally in demand.
Whether you're a working musician or simply love peeking behind the curtain of the music industry, this conversation delivers honest insights you won't find in guitar magazines or music documentaries. Subscribe now for more unfiltered conversations from the heart of American music.
Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it? It's already time for season six of Chewing the Gristle with yours truly Greg Cox. So many delightful conversations to look forward to. We'll talk about music. Yes, sure, but you know what else we're going to talk about. Anything that comes to mind, so stay tuned. We'll talk about music. Yeah, sure, but you know what else we're going to talk about. Anything that comes to mind. So stay tuned. We got some good ones for you. Chewing the Gristle, season 6.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, this week on Chewing the Gristle, we have the mega Tom Bukovac. Uncle Larry, if you will, session Ace in Nashville, immortal slinger of guitar and hell of a cool cat and quite a humorous internetsman, as I like to say as well. This week on Chewing the Gristle, uncle Larry, tom Bukovac. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the time has come once again for us to gather around the gristle fire For a little chewing the gristle with yours truly Gregory Calk. I'm here with the illustrious Uncle Larry Gracious Mr Tom Bukovac. Bukovac, bukovac. He's going to attack that Bukovac. Ladies and gentlemen, he's here. Well, he's actually in Nashville. Is there a snake back there? Is that what I see in that environment back there?
Speaker 2:A lizard. It's a lizard. My dear boys have these. They each have a leopard, a red heat lamp. Oh shit, you froze there for a moment. Oh no, you locked up. Are you there? Okay, you got me. Now I think we're back, all right, okay, yeah, yeah, and they like that hot heat lamp there. They like that. Yeah, buddy you doing. Good man, I can't complain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, buddy you doing good man, I can't complain. I finally got home from the tour that I saw you on when we got together there in beautiful Nashville in Rockboy. That sure was a blast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for doing that, you guys have been out busting it, haven't you In the Gristle Missile?
Speaker 1:In the Gristle Missile.
Speaker 2:How many gigs are we talking here?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. We did three before we joined the Allman Betts thing, and then there was 10, and then there was another three. So what's that? 16 in a row? Yeah, How's your ears.
Speaker 2:How's your ears?
Speaker 1:holding up. You know not bad, I put an ear thingy in my left ear because that's kind of facing the fire have you had ringing your whole life pretty? Much just in my left ear and it's not horrible and it doesn't really bother me, and I notice that it does diminish quite a bit when I'm not. It kind of calms down. I think where I lucked out is that I'm just a tall son of a bitch, as you are, so I think that all of the heat is kind of going down by my knees.
Speaker 2:Your boy can hit them cymbals though, boy, can't he?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's not afraid he's not afraid to pound them skins.
Speaker 2:He's a badass drummer man. Oh thank you. He's not afraid. He's not afraid to pound them skins. He's a badass drummer man. Oh thank you. Yeah, he's a sweet, sweet guy. You've done well with him.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you, You've done well. He's a good boy. It's been a lot of fun traveling around with that ensemble.
Speaker 2:Is it weird being in a band with your son?
Speaker 1:No, it's really not. I mean it's really not.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like like do you ever, do you ever have to turn dad on his ass?
Speaker 1:You know, not really. I mean I, when we first started touring, you know it was one of those things where he wasn't, he didn't have a steady girlfriend. So I would see things that as as as a parent, yes, I was horrified, but as a bandmate I was impressed. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Does he still come to you for advice? He does, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you guys have a great relationship. I'm sure you're thrilled about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great. I mean, it's kind of surreal, to be honest with you, especially when you get to be a certain age and you look back and you just remember them when you know they're just you know a little peanut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you change those diapers. And now he's giving you the backbeat. Exactly, you know, man, it's so cool, man, it's wild, it's so cool. And then your daughter is singing and playing. She's doing great yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So she like a couple of years ago she posted some like a TikTok of her playing guitar and singing. I'm like what is this? Because I she took a guitar up to school when she went to college and we were visiting one time, helping her move to another place, and I picked up the guitar and I played a chord and it was perfectly in tune and I thought, well, that's weird. And so she had this little finger style pattern. She's singing this song and I'm like Isla, what is that song? She goes oh, that's one of my tunes, so she has all these tunes.
Speaker 1:So next thing, you know she moved home and she got a job down here because she's up in Minneapolis. That's where she went to school.
Speaker 2:She graduated the power of the dna buddy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's so like you got how many total kids four and how many of them are musical well, they all had musical proclivities.
Speaker 1:But, um, my daughter, grace is, she's more of a theater person, she's more of a theater comedian, clown. She actually went to clown school, okay, yeah, as well as theater and so on and so forth, uh. But my youngest played sax, but now he's in the air force and he doesn't want. But he had a good little touch, he had a nice little vibrato and good improvise okay. But he just said you know, I'm not doing that yeah, I know it's coming back to me.
Speaker 2:I asked you that before. I remember you saying that he had a good touch on the sax.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:He did. Oh man, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Dylan was always trying to get him to jam with us. Dylan's like come on, let's play the chicken and he's like no, he just wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2:I would love to be in a band with one of my kids someday.
Speaker 1:That would be amazing, well, your.
Speaker 2:But you know it's going to be a good while before he's old enough to travel on the gristle missile with me. Yeah, it's going to be a while. Yeah, I need to come up with a name for my own traveling vehicle. What would you call it? Hilarious, the Buka van. Are you glad to be home, buddy?
Speaker 1:I'll bet I am, you know it. Um, we ended up in minneapolis and, uh, my in-laws are up there and we timed it. So we played on a friday and then on saturday my brother-in-law's uh son graduated, had his graduation party, so we did that and then, while I was up there, I got a random email from someone saying, hey, we had a cancellation for this festival and no, uh, in somewhere in Wisconsin, uh, can you guys do it? And the money was. It was good. So I said, yeah, that sounds good. Cause Toby had to go all the way, cause he's from Minneapolis, he was going to have to drive to Milwaukee to pick up his van anyway, so it worked out great. So we did one more gig on Saturday night, a little bonus gig.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it was a good taste, as they say, like one of those corporate gigs money. No, it was just one of those municipal. You know some city money you know this little town had some money and whoever it was canceled. There was a band from New York. I'd never heard of them, but they were called something Adriatic.
Speaker 2:But they had already set up the dough and you were like I'll take that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm like that'll work out just fine, so we went down.
Speaker 2:It was a little hot, but yeah, it's hot here, man Jesus God.
Speaker 1:So you went all over the place doing stuff. You were down doing that, marcus King record.
Speaker 2:Yeah, vince Gill, this tour that I'm on this summer. Thank God this chair that I'm sitting in is very squeaky. I'm sorry, that's all right. It's all indoor, air-conditioned theaters, man. No outside festival gigs where there's flies all over the catering. You know none of that. You know none of that man. We're like, we're nice hotels, indoor old theaters. We can play the Fox in Atlanta, beautiful, all these. You know you play them Like those gigs are. There's a million of those little theaters across the US and it's like it's just beautiful 2,000 seats. You know he sells them out. It's been great, you know. I mean, I've certainly done my share of painful outdoor gigs in 110 degree heat. I don't want to do that anymore. No one does, you know God man, those are rough, ain't they?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, those are rough.
Speaker 2:So with Vince it's pretty much like Thursday through Sunday and then you go back home again, something like that yeah and he's like, he realizes that, you know, not only does he have his own family, but he realizes that the guy's a band of young kids, right. So he's been very cool about it. He about, he like I don't know if I mentioned this to you, but this is how cool of a guy he is. He could have got by with putting all of us on one band bus. It would have worked. But he's got two brand new freeboats buses because he wanted us to be able to bring our kids if we wanted to, oh nice, so he split the band in half. Instead of having, you know, the whole band on one bus, we've got half on each. There's tons of open bunks that's what a sweet thing. Just so we would be more comfortable.
Speaker 2:And if we wanted to bring our kids out, I took them up on that. A couple weekends I've taken my guys out. They've never been on a tour bus before. Man, the magic of that. They fucking love it. They love it. I mean like the first time I took them both out when it ended and they saw that bus pulling away. When I got back in my truck to take them back home, leo, my youngest, he goes. It feels like the world is ending. He was already hooked on the road life and the traveling life.
Speaker 1:You know, you remember the feeling the first time you got on a tour bus.
Speaker 2:Remember that feeling.
Speaker 1:You know, what's funny is that I've never actually toured on a tour bus.
Speaker 2:Oh Jesus, man. Well, I thought for sure you would you probably play with everybody, haven't you at this point?
Speaker 1:Oh, I've always, you know, I've always had my own thing. I've done a few sessions here and there and I would sit in with all these different buddies of mine and whatnot, but never, you, never toured as a sideman with anybody.
Speaker 2:Nope, well, I can get you one of those gigs in two seconds, if you want one. You want one? Get you on a big old, fat tour bus. If you want? Oh, dude, you'll be staying in five-star hotels. You want that? Well, what One of the hours? Right? Oh man, damn dude, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what it was. One of those things where it just you know, I had a buddy of mine from town here, a really good singer-songwriter guy named Willie Porter, and I played in his band.
Speaker 2:I've heard of him. Yeah, he's great.
Speaker 1:Sings great, plays great, and I did that for a while and I just realized that I am not. I mean, I play well with others, I know how to do what needs to be done, but I don't. I like to be in charge.
Speaker 2:Oh dude, yeah, the Sideman gig is not for everybody. It is not for everybody. The Sideman gig is not for everybody, it is not for everybody.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I mean, were you doing primarily sessions for most of your career? How often would you go out on the road?
Speaker 2:Here's what happened. I moved. I grew up in Cleveland and when I was 24, I moved to Nashville and I didn't know anybody and I thought I think I told you this when we were hanging backstage at that gig the only way I could talk myself into moving was I said, if I just give myself one year, I was afraid to move. You know, I'll give myself one year. If I can't get something going in one year, I'll go back to Cleveland. And that was the deal I made with myself, the only way I could talk myself into doing it right. And, man, within the first four or five months I was on a fucking gig tour bus.
Speaker 2:Because it's not difficult to get one of those road gigs in Nashville with the up-and-coming artists. It doesn't pay very well. There's plenty of those gigs even now still available. I feel like Nashville. You can say it's too crowded or you can bitch about the jungle heat and all other things, but it really is the land of opportunity for musicians. Man, even now a fella can move here and get in one of those 250 a night road gigs backing up some up-and-coming artists. Get on a tour bus just to get of get out there in the professional world. It's not the best thing in the world, it's not the best gig you're ever going to get, but it's just a way to get started. And then you just leapfrog from one gig to the next trying to find more dough, more prestige.
Speaker 2:But I've said many times, man, and I know you know this man, it doesn. But I've said many times, man, I know you know this man, it doesn't matter if you're playing for a fucking upstart, barely signed new artist, or Paul McCartney. A Sideman gig is a Sideman gig. The only thing that changes is the dough and the prestige. Right, the rest of it is the same. You're working for someone else. You know you're playing their music. You know, uh, you're, you're totally replaceable. You know all that shit. Right, it's always that man.
Speaker 2:And, uh, you know I respect what you're doing, because when you're playing your own music it's worth, you know, struggling a little bit, because when those people clap and when they respond, they're responding to some shit you wrote that you came up with. It's way more gratifying. You know like for the soul to play your own music. You know. And, um see, I've been the eternal sideman my whole life. I didn't start, I didn't make my own my first record until I was 50, my first record of my music. I was 50 fucking years old when I made my first album, you know. But up until that point all I did was play for other people, play on other people's records. So I get it. I get what you're doing and I respect what you're doing. It's your thing, you know.
Speaker 1:It's always what I want to do you know what I mean, and so I've found other things to you know. Obviously, supplement the income, yeah, whether it be guitar demos or whatever the case may be. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you put on a damn fine show, Mr Great. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you dug it.
Speaker 2:It's very entertaining. You're a natural-born entertainer. You know, you could have done that in the 20s. You would have always been. You know, you would have been a bluegrasser or something like that. You would have been a showman back then. You got it man. Well, thank you sir. You got it man Well, thank you sir. You're a natural ham, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm delicious. That was a cool menu. That analog was a cool joint.
Speaker 2:I had so much fun that night. That was awesome. I've never been to that place before. That was my first time ever there. That was very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I dug that. I mean we've played a few different places down there and we haven't quite found a room, but that felt good that place and people came out. We did that blue room one time Jack White's place, and that was pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that place either. I've never been there.
Speaker 1:It was kind of cool. Guthrie came out and sat in with us there, did you?
Speaker 2:like it better than the analog room.
Speaker 1:I kind of dug the analog Plus. They put us up. We got to stay there and the food was good. You know what I mean. It was good.
Speaker 2:Well, the crowd loved you man. You guys went over really well. That was great.
Speaker 1:That was a good night, and then we went on from there to Asheville. I love Asheville. That's a great town. We had a good time there as well time.
Speaker 2:We had a good time there as well. Yeah, what's been the? Uh, what's been the roughest gig you played? Uh, roughest, roughest place hardest gig you've done. You mean recently or back, yeah, like in the last like year or two, what's been, what's been a you got any nightmare stories um you know, I guess it would just be from a load in well here, here's.
Speaker 1:This actually didn't turn out to be a nightmare. It was actually cool. But we got to this place and and we had this tour out in california and, um, we needed a gig in in san diego. And so the agent's like, listen, I got you a gig at this place. It it's called Dizzy's and it's it's a jazz room and it's basically just a room where you go in and you just make all the door yeah, and I'm like, well, fuck, I'd rather do that than be off. So it was like a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And so I called to advance the gig and they're like hey, you can load in at six, but not before that, because there's an aerobics class that's going on in there.
Speaker 2:How big was the place? What was the?
Speaker 1:capacity Boy, it's hard to say. It was just kind of a long hall, yeah, and it was attached to the music union and it was just wood floor. So they literally just got done having an aerobics class. But then they had a decent stage and they had a vocal only PA. And we go in there and the guy's like, yeah, well, you know, we'll see what happens. I'm like, okay, he puts out like three chairs. I'm like, oh, my God, what's going to happen, you know? And we we set up and, quite frankly, I like doing vocal only PAs in a lot of these places because we know how to handle ourselves and we're loud enough yeah, 20, 20, 26 in his bass drum he's playing exactly and uh and all of a sudden people showed up, you know, and and on
Speaker 1:tuesday night we walked out of there with like a grand from the, from the door, and then, uh, sold a bunch of merch and I was like shit, this turned up. So we, we have found that with this, this band, um, we just, you know as hard as we try, we just don't have a bad night. You know what I mean it's like even if the door is shitty, the people that show up will buy merch you know what I mean, because they understand they understand the mission.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean oh, and you got low overheads. Just Just three guys. Exactly. You don't have a crew. You got nothing. Exactly. Yeah, man, that's the way to do it Keep your overhead low and you get all the dough. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And you know what? We stay where we want to stay. I never figure out the hotel until the day of. You know what I mean? Yeah, you guys want to stay here, so I, you know, we stay at hampton ends, you know, because have you, have you?
Speaker 2:have you ever got screwed and not been able to find a room?
Speaker 1:no, I mean, I've kind of, if I figure, you know, if we're in a situation where there may be a problem, I will book ahead of time. Yeah, uh, but but we've never had a problem, good, and we stop and eat where we want to eat. And well, if you had to, you could probably sleep in the Well if you had to.
Speaker 2:you could probably sleep in the Gristle Missile if you had to.
Speaker 1:If we had to, we could. Yeah, I mean it was kind of funny because when we were out with the Allman Betts guys, I mean they stay on the bus and then they shower at the gigs and then they only get hotels on days off, and for me it's like man, I can't do that.
Speaker 2:That's a big hell, no.
Speaker 1:I gotta stay in a hotel.
Speaker 2:Oh dude, oh my God, I hate when they try to pull that. That's almost worse than when they try to get you to double up on a room. Oh man God, Uncle Larry did not double up on rooms. Call me a diva if you must, but I do not double up on rooms. Call me a diva if you must, but I do not double up on rooms now, oh Lord.
Speaker 1:What was that Strat you brought? It was like a 1970 Strat. I really dig a 1970 Strat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but those Hendrix Zero ones, they didn't make a lot of those Right Like. You'll see 65s, 66, 66s, but from 67 through 70 you don't see them right. 71 and onward you'll see plenty of strats.
Speaker 1:They must not have made many strats between 67 and 70 which is weird because that was jimmy's heyday and he was the best rock star in the world. You think they'd be making him hand over fist?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I was just talking with Greg Boros about that tonight, the guy who's the head of repair at Groom Guitars. Yeah, they just got a 67 Candy Apple Red Strat in and he said it was. I asked him if they got anything cool in lately and he said that. And I said, man, you never see a 67 Strat, you just don't see them. Uh, it's a rare year for strats, like you'll see thousands of 62s, 63s, you know, but never those big headstock ones are rare, man, I love them. Yeah, they're cool. And uh, I I fell in love with that guitar when I was at chicago music a while back. We were on the road and I and I went in there and I just played it and I was like, damn, this is a really nice guitar and they wanted way too much money for it. And I and I told the guy that works at dave, he's a sweet guy. I said, bro, I'm willing to pay you tip-top retail for this guitar, but I can't pay 30 over tip-top retail, right right right, you know.
Speaker 2:So he, he went to his guy and we worked on a deal. I still paid a fortune for it. Man, it's hard to find good deals on that kind of shit. That is, it's too expensive. The old stuff we all love those old guitars, but it's kind of got how much money they are. It's taking it out of them. Any young kid or a guy who's not a you know, doesn't have a damn good job, is never going to be able to afford any of that shit. It's sad. Yeah, I agree. I wish that you could. It feels like in my mind, like in the, if I could make things right with the world. It feels like the most rare collectible, like a burst, could be like 100 grand. You know that would still be out of touch of the normal man, but that's kind of what it's worth, right the fact that they're 400 grand you know, ridiculous.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous, right, if you remember, because we're about the same age. I'm a couple years older, but you know when we were tykes, yeah, you go into like remember there was a place in town here. It's called record head, so you go and get used records. They'd have it was a head shop and then they had guitars on the wall, yeah, and it would just be a rack of, like you know, uh, late 60s, early 70s, strats, tellies, les pauls, and like a 68 strap back then was 450 bucks and it was, and that still seemed like a lot. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's like 450 bucks, yeah, this shit's always been out of reach, right, right. What's the? What's the best deal you ever got on an old, cool, old guitar in your whole life? Best deal you ever got, Most like you know? Holy shit, I can't believe I just scored this for that much.
Speaker 1:Well, it was an amp. I got an Immaculate Tweed Deluxe for like $200.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are $10,000 now, I know, I mean I love Tweed Deluxe. They're one of my favorite amps. They are ridiculous how much they cost. Yeah, I mean I thought that was ridiculous when they were $4,000.
Speaker 1:Right Now it's like $10,000. And Tweed Basements as well, are ridiculous. I love me a Tweed Basement, good God.
Speaker 2:Blackface Pristons are $4,000.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:What the fuck man you know? In Nashville every fucking guy that plays guitar wants a Blackface Princeton Reader. I could sell if I had an endless supply. I could sell 20 of those a week. I get calls constantly from people looking for those. Every hipster wants a blackface Princeton reverb or a deluxe reverb.
Speaker 1:That's all they want. None of them can play loud because of the gigs they got.
Speaker 2:Right, you know what else is really hot still in Nashville? Any cool old Gibson acoustic, any old Fender bass, like any old P-Bass. People love those. Those are the hot items. Like you know, the DeRoguer hipster guitar that used to be a Jazzmaster is now Gibson ES-330. All the hipsters they love the 330s because they're as close as they can get to a 335 without spending 335 money, even though it's a totally different animal.
Speaker 2:No center block, fully hollow. I mean there's a lot of distance between a 330 and a 335 as far as its design, Right. But people love those P90s and they're great guitars, you know. They're great, Although they're terrible for live gigs. They just howl. They howl like a beast. Did you ever try one?
Speaker 1:of those on a gig. Well, no, although I'll show you my recent acquisition, even though this is a… yeah, yeah, even though people can't see me out there in movie land.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This guy that I went to high school with. He called me up and he's like hey, I'm guessing that's a junior, yeah. Oh yeah, just wait, just you wait and see, this thing is.
Speaker 2:Oh man 225. Yes, yeah, buddy, oh must wait and see. This thing is oh man 225. Yeah, buddy, oh, that is killer. 52.
Speaker 1:This is a 57. Look how immaculate A 57.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they kept the trapeze on that model longer than Les Paul, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Wow, it's just missing this little Dude. That is a beautiful guitar.
Speaker 2:Yes, wow, I bet that's just missing, this little dude that is a beautiful guitar.
Speaker 1:Yes, wow, I'll bet that's a monster in it.
Speaker 2:It sounds glorious you know, you could, you could. You know, glazer makes that retrofit, that retrofit bridge. That'll go on that bale, no shit, that'll make that guitar dead in tune. Oh, you're kidding me. Yeah, you can use that tailpiece, unscrew the head and put this uh bridge on there. That'll get that guitar dead in tune. Man intonated bridge for that, if you want it sounds glory, well I'm gonna take man that's, I'll bet that's got the killer neck on it yes, it does.
Speaker 1:It's got a little bit of a v.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah 57s are the shit. Yeah, I love a 57 neck man. Those are great.
Speaker 1:Wow, did you so you had that was a friend of yours, like an old buddy that had that, yeah, a guy I went to high school with. He called me this summer. And no, it is summer. He called me. Uh, that was probably four months ago and he's like hey, I'm moving out to vegas. My uncle is kind of in bad health. He's a guitar player and he has this old Gibson Can you help me sell it? And so we figured out kind of what it was worth. And if he would have sold it through, you know, my buddy, dave at Dave's Guitars or Steve out at Wildwood, you know they would have taken 25%. So we just I said I'll just give you the cash for it, and so I bought it and that was that. Oh man.
Speaker 2:Killer guitar man. Rare to see one of those big cardboard cases like that, the alligator cases that are big, right, that's rare, yeah, I mean that's a cool guitar.
Speaker 1:It looks like it's all there too, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's immaculate. Does it have the spacers under the pickups, like the factory? The rings that go underneath the covers, like the spacers?
Speaker 1:I haven't investigated yet. I like never take apart my guitars.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean you'd be able to see them Right here. Does it look like there's any kind of plastic spacer underneath the cover?
Speaker 1:On the pickup, on the bridge pickup or anything like that.
Speaker 2:No, not the bridge pickup, anything like that? No, I'd not. Yeah, yeah, god, that's a killer guitar dude. I'll bet that thing is awesome.
Speaker 1:Is it real light?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, damn, yeah, it's a killer oh, dude, that is badass man, yeah, so that's kind of I bet. I bet it's rowdy sounding too, isn't it? Yes?
Speaker 1:damn, it is a beastly creature. Yes, man, this wasn't anything major, but it's just kind of fun because it's got the old DeArmond pickup on it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So it's an old Epiphone Caballero.
Speaker 2:Caballero, yes, indeed, with the DeArmond pickups, those are great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a little snotty number. And again both of these guitars because they're not the real iconic ones.
Speaker 2:they were relatively inexpensive, well but that 225 being in blonde is very desirable. I mean, if it was a burst it would be kind of average. But blonde one in that condition, that's nice, that's good. Good score there, buddy.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:What's next on the books for you? You guys going back out.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going back out in August. Well, we got a couple things in July. We've got that gig coming up with my daughter, yeah, and then I'm doing that. Andy McKee you know that great acoustic guitar player, andy McKee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, you play with him.
Speaker 1:We're doing his guitar camp out in Wichita or whatever. So we're going to load up the gristle missile and go out there and do that, and then we're doing this blues festival in Wisconsin on the way back and then I'm flying out to Wildwood and doing some videos out there at the end of July and then we will head out for another tour with Devin Allman and company. So there'll be a little bit of a route, kind of out there. It's all out in the East Coast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we'll get down there and then we'll route kind of out there it's all out in the East coast, yeah and then we'll get done there and then we'll come back. Then we're coming back down to Nashville, we're doing a gig with my buddy, tracy guns from LA guns, so we're doing a show at the basement East. Is that yes, indeed, yeah. So we'll be there on August 27th.
Speaker 2:Oh, great man. Well, for sure That'll be fun.
Speaker 1:We'll raise hell once again.
Speaker 2:We'll get Guthrie out there too. Yes, you and Guthrie are pals, right.
Speaker 1:We are indeed. I first met Guthrie, oh my God, 20 years ago probably, yeah, yeah, and he started to do some stuff with Fender when I was doing Fender stuff, and we just hit it off immediately, you know, being from Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:Do you happen to know a keyboard player who became a Nashville Session?
Speaker 1:guy Tim Lauer? No, I don't know him. He grew up in.
Speaker 2:Wisconsin. I wonder if you knew him. You know what? What about Glenn Wharf, the bass player? Okay, those are both legendary Nashville Session guys that came from Wisconsin. Oh, no kidding, I was wondering if you knew them, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, unfortunately, yeah, yeah, no, unfortunately, yeah, okay, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But so yeah, let's hook up on that gig. That'll be fun, absolutely, we'll get a good GT out there.
Speaker 1:So what do you got coming up next? How long is the Vince thing going?
Speaker 2:We're going until the end of August. He's capping it off with like week residency at the Ryman theater, but up until then we just got weekends. Right now he's making a bunch of records. He's written a zillion songs and so we're booked for the next 10 days recording at his studio. He's got this ridiculous studio in his house. You wouldn't believe the guitarist days recording at his studio. He's got this ridiculous studio in his house. You wouldn't believe the guitarist that I've heard tell it's insane. I mean it's unbelievable. I mean I I said to him one time I go, man, it's like, it's like an addiction.
Speaker 2:And he's like he's like oh, I know he goes, I don't do anything else. Man, this is my vice. You know I don't drink, I don't do anything else. Man, this is my vice. You know I don't drink, I don't smoke weed, I don't do anything.
Speaker 2:But he loves buying guitars and man, all of his stuff is just like he's got a whole fucking wall of Blackthorne tellies, right, a whole wall of Les Pauls. He's got hundreds of really nice old Gibson, gibson acoustics, martins. I mean it's like overwhelming how much cool shit is there. And when you bring a guitar over there, if you're doing a session bringing a guitar over there. It's like bringing sand to the beach. If you don't, you know, you don't, you don't need anything, it's all right there, you know, you know, I mean I bring a pedal board, you know, because I, you know that's all I need to bring. But everything else is there. He's got mandolins, you know fucking everything you'd ever want. It's beautiful, really cool, nice stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, I was over there today and, uh, we've been working over there all week and uh, man, just everything you pick up is all set up right. You know he's all tweaked. You know all the frets are good. He's got them all playing good. It's really cool, really cool, man, nice shit. You know the stuff. I like I'll find stuff in his collection. I'm like, wow, I didn't even know he had this. Like crazy shit, you wouldn't think he has. Yeah, I was like man, where'd you get this old Firebird? He goes, you told me to buy that and I'm like I don't remember that. But he's got this great old Firebird. Can you picture him playing a Firebird? I love Firebirds.
Speaker 2:Me too, man, me too Do you own one. Now you got an old.
Speaker 1:Bird. I don't have a Firebird. I've got this Telebird guitar which is a Firebird body with a bolt-on maple neck but it's got a Johnny Winter signed mojo tone neck pickup and then Telebridge pickup and stuff. So that kind of slakes my thirst for the Firebird Beast.
Speaker 2:They're so cool, man. I mean when I played with Joe Walsh back in 2017. I brought out several guitars and I tried them over the tour, but but I have this old 64, bert, and he would always say I like that firebird, like that's the one that he really liked the way it sounded. So I ended up using that a lot on that tour and he always, he always loved that it's a great one. And, man, they're they're a little awkward at first getting used to them, the gangliness, but man, they are so unique, totally and the sound is like they're the Fender-iest of the Gibson world.
Speaker 2:They're great man. I've owned a bunch of them over the years and I just love Firebirds, man.
Speaker 1:I got a hankering for a white one, yeah.
Speaker 2:You ever have. They made old ones with P90s too. Those are great too, man. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. If you were going to, if I was going to look at your reverb search lately, what would be the number one thing? What have you been hunting lately?
Speaker 1:I've been relatively good. But I've been relatively good. But you know I've been searching for a white Firebird. Okay, I'm just kind of lurking, and I always lurk, for I want a white late 60s Strat, okay, you know, because I've got my one. That's a reissue and I've got my pickups in it. But I want a white Jimmy Strat Rosemont board. No, I want a maple neck Maple board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want the Woodstock one. Yes, okay, wow, okay, man, those are hard to find.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:I think I paid like 16 for that. For that 70 I just bought. That was a lot. That's a lot of loot. Yeah, that's about what they're going for now. Yes, it's not in 70s, but man, they're out there you know there's something about those pickups.
Speaker 1:Those late 60s pickups had a thing they're great.
Speaker 2:yeah and uh, they didn. They didn't wax pot them, they dipped them in lacquer. They're always microphonic, but they're cool sounding. They're very cool. Do you ever notice how, every 68 Tele you ever played, the pickups are totally microphonic?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, my main guitar when I was growing up was a 68 Tele. It was microphonic as hell, right. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:You get the switch and it goes when you can really. You know, they're always like that and I always wondered why. And recently someone explained to me that that's when they didn't they stopped wax potting the pickups and they just lacquered. They just put, they dipped them in lacquer and they thought that would be enough. But that's why they're always microphonic. The pickups on that 70 Strat I've got are very microphonic. You can hear the switch clicking. Oh yeah, and you know, I guess I was talking to my repair guy. He said that it's kind of like, even if you wax pot them, it's not really going to help. So they're kind of they are what they are going to help those. They are what they are. They are what they are, but they're cool. Man, that's a cool era. If I see one, I will send it to you. I'm always finding guitars, man, if I see it. You want a bird, a non-reverse, I mean a reverse bird with the fiber pickups, Two pickups with the Lyra Vibrolo you want?
Speaker 1:that. Yes, I want the Johnny Winter white. Yeah, yeah, Okay, you know, a guy came out to a gig we were playing down in Boca Raton at that Funky Biscuit. Yeah, he's like, hey, I got a white. He had like a 76 reissue white version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like one of those bicentennial ones.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, yeah and yeah, like one of those bicentennial ones. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And he brought it out and I used it for the whole first part of the gig and god damn, that thing sounded good. Plus, it looks cool on me because we're bigger dudes, and that's a more, shall we say, physically appropriate yeah, they're, they're big man.
Speaker 2:When you put your arm on that thing, it feels like you're resting on a table, man. There's so much good there. I mean I love them, man. They're so fun. You know they weren't. The guy that designed them wasn't worked for Ford. He didn't know shit about guitars and he designed the guitar and I always wondered when he turned that design in. I always wondered if they were like this is great, ray, but we kind of already have a guitar that looks like this. You know it's very explorer-ish, although there's so many things that make it unique. The neck-through design is very revolutionary and, man, they're just great guitars, man, and I think they're very misunderstood. I think they're the most misunderstood of all the Gibson guitars. People think that they're only good for, like, heavy rock, and this is so not true.
Speaker 1:No, it's a jangly machine. They really are man.
Speaker 2:And they work great in a large band. I play them on sessions a lot. They cut through a big mix with a lot of people playing. They've got great mid-range, which is great. I love birds man. I love them. They're great. Man. I'm going to find you one. All right, I'm going to find you one man. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's just talk sessions for a minute, because I'm always fascinated by it. I always enjoyed doing sessions, you know, and I'd get called and I remember I went to school for music at this little college in central Wisconsin. Yeah, and back then is like if a lot of the people were like, if you want to be a session guy down in chicago, because that's where all the jingles were happening, it was in chicago. It's like you know you better? They run through it once just to make sure the notes on the page are correct. It's not even assuming that you don't read to the, to a, to an absolute t, so I was always paranoid. It's like my writing, you know, I can read a chord chart down in two seconds flat, but if there's any single notes, I got to quick woodshed that shit before I play it.
Speaker 1:So when you're doing sessions? Are they charted out as just numbers or no, no notation.
Speaker 2:Ever for the shit I do. I can't read. Mary had a Little Lamb man. I really my reading skills are zero Like you. You know I know shit, tons of music theory and I know all the chords and stuff, but man reading notation I would fall apart if I had to do that. So all you'll ever see in Nashville on any normal session, if it's not movie date or something specific, um, it's just court charts that just basically show you the courts and nothing's written out unless there's like a like. If you're, if you're playing like a street, you know I've got a guitar here If you're playing like a, like a, there's like a, there's like a.
Speaker 1:A little pick thing like that.
Speaker 2:Don't try to write that, Just the rhythm of it and shit. I have a hard time just even reading that. Like the rhythms really is what they'll write. But you know, there's only been a few moments in my entire 30-year session career that that not being able to read has fucked me. Uh, there was. There was one time I got on a date where I was playing acoustic and there was a 30-piece live orchestra and the guy pulls out a notated chart and I said to the producer I go bro. I told you I cannot read. He's ah, don't worry, you'll be fine. And I'm like kicking off.
Speaker 2:It was a jody messina christmas record and I had to like do these these little things? Yeah, intros and stuff with just acoustic and these guys like 30 piece orchestra, they're just waiting for me to get it right. And it was stressful. I almost I've tried to fire myself. I told the producer I go bro, I'm not the guy for this. He's like you're great, You're going to be great, Just do this, do this. He got me through it. But man, it was frightening and I really respect those guys like George Deering and Dean Parks and all those heavy hitters that can read like that. I mean movie dates. That's heavy duty. I mean that's way beyond my price range. You know, I've got a really good ear. All I got to do is hear it once and I can play it back to you. But in terms of reading shit, hell no.
Speaker 1:Kind of funny. It was this last road trip. I was on the keyboard player in the almond beth spin. Do you know? A guy named john ginty, b3 player, keyboard plays fantastic. He's a great musician, anyways, it's uh, we were talking. It was.
Speaker 1:You know, brian wilson died when we were and they were talking about yeah those session guys back in the day man they had, they had little lingo for ending songs. They'd be be like hey, this one, give me two Batmans and a stronger than dirt. I'm like what is that Batman? Batman, stronger than dirt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they still use that shit. I still hear that. I still hear Batman, pat Boone, debbie Boone, all that shit. People still say that shit. I know you already know this shit, but the Nashville number chart thing truly is brilliant whoever came up with that Because it was really only designed so that you didn't have to rewrite a chart when you changed the key Right exactly, and it's genius man, so that you didn't have to rewrite a chart when you changed the key Right, exactly, and it's genius man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, whoever thought to think of it in terms of numbers is just brilliant, I mean, and I guess that happened in the fifties, that's. People started doing that, you know, and it's still that's all we do here. Nobody hardly ever writes out letter charts, right? You know, um, and you know it's a little confusing when you first learn it, because you got to really get familiar with your relative keys, right, you know you got to be able to, you don't? You don't have a minute to think what's the sixth minor of a flat, right, you know you don't have you got to know that, right. But then, once you got it, those number charts are amazing, right they're very handy I I mean, they're great.
Speaker 2:And if I'm ever on a session where somebody has letter charts where the chords are written out G minor, I will say, play me the song once and I'll make my own number chart Because it's so much easier for me. I'm just so used to it. You know what I mean, but it's a genius thing. Can I have one second to get a beer? What I mean, but it's a genius thing. Can I have one second to get a beer? Yeah, no problem, I'll be right back. One second, one second man, no worries, I'm just. The fridge is right here. Yeah, yeah, batman, batman, mm-hmm. So is there like how many studios you got around where you are? Is there any like?
Speaker 1:you know there's a few. You know I used to do a fair bit of stuff around here and down in in Chicago a bit. Yeah, did you ever?
Speaker 2:work at that place called the. What's that big studio in Chicago? Um, it was a like the best studio in chicago. I used to work there once in a while yeah, I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1:I can't.
Speaker 2:It's escaping me the uh, what the fuck was the name of that place? Um, anyway, uh, you had to go upstairs, like it was like an elevator, to get up to the studio. You remember that place?
Speaker 1:I never did a session. I every time I was down there, I would work with this one guy and he had, and he had a studio in his house, yeah, and uh, and it seemed like every other month he was swapping stuff out. His house was majestic, it was all like. You know, it's kind of a funny story it was. It was then that my in-laws finally thought maybe this guy's not such a loser. I ended up doing, um, you know, I did.
Speaker 1:I actually did a Fender clinic down in Chicago at this at the store Gann Music. And uh, at the end of the clinic the guy who owned the store is like, hey, you should do sessions down here. I'm like, yeah, well, that'd be great. No, he goes. No, I got no guy that does sessions all the time. Uh, I'll tell him about you. I'm like okay, and you're like yeah, okay, whatever. And literally like two days later I get this call saying hey, uh, you. They're saying your sight reading has to be impeccable. You know what I'm thinking? I'm fucked, right, yeah. So I ended up going in there and doing it and it turned out fine, and and um, and like you got an amazing year.
Speaker 1:You know, I was able to. There was one point. So it was like these three bank American commercials, right. So I was one point. So it was like these three bank america commercials, right. So I get to this session and I know this other guy in the session. He's like do you know who's all in this room? I was like don't tell me because I'll shit in my pants. So they had hired all these guys that were like session guys from you know all the, the, the chess and cadet sessions. Yeah, they were there. And then howard levy was there playing mandolin and in harmonica, and right.
Speaker 1:So we do this one tune and I and I'm just doing this chord thing and figure out a little part. And then the next thing I did like a sync delay thing. That worked out, cool, this is going good, cool. And then the next one they're like the producer comes in and he's like, hey, I want you to play the melody, I want you to double Howard's part. And I'm like fuck me. So I quickly found the single note thing and while he was going around the room, you know, talking to the other guys about what he wanted to do, I had to woodshed and it was not hard, you know, but I had to learn it.
Speaker 1:So I did that. But I walked out of there. I had no idea if I did good, you know, I was like fuck, this is. Was it horrible, you know? But they called me the next day to do another session. So the next session was a. It was an Oldsmobile commercial, to tell you how long ago it was, and the whole commercial was for this car that was coming in. It was just guitar and it was like a bluesy thing and like congas and know, it's the kind of the sexy thing, the car coming in. And so that next couple months later was christmas time and we go out for christmas and and that commercial comes on and I'm there with my in-laws, I'm like I played on that one. They're like, oh, and then I was no longer they finally got it right.
Speaker 2:It was no longer the reprobate bar urchin, how did it sound to you when you heard the commercial? Did it sound?
Speaker 1:good, it sounded good.
Speaker 2:I was like fuck that strat sounds good Hell, yeah, dude, dude. That's amazing. How long ago is that? Like 20 years that had to have been 1995, 6.
Speaker 2:Damn. Yeah, the early days of session work are scary, aren't they? It's frightening. The learning curve is just ridiculous. It's so much to learn. You wonder how anybody ever learns it. It's so complicated. God, my early accessions were pitiful, abysmal. Just terrible. Demos in people's basements with guys that are terrible players, terrible songs. You know, you know it's all you can do. When you first get started, you know Right and then slowly, slowly, you start getting a little better shit and start working with a little bit better guys. I'm kind of glad I had an opportunity to suck so bad for so long, you know, because that's really there's no other way to learn it. You just got to learn it by doing it Right, totally. I mean, it's fucking brutal. I mean people ask like all these young guys are coming at me like all the time going man, what do I need to know? Because the thing that I always say is like you don't know, no sane person, I love the fridge open. It's beeping.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I could hear that. Yeah, like when you're doing a session.
Speaker 2:you have to do things regularly that you would never practice when you're a kid, like who sits there and goes like you know, do a click Right and makes it gridded perfectly on the click. You don't play that kind of shit when you're a kid. You're like Like the parts will just be, be like stuff. Like you know, like you got to do that for 12 minutes and make every one of them Right, exactly, and like you don't. You don't practice that shit when you're a kid. But that's what you end up doing in the studio, right and like.
Speaker 2:No wonder people are having these discoveries, because the studio is like a microscope that shows you immediately how much you need to work on. Like every weakness is exposed immediately if you can't. You know like I had a hard time in the early days when I was playing acoustic, like to try to go like a like if it was a real slow waltz, you know to just be able to go like as simple and boring as that sounds, to nail that shit in the pocket. But it's real, man, I mean, it's fucking horrifying. I remember coming home from sessions crying because I felt like such a failure that I couldn't do that, you know, and I would just sit with metronomes and practice, and practice. It's heartbreaking, it's so much to know, man, but then, like, if you just keep going and you do it for years and years, you become like an iron man. Nothing that somebody could say over the talkback can fuck me up anymore. I'm like forwarded in iron. I've been beaten by everyone for so long.
Speaker 1:What were some of the worst things that people said to you over the the time?
Speaker 2:You hear it all man, like some people, just like they just are they're relentless man they you know they, they, they always want to everything, like I've been on such when people hated everything I played. You know, and uh, or there's a really control freaks, you know and uh, or there's a really control freaks. You know they might like what you're doing, but they have to have it exactly how they want. You know, these tiny details that, like, are so inconsequential but it means so much to them and you got to sit there with them and it's, it's painstaking, you know, and it and it's like my thing is like I'll work for a total asshole as long as they're a genius and I might learn something, and I'll work for someone that doesn't know shit about music as long as they're nice, you know, as long as they're not condescending. So, like I don't mind working for somebody who's mean, as long as they're a real badass and they know what they're doing, because I always look at them looking to learn more and more. You know, but, man, as long as someone's nice and they're not condescending, I'll follow them down any road they want to go down, even if I know it's wrong, just to help them.
Speaker 2:Because what you're doing on these sessions is like when you really zoom out, you trying, you're trying. These are people's dreams. They're making records. Their dream is to make a record and then do something like they're spending a lot of money and they want, they want this shit to be great. Man, you have to always remember this is someone's dream you're working on, right. This is not just a session. It's like it's, it's really meaningful to someone, right? So it's like you got to always come at it from that angle, man. And it's just a weird job, it's a mind fuck, it's 99% of that job is psychological.
Speaker 1:What would you say has been your favorite if you had to pick like a session where you're like holy shit, I can't believe I'm on this session.
Speaker 2:Man, like even just today, man, like like what I was doing today with vince gill, he's got like a like a seven piece band and these fuckers are so damn good right, like if this was an, if if playing in this band was an amusement park ride, everybody would want to be on it like it's like I was thinking about that like the, the joy of of like, of doing a three minute song in beautiful sounding headphones with a band that good, where every note you play someone notices, right?
Speaker 2:you know what I mean. Yeah, the listening that's going on with those guys. It's're so good. Everyone is so talented. I feel lucky to be there. I'm just like this is incredible. What a ride this is.
Speaker 2:I don't care what the session is, I just like playing with really good players. You know what I mean. As long as people are really listening to each other and they really care about what's going on, I don't even care if the songs suck or the artist is not great. It doesn't have to be like that. I just want to play with good cats, man. I mean, that's all it matters to me. But it's really nice when you play with good cats and the artist is great, the songs are great. That's a bonus, you know.
Speaker 2:But when you're in a session, man, the thing you got to get used to is like on tuesday you had an amazing session of shit that that you couldn't believe how good it was, and on wednesday you're playing the worst shit you ever heard in your life and it's like the constant ups and downs are it's a fucking, it's mindfuck. Man like you go from the greatest shit you've ever been a part of to the worst shit in one day, right? It's amazing. So you can never. You can. You can almost guarantee that if you're on a really great session, you can almost guarantee that God is going to punish you with three or four terrible sessions, right after it.
Speaker 1:Right, it's just how it goes Now. Do you interface with everybody that's booking you, or do you have somebody who books you for that?
Speaker 2:I don't. I don't have a manager. I don't think very few of these guys have like what you'd call a manager. I think everybody kind of self books. Right, you got a little calendar and and usually the artists have these they're called pas production assistants, right, and they just call around and see who's available on what days, sometimes by email, sometimes by text, and they'll say what are you doing July 17, 18, or whatever? And you're like nothing. And then you want to play on this so-and-so record and you only get that one shot. You write it down and they don't bother you again. They know you booked it, install it and then, like two months later, they'll be like they'll give you a one-day reminder, tomorrow's that session and, man, you got to be on it.
Speaker 2:Man, believe me, I've fucked up many times. I've forgotten to write shit down. I've double booked myself because I'm really not very good with calendars and shit like that. I've got myself in a lot of trouble. Man, I'm double booking myself and shit like that. I probably should have a fucking manager or secretary or something, because, man, I'm also notoriously hard to nail down a perception. I'm bad about texting people back. It's probably my biggest personality weakness. I don't want to be reachable all the time. I hate being, I hate this immediacy of this technological world and all that shit. God, sometimes I just want to go off the grid for days at a time. You know what I mean. Are you like that too? Oh yeah, oh man, absolutely, it's terrible. I mean all this cause I'm still. You know, we're on. We're like the last you know generation that remembers life before the internet. Right, think about how rare that is, man. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's like the grandfather we used to talk about that remembers before television, exactly Like we were that guy, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep, we know.
Speaker 2:I was just talking about this with my kids the other day. I was, like you realize, my grandpa, my grandpa was in world war one. Right, right, right man. It's crazy. How old were you when you first started playing?
Speaker 1:uh, I was 12, although my I always wanted to play guitar, yeah and uh, and my mom played piano and she and none of my other siblings played. I was the youngest of seven. No one else played, but they all had records. They all were into music, yeah, and my mom taught me like a boogie woogie pattern when I was a kid, so I had the blues progression already ingrained as a pretty young kid.
Speaker 2:You still play piano.
Speaker 1:Not really. I piano, yeah, not real. I mean, every now and again I'll work up to the point where I have some semblance of something. But you know, I played drums for a little bit.
Speaker 2:But you know any other instruments besides guitar.
Speaker 1:I just play guitar you know, what? At one point I was like you know, yeah, I mean I, if I had to on a record, I could, you know, play like I played b3 on one of my daughter's tunes, um, but again, you know, I just played. You know, figure, oh, what's the progression?
Speaker 2:oh, let's do this uh, you are, you are natural. You were probably a badass by the time.
Speaker 1:You were like 14, right like you, you could well I I do like to tell people that you know back when I was, you know my parent, I, my parents, were not stage parents. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:My dad was horrified, I want.
Speaker 1:I mean they were supportive. I shouldn't say that they weren't supportive, they were. They made sure I got lessons, yeah, and and you know and all that kind of stuff. But the idea of becoming a musician horrified them. But you know, I was. I tell people like, look, by the time I was 19, you'd recognize everything I. You know that I play.
Speaker 1:Now you'd recognize the vibrato the phrase all that shit was already then hell yes and um, because I, you know, I was not someone that was like you know, like a metal guy, and then discovered the other shit. It's like I've always been into the same shit.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I've had, I was kind of I was wondering that when I was watching you the other night, I was wondering if you started as a shredder and then sort of morphed into all that shit. But you're saying that that was always the thing. What you're doing now Exactly. It was always there.
Speaker 1:It was the. You know I was a Hendrix fanatic, creamier or Clapton. And then, right there, I just got into the blues shit, yeah. And then I heard albert lee right away and I was like what is this? And then between albert lee and ray flack and dickie betts that were kind of my embryonic you know, and and and mark knoffler. And then I went back and I heard all the you know, the james burtons and right oh jurtons and Jimmy Bryants and all that kind of stuff and got into Chet and Jerry Reed and all that kind of shit.
Speaker 1:But literally all that by the time I was out of high school. I mean there's a lot. There's tunes in my set list now that were in my first band set list. I did all those tunes back then. What was the name of your first band? Well, the Stray Cat Blues Band. It was before the Stray Cats were out. It was the Stray Cat Blues Band, no shit. We interrupt this regularly scheduled gristle-infested conversation to give a special shout-out to our friends at Fishman Transducers, makers of the Greg Caulk Signature Fluence Gristle Tone Pickup Set. Can you dig that? And our friends at Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, colorado, bringing the heat and the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was wondering that very thing. I'm glad you said that, because I was wondering if you because I started out like I just wanted to be a shredder, like I was playing. When I was wondering if you because I started out I just wanted to be a shredder, I was playing when I was like 14, 15. I was just trying to play as fast as humanly possible, right, that's all I wanted to do. And I remember I was in my bedroom just wailing away and my sister who's not a musician but she's a music fan she was ironing clothes in the next room and she walks by and she said that sounds terrible. And I immediately knew what she meant. These aren't songs, this is not music, this is just technique. And that was a moment for me. I started just like you know, I'm not going to do this, this is not where I'm going. And then I turned it around. I started just like you know, I'm not going to do this, this is not where I'm going. And then I turned it around. I started getting way more into it, way simpler stuff, and that served me well.
Speaker 2:But man, the temptation to shred is there when you're a kid. Oh, no doubt you see that going on. You see people doing that. I mean, I taught lessons at a music store and they were all shredders. Oh yeah, you know all those. I'm sure you grew up and run tons of shredders, right, absolutely yeah, so playing country was a pretty radical thing back in those days. Yeah, I noticed you have a lot of that claw right-handed claw technique from that, and so you were doing that like when you were a kid, huh.
Speaker 1:Well, I would ditch the pick and just do it with my thumb and fingers and I'd kind of go back and forth and I didn't really, you know, force myself to do the hybrid thing until I was around. I remember it, I was in my early twenties and I said I have to learn how to do this shit with the pick Right. And it was. It was not easy, but I always tell you it's like so many times you're dealing with, especially with online stuff, it's like you need to be able to let these people know. It's like, look, this shit is not easy. It's like fucking put the time in in order to be able to, and it was painful. Oh dude, you know, as we know, but a lot of people just want you know, as we know. But a lot of people just want you know, in this day and age, they just want you to open up their craniums and pour in the information like sorry, it takes multiple kicks in the groin decades of getting your ass kicked.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, you know, the only way I can relate to the I, I, I'm a, I'm a. My only hobby is playing chess. I'm a terrible, terrible chess player, but I play constantly on chesscom, okay, and like, like, I am the equivalent on the chess board of a terrible weekend cover band guitar player. You know, that's where I'm at, on the chess board. And I know, like, I've talked to real chess players and they and they said if I would just do this and this and this, if I read these books, I can improve greatly. But everyone's looking for the quick hack, right, you know, like, I know that if I I put the time in and read those books and memorize all those openings, I could improve my game greatly. But I'm never gonna do that. I'm too lazy.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's how the guitar players are, right, they want to get great, but they don't want to work right and and like I can, I can relate to that from chess. So much, man, like, I want to be a bad chess player, but I don't want to read all these books, you know. So it's just, you know, they think that there's some magic pill they can take that's going to make them a great guitar player. It doesn't work like that I know it doesn't, man.
Speaker 1:no, I mean, I remember, you know, I remember like hearing, um, like more of a jazzy blues thing, right With a 3-6-2-5 turnaround and people would throw shit in there. Is that a harmonic minor? Is that a melodic minor?
Speaker 2:I was like ah, fuck, tritone sub.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I remember when it clicked and I was like oh my god, I can hear that shit now and just a million of those little discoveries over the many years. And then of course you look back and like shit, that's a while ago now. But you know, I remember when I didn't know how to do that shit and they were like how is that possible? Or the Chet Atkins stuff. You know I finally.
Speaker 1:I actually got a transcription book. It's like fuck it. I got to learn this shit and I remember just taking one measure at a time, just going at it, and you know, you just. But then you just get to a point which you know I'm not telling you anything, anything you don't already know, but it's just when you all of a sudden you're like you know what, if I put my time in, I can pretty much play almost anything that I want. I mean, there are things you know, certain classical things, and really deep, you know dive jazz shit and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:All his words and shit Exactly.
Speaker 1:I can't do that you know, you know, and I'm not a, I'm not a tapper, I don't do any of that shit, but I mean all the stuff that I really wanted to learn I could learn you know what I mean and you've got an amazing ear.
Speaker 2:You can learn, I could learn. You know what I mean and you've got an amazing ear.
Speaker 1:You can hear it immediately, right, you just know it. You just know it. Well, you know, with the chat shit, I I could, that was hard to. That was one of the things where I'd sit down the records like, I I don't get this, and yeah, but when I all I did was one transcription. Once I was did one transcription, then it made sense to me and then I could start figuring this stuff out by ear and I could hear where the stuff was going.
Speaker 2:He was a bad motherfucker.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:He was. He was a bad motherfucker. Yeah, he was pretty ahead of his time in that regard.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you think I mean almost all, I mean between him and Les Paul and Django and Jerry Reed and Jerry Reed they did. If you think I mean almost all, I mean between him and Les Paul and Django and Jerry Reed and Jerry Reed, they did all the shit. Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no shit. And guitar was, like you know, the featured instrument on that shit. It was like it was popular. Guitar was having a heyday right then, you know, and they were wearing it out Jerry Reed and all those motherfuck that's. They were so good and they must have spent so much time pre-internet, no distractions, right?
Speaker 1:you know, there's no way you can get that good unless you just put the time in, there's no doubt no, man, I mean I remember chet's just saying that jerry reed would just make the shit up and he'd be like hold on, let's record that. And then he'd record it and then he would never remember it. He'd have to re-record it because he just came up with it on the spot and you're like what?
Speaker 2:The guy that fucks me up the most. I think he must be an alien life form In his prime Lenny Burrow man.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he was insane, it's insane.
Speaker 2:What fucking world is that shit coming from? He got weird as it got later on but, man, when he was really hitting it, oh yeah, insanity. Like insanity Him and Holdsworth and like there's a couple of guys that just seem like they're not even on this planet to me, like I don't get. I don't get like most of these guys that I love, I got, at least I understand what they're doing and where they're coming from but a couple of these cats, man, like I don't get. It Like what fucking planet?
Speaker 1:was all it's just. It absolutely astounds and perplexes me.
Speaker 2:I just absolutely astounds and perplexes me. I just, yeah, it's like when you hear him play, it's like he never. It sounds like he never heard anyone else ever play guitar, like he wasn't copying nothing. It was like he may have been copying shit, but you can't tell by listening to it what it was he was copying and then I would always be astounded that he was like oh, I played.
Speaker 1:You know, he was always so self-deprecating. Oh, that was horrible. And you're like. Every time I hear him I'm like I could never. What mistakes. It seems like it's flawless.
Speaker 2:Yes, man, he was fucking, I mean, probably the scariest of anybody that I've ever seen, you know, oh my God, without a doubt. I mean what a beast man. Jesus, fucking, mind-numbing. It was incredible. When a guy is so good that you don't even feel like you play the same instrument he plays. I guess I technically am a guitar player, but that's not what he's doing, is not the same shit. It's insane, absolutely. Who's your if you had? I know this is a hard question, but if you had to pick an all time favorite guitar player personally?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's Hendrix, without a doubt. Oh really, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the way. What's your favorite record?
Speaker 1:I think Totality probably acts as bold as love. Yeah, me too. Me too, I mean just from the songs and just the tones and everything. But I do love Electric Ladyland. I mean, every now and again I can listen to it and I can still remember the feeling I had the first time I heard it. Every now and again, you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:It was just such I mean, that was just such a visceral thing the first time I heard that record, Because it was one of the records my brother didn't have and he would always tell me once he knew I was into Hendrix. He's like you, wait till you hear electric ladyland, he goes.
Speaker 1:that's the shit yeah, but one day he came home from this party and, uh, we roomed together because you know, there were five girls in between us. So I had a room with my older brother and I'll never forget it. He put on still rain and still dreaming. And I woke up there and I knew right then and there was like this is the greatest shit I've ever. I remember going to the bathroom and looking in the mirror, just going. What just happened was a transformative experience. How old were you when that? I was probably 10, 9, 10, maybe younger, because I I did a report on hendrickson. I was in third grade. So in third grade it'd have been like nine or nine or ten, something like that right.
Speaker 2:So you're all jimmy, that's your thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my god, yeah you know, even to this day, I mean I just, you know, it's because it's because it was one of these guys where he just played. He had fun playing what he in the in, in the scope of what he knew. He, you know, he could hear himself play through changes more than most blues rock guys, uh, but but he just created just this marvelous shit with the skillset he had, yeah, and, and it was like an alien. I mean. I mean a lot of people, you know, think that's hyperbolic, but I mean it's like it's true, it's like there was music before him and there was music after him. Yeah, man, and it's just. And plus, when he plays the blue shit, it's just. Him on a clean strat is my favorite thing.
Speaker 2:I've often said that that slow version of Voodoo Child with Wynwood playing organ is the most awesome recorded guitar tone. It is that fat ass bass where you can hear the guitar coming through all the drum mics.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a showman. I think that's a showman on that tune. You know, it's just. Of course, it wouldn't have mattered what it was, because he would have just made it happen.
Speaker 1:It's just killer man, god damn. But you know another awesome just. You know what's great on this Allman Betts tour this guy named Chris, who was the light guy. He was Greg Allman's light guy and he used to work with Bill Graham back in the days an old hippie dude yeah, hendrix fanatic like I am. So we started doing the deep dive on all the obscure shit and it was just and it's like remember this recording.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite things is on the on the um the radio, one um bbc sessions there's two different versions of a tune called driving south. I don't know if you're hip to those. It's the most amazing shit. And I remember the first time I heard I was a freshman in high school and there was this older a guy was a senior when I was a freshman and he was a Hendrix fanatic and he had all of this bootleg vinyl stuff and he had the BBC shit bootleg before it was ever released and I heard that driving South and like that was how I focused my guitar activities for years. And then when Stevie Ray Vaughan came out, you know I was like, oh, he was definitely hip to that shit, you know, because he did the deep dive on the obscure Jim shit.
Speaker 2:He totally did. Man, If you had to pick a second place, who would that be?
Speaker 1:You know it's, I would have to say Albert King, yeah yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 1:It's like Albert, I hear Albert play and it's I mean it's hard to say, because I mean I could say Clapton as well, because that Cream Era shit, I mean that's deep, you know. And then BB King was another huge one, and all the you know, of all those guys, it all goes back to BB. I mean all of those licks that ended up I'd take from Hendrix I would like, all the shit goes back to BB King. He did all that shit, yeah, and so it's hard, it's it's hard to say. But then you know, depending on, there was a time where I I lived, breathed, you know, live at the Fillmore of Allman brothers, I mean that was my favorite shit. And then Johnny winter and live, and then Bloomfield, you know, and then Albert Collins, and then there were, you know, I would just kind of ADD, kind of hyper-focus on someone and just, you know, devour all that shit. But yeah, it's, it's hard to pick, pick a favorite, but Jimmy would absolutely be the guy. How about you?
Speaker 2:I always say you know, I hadn't changed my my, just so, all those guys you mentioned, I love. I love Hendrix, but I'm not I don't know every cut. I love him. I love this shit. I think David Gilmour is my favorite.
Speaker 1:Oh, no shit, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Just his writing and his compositional. I love, I just love Pink Floyd. I love those songs, I love his shit and I love Pete Townsend, man, oh, I do love Pete Townsend. I think Pete doesn't get the credit as a guitar player that he did. I mean, he's brilliant man, big fan. I love Hendrix, I love, oh man, so many of them, man. But I think overall, overall, gilmore's touch and his sound and the parts he came up with, it just moves me, man. It always has, man, you know, and I'm a big Beatle freak, that's all I cared about for the first 13 years of my life is all Beatles, man, you know. So that's my benchmark, you know. But how are you with the Beatles? Are you a big Beatle guy?
Speaker 1:I'm a big Beatle guy, but I was always a ladder Beatle guy. Ladder Beatle guy, yeah.
Speaker 2:But then later on.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed the first half, but I was like in my house it was uh, it was white album. Abbey road and let it be out. Where do you have with stones? Oh, I'm an absolute stones fanatic. Yeah, uh, favorite stones. Uh, I gotta say beggar's banquet is my favorite. That's a good one. That's a good one, man, and but you know sticky fingers. I probably learned the most from get your yayas out. As far as guitar shit though, fuck yeah, first slide solo ever learned with Mick Taylor on Love in Vain, all that shit.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you the most annoying over-asked question, but I need to know your personal answer Beatles or Stones, that's hard.
Speaker 1:When I was younger I definitely would have said the Stones yeah. But I mean mean just from like raunchy, greasier shit which I gravitate to. I'm a Stonesman, but compositionally the Beatles win.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean oh, man, that's the oldest, most over asked question. I mean it's so dumb to argue about that, but it's probably the number. Argue about that, you know. Uh, you know, but it is the it's probably the number one debate in all of music. It's like ford versus chevy right version of music, right. I remember, uh, I did a record, uh a couple years ago with this band called the struts. You ever heard of them? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the guy that sings, uh, the lead singer of that guy, he's brilliant, he's a young English kid, he's a total musicologist. He studies this shit. Brilliant, mind man. He really knows his history and we were joking around on the session talking about that and he goes. I figured it out, man, he's totally English, his name is Luke Spiller. He's great, he goes. Here's the thing, man, he's totally English, he goes. His name is Luke Spiller. He's great, he goes. Here's the thing, man, people argue about the Beatles and Stones. He goes. But think of it this way you put the Beatles on when you're on a drive or, if you want to think, you put the Stones on when you want to fuck. Right, it's really that. Can you picture anybody putting a Beatles record on when they're getting it on. It's so that the Beatles shit is intellectual, it's for a drive or when you want to really go on a metal journey, and the Stones shit is just more from the waist down, exactly.
Speaker 1:It's so true.
Speaker 2:And when he said that, as simple of an observation as that is, I was like it really painted a clear light on the age-old debate. That's exactly what it is. It's like you know, the Beatles are way more intellectual, both brilliant in their own way, but the Stones were nastier and more raunchy, right In general, man.
Speaker 1:You like that bad boy shit? I was like yes, I do, yes, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, so you were 12 when you started. I would have thought you started when you were like 5 by the way you play, I I started.
Speaker 1:I started out 12. I always wanted to play, you know, but I there was not a guitar around and it wasn't offered in school. I tried cello, I tried this, that the next thing. Yeah, uh, but the amount of my sisters had a friend up the street who had this nylon string guitar and I borrowed it across the street, showed me a couple of chords and I was off to the races. That's you going, man? Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. So, after all these years of playing, I'm interviewing you. Actually, uh, what, what is my job? Easy, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, if, if you know we're, we're all about to check out we're, we're on the we're where there's one bar left on the phone battery of our lives. You know what I mean. You know what is the final stage of learning gonna be for you with guitar? Like, what, what? What is the last thing that you want to explore? That you always wanted to learn, that you haven't quite gotten into your health? What direction do you see yourself headed in with that?
Speaker 1:Well, I guess, just from a just a purely um, uh kind of a thing I've never done but always want to do because it amazes me, is any of that flamenco shit? Yeah, you know what I mean? I see that popular chia shit. And yeah, you know what I mean. I see that pop shit and yeah, you know, and that young kid now, that italian kid, that mateo, whatever his name is, with the fingers. But just there, there's some cool shit that those guys do with just their hands.
Speaker 2:To me that is that is so you find yourself looking at that shit on youtube sometimes, oh yeah, yeah, and going down there I I've, I've always been sort of anti-jazz and I've joked around jazz curious. But man, what I can already tell the final chapter of my guitar playing life it'll be like the country western swing, shit, yeah, yeah. And it's like I mean I love that shit, I, I. That's the only way I can ingest jazz, right, as if it's got a country tinge to it. Yeah, I hear you. You know what I mean. Like I'm not a hardcore job, I'm not a bebop guy. I mean I respect it, but it's not what my heart said. But but jazz in, in terms of country jazz, I can take love, you know, and you probably grew up playing that kind of shit, didn't you? You love that, like Jimmy Bryant and all that shit.
Speaker 1:Well, I did get into Jimmy Bryant pretty early on. I mean I couldn't play a lot, I mean I figured out some of it and we used to do a few of those tunes like the Knight Rider and a couple of those other tunes. I learned, but yeah, I always liked some Western swings, I, you know it was. It was weird, I mean I always was in jazz band and I went to school. I was a jazz major, but I was always, you know, I was always put off by a lot of jazz academia. Like if you bent a string and didn't play a solid, or if you didn't play a hollow body guitar like an ES-175 with flat wounds through a polytone, you were the antichrist, you know Right. And so it took me a while before I could even play, like a major seventh chord because I hated it so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the problem was is that I don't know about you, but I just the standards, especially when I was younger, didn't speak to me at all. Right, as I got older standards there were certain ones like oh, I like this one, I like that one, and I learned a few, you know, and I got my mind around. You know the harmony and how to negotiate them and so on and so forth, but there was such a long time, it's like you know. So to me it was like these jazz guys learned this amazing ability to reharmonize these songs. But I didn't like the songs to begin with because they didn't speak to me. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Totally get it. I totally get it. I had very short tenure of formal guitar lessons when I was a kid for a couple months with a hardcore jazzer when I was about 12, probably and he sent me home with a stack of vinyl records. All this shit you would expect If you were going to make a list of like 30 jazz records from like the late 70s. All this shit you would expect. Name it, Go ahead. You know, Johnny Smith, Tal Farrello, you know Harley Christian Wes, Montgomery, Grand Green.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. He sent me home with these records and said listen to this shit, you know. And I took it home, man, I listened to it and it all sounded exactly the same to me. I was so not moved by it. The only thing that I liked in the whole stack was Stephane Grappelli's fiddle playing on that Django shit. Yeah, yeah, I could feel the fire from that, right. I remember thinking that's a bad motherfucker, right. But that jazz shit was so boring to me as a kid I said I'm never going to like this. I know I'm supposed to like this, you know, but it just never was the thing. I mean, I still can't get with all the shit. You know all the stocking voicing, you know all the shit that jazz guys play. I can't stand it when people play like that with the typical jazz voicings. You know what I mean. It's just not my thing, man sings.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's just not my thing, man. I mean that. That's why I like the, the gospel-y stuff, you know, like the quartet guitar stuff, because that's yeah, that's more modern approach and it's, it's just more refreshing. Yes, yes, and I'm like, ah, that's, that's cool because that's alive. Still, the other stuff is like it's, you know, it's. I don't know, I mean I have total respect for people who have mastered that stuff.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Me too. Me too Can you play some of that flamenco shit. Have you been fucking with that?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't those trills. I've been trying to do that with pick and fingers and I've almost got it to the point where you know like I like to do those little intros to songs where I do like a little etude of a sort that I'll come up with yeah that's kind of my thing. It's like I don't, I don't really want to learn somebody else's tune. I want to learn a little technique and then make something up and do my version of it right exactly yeah, you do, yeah, you do that.
Speaker 2:Well, my friends, I was blown away by that crazy echo shit you were doing. God, you really got that shit down.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you, that's. That's an old tune, man. I I uh I'll never forget when I came up with that thing, Cause I I had seen a blues Saraceno Remember him, I remember the name. He still is a great guitar player. I remember he had come out with a record and he had actually done some gigs with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. So to me he was cool, you know, because he was playing with the boys. But then he got hired I think he was like under contract with Lenny Kravitz for years and he had to be. His only gig was that Yamaha amps and there was a Saldano designed Yamaha amp and so they had this special little room and blue Saraceno was the guy that was demoing the shit and I walked into that room and he was doing a sync delay thing like that.
Speaker 2:And, and the thing is, he was a bad motherfucker. And I was hearing this thing.
Speaker 1:I was like that's a cool idea, and every time I play that people are like oh, that's Cathedral by Van Halen, and I knew later on that Van Halen had done it.
Speaker 2:But I didn't have that record.
Speaker 1:I only had the first three Van Halen records and because, as you know everyone, our age was a Van Halen freak and I was like, oh shit, that's not what I'm into. I mean, I I always liked Van Halen as far as coming up with amazing shit and he was totally a genius as far as coming up with new things and all that.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't my bag Right, so I didn't really.
Speaker 1:I'd never figured out eruption, I never figured out the tapping stuff and I certainly didn't figure out this tune called cathedral, which I figured out later on I heard it's like, oh, that's that same technique. Yeah, it was. I saw blue Saraceno do it at a booth at NAMM. And then I came home and I was leaving a message on my answering machine and I had this one lick that was a Mike Stern lick. I took off a vital information record and when I slowed it down or did it with the sync delay, I was like, well, that's cool. And then the other thing was a West Montgomery. The other thing is a West Montgomery lick I came up with. It was like going down from the five to the four from a West Montgomery Jimmy Smith record and I, just when we put those together with the delay, I was like, well, that sounds kind of cool.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, man. Yeah, you know, like, uh, like I'm kind of with you on the Van Halen thing. That was kind of like I loved him and respect him, but it was like the shadow that he that he put. I mean, you, every guitar player was trying to do exactly what he did. It was, it was crazy, right, I mean probably the most imitated guitar player in history, wouldn't you say, oh, without a doubt, yeah, I mean Jesus man, like to do something different from what he did, was man. It's amazing, right, did you ever go look back at the YouTube videos that there's some recordings You've probably seen them like that were in like 74 of him just like on a cassette, you know, like, you like like playing in his house and shit and like a lot of that shit's already there. Oh yeah, like you were saying like it was already formed.
Speaker 1:You know, right, you know it's pretty crazy man and what I dug about him too, is that you could definitely hear the cream influence. You know what I? Mean it's like he he would do those, he'd speed up those Clapton licks in a really cool way and and I dug all that. But for me it was like one of the things is that once I saw them on MTV it's like I can't. I can't get behind this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was used to fucking Jimmy page and Clapton because I was used to fucking Jimmy Page in Clapton and those guys looked like they were like Ben Hendricks I mean, the coolest motherfuckers ever to walk on a stage and then you're seeing these guys in like tights and fucking David Lee Roth. I could never. I never understood that. You know what I mean, right? And so I was just like, yeah, I'm done, I'll let you guys, you know, you guys have fun with that. I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. I'll let you guys you know, you guys have fun with that. I'm going to be over here somewhere.
Speaker 2:Who's the most underrated guitar player in history? Oh boy, that's hard Like really like you can think about it for a while and come back to that, but like who would you put in that category?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, just as we were talking about before. I mean, you got like Jerry Reed. Everyone knows him as the fucking trucker. They have no idea. Yeah, he was such a, and Glenn Campbell is another one. He was frightening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1:And because they were such good entertainers, people overlooked the fact that they were actually frightening.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and people think that Roy Clark was a better motherfucker than Jerry Reid was. They don't even know how serious Jerry Reid was Exactly. Roy Clark was great too but Jerry Reid was a freak.
Speaker 1:Whole other level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of who I would say is the most underrated guitar player. It doesn't get the props they deserve. It's tough, I can tell you a few overrateds, but I'm not going to do that on this program.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm always bad about that. I mean, I like, if anyone is into good guitar playing and they enjoy music, that's all well and good. You know what I mean. And and, and I have no qualms about you know, I, I, I'm kind of like with music, I kind of like with pizza, it's like I like it all to varying degrees, yeah, but, but John Mayer drives me fucking crazy. He's a great guitar player. He's written great songs. When I hear him talk, I don't know what you know.
Speaker 1:They say that people who annoy the shit out of you. It's something you need to learn in this incarnation. I got a lot to learn from john mayer, because that motherfucker crazy people talk about oh, my god, he's the. You know it's like, okay, he's, he's great, but there's nothing new going on there. Right, there's nothing new and and and and plus I. I had an encounter with him once and he was, he was, he was a dick. You know he was a dick with ears. So you know it's like and I've heard that from a lot of different people and I know it's like, oh, he's changed his ways and whatever else. You know, I hope he has. I might meet him sometime. He might be the nicest guy in the world?
Speaker 2:Oh, maybe so that's usually. What happens is like you think somebody's a total douche bag, and then you actually work with them and end up meeting them. You're like why did I ever think that, right, all these years? That necessarily happens, you know.
Speaker 1:And we all, we all have our moments but you know, but that's, that's just one that you know, people I mean. But here's the thing I always say it's like it depends when you start the clock. It's like with people, a lot of these young guys that got into blues and and kind of roots oriented music john mayer was their their gateway drug and I'm like, okay, cool, I get it, you know, that's it. And then they went back from there and you know, that's all well and good, I get it, but, as I said, I must have a lot to learn from man, you know.
Speaker 2:I'll never forget this man. When I was, when I was, this John's you think of his first album was a long time ago, right, right, I remember I heard that first album. He did Room for Swearing. There was a couple of songs that I really liked and I brought it over to a friend's house an older guy who's a good musician and I said check this record out. And I played him a couple of songs. He goes yeah, that's great. I liked it the first time and it was called michael franks. Do you remember michael franks? I remember that, yeah, and we, if you, uh, I don't know if dude was stealing from dude, but if you listen to the those old records, man, it sounds exactly like what he was doing in the early days his vocal delivery, right, everything. And I don't you know, it's like you know, maybe it's a coincidence, I don't know, but but uh, it's a coincidence, I don't know. It's funny when you hear that it sounds like a predecessor to Melissa. Interesting. A little homework for the people out there in the listening land.
Speaker 1:Forgive me out there people. If you're a John Mayer fan, I'm not judging you, I'm judging me. I have things to learn, personal things. Thank you, john mayer, because because of you I know I've got some work to do do you normally?
Speaker 2:uh, is it? Your kids are grown now so you're able to do whatever you want with your own personal life? Uh, you probably, like I, I'm still on little kid hours. Like those guys are up at 6 o'clock, no matter what. You know, even though we're on summer break now, my schedule's a little fucked up. What time do you normally wake up in the morning, when it's just you?
Speaker 1:Well, it depends, because when it's just you, well on the road, I get up at 7 am, regardless of when I get in. You're an early riser, yes, but this morning, when I'm home, we have Bengal cats which are fucking psychotic Really. Oh yeah, so 4 o'clock, what do they need? 3.45, 4 o'clock they want to eat. So my wife and I take turns, so this morning was my turn, so I'll wake up and then I can't get to sleep for a good hour.
Speaker 2:What are they? What are they? What's what is?
Speaker 1:I don't even know what that angle cats look like little snow leopards. Wow and uh. They're beautiful and they're and I mean they're. We love the cats but they're they're not like lap cats. They're not gonna like curl up with you and you know. It's like they want to be around you, but they're not very affectionate. They're beautiful and a lot of energy and they're very vocal.
Speaker 2:So women like that yeah, very similar to some women I know. So they're like high maintenance. Yeah, yes, yes, they are. Whose idea was that? To get them?
Speaker 1:Well, I've always been extremely allergic to dogs and cats. So the kids always wanted to have an animal. And I remember when the younger two were bugging the shit out of me like can we get a pet? I mean, you know, technology has gotten to the point. Where isn't there medicine you can take? I'm like Jesus Christ, have you ever had an asthma spasma? Kids, you don't want it. Jesus Christ, have you ever had an asthma spasm? My kids, you don't want it.
Speaker 1:But I went on Facebook and I said, hey, does anyone know what's the latest in hypoallergenic pets? And this guy reached out and he's like hey, man, you should check out Bengal cats. Everyone that's allergic to cats is not allergic to these. And they're smart. They're like smart, like dogs. I'm like really what? And so then he goes I got a cat guy. So he gives me this guy's name.
Speaker 1:Well, I know this dude. We used to rehearse at his house. He used to be the roommate of one of my drummers back in the day and he was a school teacher and he was into music. But he discovered breeding these cats and he's like printing money you should see this guy's 335 collection. It's fucking insane From breeding these cats, wow. So next thing. You know, I'm over at this guy's house and he lets me take one of the cats to see if I was allergic to it. I wasn't, so that was like 10 plus years ago now. So we've had these cats for 10 years. Damn, how long did they live for? It can be like 18 years. Oh shit, wow are they expensive?
Speaker 1:yeah, they are yeah, yeah, I got, I got the uh, the good guy price, and then if you say you're not going to breed them, then they're a little bit less expensive. But uh, yeah, let's just say I could have got a pretty nice guitar any uh regrets about purchasing the bengal cast with you know. I will say that they have been welcome inclusions into our family unit, but they are high maintenance.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Here's one of the things that happens with them. That is fucking insane. If we take them to we finally just overcame this If we take them to the vet at the same time, which we try to do, when we get home the male cat won't recognize the female cat because she smells different, because she's been handled by somebody else, so he'll fucking attack her with intent to kill. So then we have to have them separated, sometimes for three or four months, and we try all the different things, like, oh, why don't you try this? We tried it all. And we would say to the vets like, what the fuck do we do with these cats? And so we'd go through these sessions, whereas literally be months.
Speaker 1:And so finally, this last time we had a different vet and he's like why don't you try this? Why don't you shower the one when you get home and there's these pheromone, uh necklaces. They can wear these collars and that's going to have them. They get these pheromone things and plug them in, and so it actually only was a couple of days that they couldn't be together, but it's. That sounds like a nightmare. Oh my god, god, man, insanity, why they don't even.
Speaker 2:They don't even hug you or no, you get no oven whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Dude, oh my god, but they are beautiful.
Speaker 2:They are maybe, maybe when it comes time to hug you. No, you get no lovin' whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Dude. Oh my God, but they are beautiful.
Speaker 2:Maybe, when it comes time to re-up, maybe you'll chew something different.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, we better shut her down.
Speaker 1:This has been the longest version of Chewing the Gristle, which has been an absolute pleasure, by the way.
Speaker 2:Enjoy your company. You're a sweetheart.
Speaker 1:Likewise my friend, and we should do some more play in one of these days, Please man, please, in my future I see a fucking record.
Speaker 2:That's just for fun. I'll do like a 10-song record with 10 badass guitar players each collaborating on a track. I haven't thought about this for a while. That would be so much fun. I'll sing you some vows and put some badass shit on there. I'm down.
Speaker 1:And vice versa. We'd love to have you climb aboard the gristle train. I hope I didn't bore your listeners to sleep tonight oh no, enjoy this one oh man, likewise we might lose a few on the John Mayer thing, but you know what that's.
Speaker 2:Okay, man, that's alright, we're just being honest, man, there's a lack of that in the world. It's refreshing, alright, man, get some sleep tonight. Man, you too, my friend, a pleasure, thanks so much. There's a lack of that in the world.
Speaker 1:It's refreshing. You get a little hussy. All right, man, get some sleep tonight. Man, you too, my friend, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much. Love you. Peace, buddy. You too, my friend, take it easy, all right, bye-bye. Bye-bye. 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.
