July 2, 2024 • 52 mins
What happens when a Division I soccer dream turns into a rock and roll reality? Join us as we sit down with Jim Sonefeld, the drummer for Hootie and the Blowfish, and the author of "Swimming with the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing, and One Hell of a Ride." Jim recounts his remarkable journey from the Midwest to South Carolina, and shares the touching story of meeting the band after a devastating fire, capturing the essence of how their support transformed his life. This episode is filled with the kind of heartfelt and inspiring moments that highlight the band’s compassionate nature.
From their early days playing small gigs to becoming one of the top-selling bands in the U.S. with "Cracked Rearview," Jim gives us an insider’s look at the dedication and hard work that fueled their rise to fame. He discusses the evolution of music formats, their experience with Atlantic Records, and the joy of performing in major venues. We also touch on the challenges and thrills of planning tours, creating new music, and the shared joy of live performances, making this a must-listen for any music enthusiast.
But it’s not just about the music. Jim opens up about his personal battles with addiction and his road to recovery, shedding light on the importance of community support and recognizing the signs of addiction. He reflects on the process of writing his book, sharing memorable moments and humorous anecdotes, including a chance encounter with Bob Dylan. We also explore the unique dynamics within the band and their deep connections to Charleston’s music scene. Don't miss this episode packed with inspiration, resilience, and unforgettable stories.
Presenting Sponsor: Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
Studio Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions
Production Sponsor: RMBO.co
Design Sponsor: DK Design
Committee:
Kathleen Herrmann | Host | MPCC Immediate Past President | Mount Pleasant Towne Centre
Mike Compton | Co-host | Marketing Chair | RMBO.co
Rebecca Imholz | Co-host | MPCC Executive Director
Amanda Bunting Comen | Co-host | Social ABCs
Ben Nesvold | Co-host | In-coming President | Edward Jones
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Building Business Podcast
powered by the Mount PleasantChamber of Commerce.
We're here recording in theCharleston Radio Group Studios,
huge supporters of the chamber,Thank you.
And thank you, Brian Cleary,for recording us today.
My name is Kathy Herman, I'mthe current president of the
Chamber of Commerce and I'm alsothe marketing director of Mount
(00:21):
Pleasant Town Center, and Ihave a new co-host with me today
, Jennifer Maxwell.
She is the past president ofthe Mount Pleasant Chamber of
Commerce.
Say hello, Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello, Jennifer Maxwell.
Thank you so much for having meVery excited to film my first
podcast today.
My real job I'm a regionaldirector of sales for REINS and,
yeah, immediate past president.
Glad to be here with thechamber.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well, you picked a good one.
We had a list, the best one,just so you know.
We had a list out the doorwanting to come in today to talk
to you, but I wasn't lettingjust anybody come.
It had to be.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Jennifer, it had to be Jennifer you know why too,
Because she's from here.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
She's a local.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
She too, because she's, she's from here, she's a
local, yeah.
So, um, she'll agree that.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You know, hootie was one of the best things to ever
come out of south carolina, butI'm going at getting ahead of
myself everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I am so excited that we have jim sonnefeld, the
drummer of hootie and theblowfish and author of an
amazing book excuse mytagsimming with the Blowfish,
hootie Healing and One Hell of aRide, which I have read, and
I'm going to tell you a coupleof things.
(01:31):
First of all, you are going tohear some spoiler alerts during
this podcast today, but thatdoes not mean that you don't go
buy the book and read the book,because there's going to be
things that we're not going totalk about that you need to know
about.
But seriously, jim, what anamazing, amazing book.
We met you back in January whenyou were a guest speaker at our
(01:52):
chamber luncheon and I meanwhat a I'm still thrilled, what
a thrill that was to meet you.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Thank you all for having me then and also today,
to be here to talk more aboutthe book.
And I don't know.
My experience is down in SouthCarolina.
Like you, I came from somewhereelse to get here many years ago
.
But they let me stay.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I have to say Like I said, I think Hootie is one of
the proudest moments of South.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Carolina history.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I mean good South Carolina history.
You all know what I'm talkingabout.
But seriously, jim, we're soexcited to have you and I have,
as you can see, my little notesto talk about some of my
favorite things in the book.
But I'm sure, for those whomight not know you, can you give
everyone just a little rundownof where you came from and how
(02:39):
you ended up at the Universityof South Carolina and, part of
this, the most amazing band.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, we I had been coming down here with my family,
who were based in the Midwestin the 70s, and we had some
family down here in SouthCarolina so we'd come to visit.
We were out at Sullivan's Islandand in the early to mid 70s and
came a few times and enjoyed it, went to Myrtle Beach and
stayed in Columbia and so I hada little bit of an idea of the
(03:07):
warm weather and the niceattitudes.
And so when it came time forcollege and I was wanting to
play Division I soccer, Ipointed my ship towards Columbia
at the University of SouthCarolina and the coach there at
the time was nice enough to giveme a fair tryout.
That's all he could offer me.
I wasn't recruited heavily oranything, but I made the team
and continued with my very longjourney to get a four-year
(03:33):
degree, six years to be exactand at the end of that I ended
up.
My soccer dream had sort ofcome to a close and my music
dream that I had as a kid, as adrummer most of my life, was
sort of taking the front seatand I found three guys called
Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan andDean Felber, who called
(03:55):
themselves Hootie and theBlowfish and who needed a
drummer and well, that's how Irestarted my, my future in a lot
of ways.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Well, that's one of my yellow tags here and I want
to talk about the fire.
That's something else thatupset me about the book, the
only thing that upset me aboutthe book, but the passing of the
hat at that first show.
I mean that is almost like aforetelling of what they did for
you, and then I don't know howit affected the rest of your
life.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, I mean, when I was sitting down to write this
book and then began shaping itto pull out the parts that
weren't important and look atwhat might be dramatic or ironic
, I looked back and realizedthere was a great importance to
how I first saw Hootie and theBlowfish.
Obviously, I auditioned forthem and I knew Mark Bryan from
(04:46):
one of my audio productionclasses.
But it was actually this nightwhere I had about 12 kids from
the university got burnt out ofan apartment on one morning in
February of 89.
And it was.
The twist was that that night Iended up like I always used to
If I had a sorrow, I went to abar.
(05:07):
Right, that's where we maybecure our sorrows.
At least I did at that time,and I walked in and recognized
the guitarist as this kid frommy audio production class and
I'd never seen Hootie and theBlowfish before.
I'd heard of them being aroundcampus.
But you know, mark did a crazything that night.
It occurred to me that was themost important impact that they
(05:30):
had on me before I joined theband even, which was Mark Bryant
, stopped the show and toldeveryone in the crowd which must
have been, you know, maybe 100people, to be fair that there
was a fire on campus and if theyhadn't heard about it, a bunch
of kids lost a lot of theirstuff.
And one of them was standingright in the bar me and he took
(05:51):
his sweaty Terps ball cap offhis head he was from Maryland
and he had, I think, a Terps haton and passed it around and
said give what you can.
And five minutes later therewas $35 sitting in that hat.
I was like astounded that thatwas the memory I took of that
band that that night.
Not what they did on stage, nottheir quality or anything, it
(06:12):
was that they did something forme who they barely knew.
They used their moment, theirinfluence, to do something
impactful, so for someone,because they needed help.
And I, six months later, when Iwas auditioning for the band, I
still didn't know much aboutthe band, but I remember that
moment, of course.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, still to this day, that stands out.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Can you share a little bit more about the early
phases of you joining the band,and did you envision the success
that you've had today?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
We didn't have necessarily a whole lot going
for us in terms of, I don't know, a business model or
connections to the music world.
We had a lot of fire under us.
We wanted to write originalmusic.
We had a great work ethic.
We'd all been raised to work sowe knew that hard work often
(07:03):
paid off.
We all had day jobs.
We had degrees that were rolledup and shoved under our beds
somewhere and we didn't want tonecessarily go into regular jobs
.
We all wanted to play music.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It took you six years to still hold up under your bed
, huh.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
It took me six more to explain that to my dad, who
was maybe wishing I would havehad a job that paid and had
health insurance.
But we just started off andjust tried.
We were green and so we didn'tknow any better than just to try
our hardest.
Knock on every door, take anygig we could, and mainly the
gigs that we were taking at thetime were parties on campus or a
(07:42):
club that wanted us to play fora few hours, and we would take
that money.
And here was the beginning ofthe Hootie.
Business model is that we wantedto write original music and get
a record deal, but at the timea studio was really expensive.
You couldn't have a laptop thatserved as your computer
Technology had not gone forwardyet.
(08:03):
So we took the money from thesegigs that weren't great and you
had to play forever and you hadto play a bunch of cover music.
We took that money and investedit in studio time so we could
start recording the music thatwe were writing at the time.
So that was our earliestbusiness model, besides buying a
van, insuring it, making surethere was tires that were good
on it and taking every gig wecould.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's awesome.
You guys are very, verysuccessful.
I grew up going to the CreditOne Stadium here at Dana Island.
That was kind of like ourannual tradition.
Every August is me and myfriends and family would go out
there and hoping one day to getthat back.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too.
You know, in the early 90s wehadn't had a dream that put us
on a stage that big even, letalone bigger or anything.
We thought we could win over afew fans at a time with our
effort and our you know swingingour hair and taking our shirts
off on stage and drinking a lotof beer and just having a good
(09:05):
time.
That was.
It was a pretty simple world.
In the small world we lived in,we had our sights set high.
You know, we knew we wanted togo somewhere, but we would have
never admitted that we had bigdreams.
That was something you keptclose inside and you just tried
hard, day after day, and when wedidn't have gigs or couldn't
get gigs, we rehearsed or wewrote more music.
(09:28):
It's the way you start goingbefore technology comes many,
many years later.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's right.
But I, just like I said we weretalking earlier when did you
realize maybe I should say and Iknow it's other than selling
the gazillion, million,thousands of copies of the album
of Crack Rearview that you soldbut when did it hit the band
that I mean, this is somethingthat you're never going to be
forgotten.
Like you are, you are not a onehit wonder.
(09:57):
You are, you are like, almostlike the band of a whole
generation.
I mean, everyone knows you.
When did that hit?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
For me, I think it's only in hindsight that you can
reckon with bigger ideas likethat, that you are maybe a
worldwide band or that maybeyour music does have a place in
time and it will not beforgotten because it was so
impactful.
It's hard to see that as it'shappening.
It's definitely impossible tosee it before it's happened.
(10:27):
So that's why we always focusedon the short term, trying to do
what the next right businessthing was and try and write the
next cool song that washeartfelt and sincere and
authentic.
So it's only in hindsight thatyou get to look back and go, wow
, we have longevity.
That's maybe one of thegreatest things no one ever
plans for in a band.
To look back and go, wow, wehave longevity.
That's maybe one of thegreatest things no one ever
(10:47):
plans for in a band, because youare eager to be just in the
moment and live your dream.
That's happening now.
You don't always think of thefuture.
As artists, I don't thinkthat's a regular thought.
So to be 30, some years downthe road and look back is Wow,
we've survived, we've had animpact.
(11:08):
We went from cassettes andalbums to this compact disc
format, to downloading, tostreaming and what the heck's
next.
Who knows Implants?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I'm just kidding, you're right.
Who knows, that'd be okay withme.
But now Cracked Rearview isstill one of the top-selling
albums of all time.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah in the US it is still, and that was the album
that we put out to give it somecontext.
After five years of working asoriginal songwriters and trying
to get up the ladder, we got arecord deal with Atlantic
Records, who at the time hadproduced some of the biggest
bands in rock history, and so weknew it was maybe an
(11:51):
opportunity to to really get outthere, but there was no
guarantees.
So Atlantic produced what wouldbe Cracked Rearview in 1994 and,
like I just mentioned thesedifferent formats to, to be able
to have a record that goes fromrecord to cassette to all the
other formats and through theyears is a little lucky and also
(12:16):
a great big gift, because somebands, music, dies with the
format that went away, I agree,and if you can eclipse each
format and go forward, say Ialways use the eagles greatest
hits as an example that wasfirst released on an album and
it was a huge seller.
Well, everybody, when CDs camealong that wanted to listen to
their Eagles' Greatest Hits withno scratches, re-bought the CD
(12:40):
version.
So it allowed them to sellanother couple million more than
likely and that helps yourcareer, just pulls it forward.
So we've had the benefit ofthat and that helps your career.
Just pulls it forward.
So we've had the benefit ofthat and again, a little luck
maybe.
Not sure what to give credit tothere, exactly, besides the
fans who are buying it.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
When you've toured all over the world.
Do you have a?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
favorite place that you've performed.
You know there's not one placethat I would say is the place,
but we have some high marks thatastounded us along the way.
And you know, when we first, Ithink, got to leave the first
time we played in anamphitheater to our fans who had
bought our tickets and we hadbeen opening up for a couple
(13:24):
other bands in early 94 as theopening act in 1,200, 1,500 seat
theaters.
So to move from that toheadlining 15 to 20,000 seat
amphitheaters was an amazingmoment and I write about that in
the book.
That first it scared the hellout of me.
Actually, the first time Iheard the wave, which is not
(13:45):
just an audible thing but is afeeling that comes against your
body when that wave of soundhits you.
And I was at the back of anamphitheater stage drumming,
like I do, and when we enteredthe stage it scared me at first.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I thought what is that?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, I thought, is there like a tsunami coming in,
or I just thought there was somesound and a feeling I had never
experienced.
So getting in an amphitheaterthe first time was a big moment.
Going overseas, I think, ourmemory.
As a band we always go back toDublin, ireland, and we played
this hall which held a couplethousand people, and we realized
(14:21):
they were singing louder thanour music was playing.
And as we stopped, they justkept singing in a beautiful sort
of Irish lilt and it just wasso sweet to know that we're not
home, we're not even in ourcountry and we're getting this.
We move on.
We go to play for our US troopsabroad, taking us to Southeast
(14:43):
Asia, taking us to Saudi Arabia,and that's impactful because
you're doing something forpeople who are protecting our
country, which is a whole otherlevel of meaning for us.
So there's all these spotsalong the way that you get to do
and if you're lucky, you get toreturn to them and maybe
experience it a second time.
But sometimes it's just aone-off A thing that happened.
(15:06):
You hope someone took a pictureof it and maybe you have it in
your calendar, because otherwisesometimes they can be easy to
get blurry or forget well, Iremember we again talk about
this earlier.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I was lucky enough to see you on that first tour,
that amphitheater tour, in newyork at jones beach, one of the
best places to have a concertever and it was sold out and it
was, um, just absolutelyincredible and um, and that was
just the beginning.
Yeah, and it was sold out, andit was just absolutely
incredible, and that was justthe beginning.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, and that was probably one of those early
moments in that first summer ofamphitheaters that told us we
just had to look in the mirrorand go is this happening to us?
We were getting attention and alot of it is the feeling of the
attention you're getting, notjust that you're playing in
front of a lot of fans.
That's amazing.
But when there's attentiongiven from outside, it gives you
(15:55):
this other feeling.
We had people that were fromNew York on TV or in other bands
that we admired coming out andbeing part of what we were doing
and it felt like a little bitof your peers saying welcome or
you've made it, and thatattention always felt good too.
It's something you can get kindof sucked into and it can
become a bad thing too.
If you get too attracted to it.
(16:16):
That flattery can go sidewaysat times.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Unbelievable I wanted to ask about your autobiography
Swimming with the Blowfish,because it delves into your life
and death.
What inspired you to write thisand what do you hope readers
will take away from your story?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Well, I had been toying with the idea that maybe
the life's journey I'd had atthat point, which had gone from
sort of humble roots in theMidwest to my dreams of playing
soccer at a high level, intomusic and eventually success in
(16:53):
music, but then also goingdownwards in my spiritual life
and struggling with addiction, Ifelt like it's a whole story.
It just felt for a few years.
So I started writing in pen andpaper to try and put some stuff
together and my wife finallysaid you know, they have laptops
and you type right in there andthey sometimes correct the
(17:14):
words and you can type real fast.
Maybe you want to do that, andso on my birthday in 2017,
october 20th, I said I'm goingto open up this laptop, and she
showed me how to create a littlefile and I just started writing
.
Four years later is when I wasable to convince someone they
(17:38):
could publish it for me.
The journey gave me enough timeto write an honest, authentic
sort of piece, get it edited,for it to be better and more
concise and, along the way, feelthe sting of many rejections as
well, which brought me back tothe hootie days of well, when
you get rejected, you keep going.
You just sort of don't take oneno as the final answer.
(18:00):
I got a lot of no's on a lot oflevels there and somebody
finally sort of encouraged meand said all you need is one yes
.
So I kept fighting for that oneyes and finally got it from
Diversion Books up in New York.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Like I said, I mean I absolutely loved it.
And, jennifer, I'm glad youbrought it up because I wanted
to kind of switch our topic fora second now Out of Hootie and
onto a very meaningfulrevelation in this book.
A very meaningful revelation inthis book.
And I'm going to say thatbecause I don't think, jim, that
there's anyone who does notknow someone who has either
(18:36):
dealt with alcoholism or anykind of substance abuse, or
knows somebody or has beenthrough it themselves.
And I think a lot of the timespeople don't know what to say or
don't know how to notice it, ordon't know you know why, why
are they doing this?
And I really felt the way youwrote your book.
I've got a really good glimpseinto what you were going through
(18:58):
and, in all honesty, I thinkthat's going to help me If I and
let's hope not ever have todeal with someone.
I love going through that and Igive you a lot of kudos for
that.
I mean it really kind of blewmy mind and gave me a lot to
think about and so thank you forsharing what you went through
(19:21):
because I think it's going tohelp people.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
When I first reached out to try and get help for what
was mainly what I thought Icouldn't control my drinking and
some drugs I'd dabbled in alongthe way, I thought that was my
only problem.
But I realized there was moredepth to it than that.
I had other problems and therewere people along the way that
really were there, prepared togive their time and their
(19:44):
experience to help me.
And I wanted to to, in a book,say something that could be
helpful.
And my editor was wise.
He said you know, instead oftalking about your feelings,
about you know your feelings,how you felt and all this, just
tell what happened.
When you tell it like bluntlypeople are, they can decide what
(20:05):
it means to them.
So I think maybe you're a readerthat can say here's a black and
white story of what some guydid, not, what he felt or what
not some angle that I want tospin on it.
I just said here's what I wentthrough and here's also what I
went through when I asked forhelp, and I think it leaves it
then interpretive to the readerto say, oh, you know, that's I,
(20:30):
have that person in my life ormaybe even more deeply, that's
me.
I had a few people in my lifethat had to give up their
favorite alcohol, and for yearsthey had told me about it and it
was never quite impactful.
I wanted to make something thatreally just sort of was black
and white and plain and let yousee, oh, that stinks.
(20:50):
And to me.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
it's also the little details too, of all that you
wrote about hiding all thealcohol in the cabinets and
trying to find the five minutesthat someone wasn't going to be
there so you could go make adrink, yeah, and hiding up in
that little room, the back room,and sleeping all day.
I mean just all the little andI'm dealing.
Or if you have someone that youlove that's going through this,
(21:13):
people might not know to lookfor that, yeah, right, well, I
and I, well, I learned a lotfrom it.
So I I just really appreciateall those details that you put
in about that, because I thinkit could help people.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It took me a lot, a lot of years of of the pain of
living through them, but thenthe sort of miracle of surviving
them and finding a better way,which was only brought to me, as
I said, by other people helpingme.
I wanted to sort of just try togive that to other people as
well, because a lot of peoplewho struggle in addiction
(21:45):
they've lost hope, they've losttheir self-worth, they've lost
the idea that they can be amiracle, and that's part of the
disease, I think.
So to show someone who has gonefrom hopelessness to hopeful
and having some self-worth andknowing that you can be valuable
(22:05):
for other people is just what Iwanted to say.
It meant I had to tell somehonest stories.
Some of the stories that wereout there were a little dark,
and I've saved the readers fromsome of the more ugly ones, and
you don't have to shareeverything, right?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Well, that was thankful to.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Laura my wife and a good couple editors.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They said, yeah, if you tell more it will be a more
dramatic story.
But then you say but do youwant to tell more?
Your children will probablyread this book, and your
ancestors and people around you.
It's not necessary to telleverything.
Everybody does not need to knoweverything.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
No, I don't want to scare away the children.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, that was going to lead into my next question.
Maybe not the ugly stuff, butis there any other fond memory
that you have from yourexperience throughout the band
and traveling, or anything thatdidn't make it into your book
that you can share?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, you know some of the moments even that we're
living into now.
You know, the book sort ofwraps up.
We got lucky with the timingthat the story was ending and it
has a nice twist ending.
It sort of sums up or wraps uparound the end of 2019.
So I I'd like that I was ableto put a nice bow on it, and it
(23:21):
happened all before COVID.
So, but COVID gives us anotherwhole chapter, and some with my
band, as we're here now in 2024,about to embark on another tour
, the first since 2019.
You know, things have happenedsince then that are meaningful
to me as well in ourrelationship as a band.
You know, just surviving theCOVID era, and that means
(23:48):
looking at our singer Darius,the COVID era, and, uh, that
means looking at our singerDarius, who likes to work hard
and had to, you know, put hisband aside, his country music,
to see that and see how heworked through that.
Uh, you know, honorably, and,and, and he didn't want to.
You know a lot of people werenot given things that they
wanted, and so to see him gothrough that and still thrive,
and to see how we all reactedwith our families and and
(24:10):
through that whole periodthere's.
There's more cool stories thatgoing forward, that just in a
general sense, give me hope that, well, maybe we're meant to be
out here making music a littlelonger and I'm excited to see,
uh, what's to come and and howthe tour will go.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I know it'll be very, very successful.
How are you guys preparing togo back out after being off for
a couple years together?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, it's different for everybody.
I have to dust off a fewcobwebs around my drum set
because I don't drum a lot in myfree time.
I mainly am playing guitar andpiano and doing shows for the
recovery audiences and someother speaking opportunities.
So I've got to do certainthings to make sure I'm prepared
to sit back there on the drumsevery night for a couple hours.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Is it like a bicycle, though, Jim?
I mean like once you get going,is it?
It is like a bicycle in someways, Because you've played
those songs thousands of times,right?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, and I think some of it is as you get older
that muscle memory gets a littleweaker.
So while I could hop right backup there and make it work
because it's ingrained in me, mybody has changed too.
You know, I'm approaching sixzero and and so it'll be.
It's different than it was whenI was five years ago or 10 or
(25:22):
20, so I need to just get remindmy body what it needs to do
behind a drum set, and, uh, Ithink it's maybe a little more
complicated than getting out ofbike, which you know is a good
analogy, though.
So we all do our own thing.
Darius has got to transitionfrom being lead country singer
and having a certain uh shape onstage to being on our rock
(25:45):
stage and going into playing thedeeper cuts of hootie and the
blowfish.
So that's, that's different forhim, and the other guys too.
I think Mark and Dean are likeme, where we got to kind of dust
some things off and rememberwhat we need to do.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Was this something you just wanted to go back on
tour again?
Or did something come up, anopportunity?
Or you just said we missed theroad.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
We at the end of 2019 , in a general sense, said well,
maybe in like five years wecould do this again, and with no
idea that COVID was going tosteal a couple years and that
lives continue to change andthings don't always line up in
timing with, you know, Darius'scareer or anyone else's
(26:26):
interests.
You never know what could getin the way of anything.
And so last year we just startedsort of measuring it and saying
, well, 2023 is too soon and2026 seems so far away and I'm
going to be busy because there'sa world cup soccer tournament
happening in our country, so I'mhighly obsessed with soccer
(26:47):
still.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Are they still obsessed with soccer?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yes, so there's like you have to measure and try and
do the best at lining thesethings up.
So 2024 looked like it might bethe best opportunity, and it is
, I know.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, listen, I know many people are going to be very
excited about this tour.
And what about new music?
Are we talking about any newmusic?
We talked about some new music?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Are we talking about any new music?
We talked about some new music,but it's honestly harder than
doing a 50 show tour and gettingready for it and going out and
doing it.
Harder than that is making arecord together, because it just
is.
It takes longer.
Writing songs as older mentogether is not the same as it
was when we were in our twentiesor thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
We're talking about grandchildren, yeah honestly
like.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
What are we?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
writing about here.
Oh, my granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yeah, so we did a lot and it took a lot to make the
record called Imperfect Circlethat we put out with the 2019
tour.
But coming into this, we justfelt like let's simplify this a
little bit for us and stay awayfrom making a whole new record.
We'll release a song that hasnever been released before that
(27:57):
we made in 2017, I think.
I think that will be releasedright before the tour.
So there will be new music,technically, just not a whole
album.
Do people listen?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
to albums anymore?
I don't think they do, and Ithink that I mean my friends and
I talk about this all the time.
I like deep cuts, like I'm adeep cut album girl, so maybe
I'm not the right one to talk to, but you know, the majority of
people that go to a concert wantto go hear their top band's top
20 songs and that's all theywant to hear.
I'm completely opposite.
(28:27):
Give that's all they want tohear.
I'm completely opposite.
Give me that last song on the Bside, but that's what makes the
fans happy, right?
So?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
that's what keeps them coming to the shows.
We asked through our socialmedia what do you fans want to
hear out there this summer?
Because we have people that aresuggesting the deeper cuts, the
ones that we haven't played orever played, and then, of course
, like you said, there's thehits.
But when we came back with allthe information and someone in
the band asked me so what wasthe conclusion of all the
(29:00):
answers, I said basically everyfan out there wants to hear
every deep cut.
We've never played theirfavorite song and it would be
great to do that, but it wouldalso be probably impossible.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I have deep cuts that we've never played.
That I want to hear.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
I can't convince you know everybody to want to dig
them out of the earth and playthem.
It's hard to learn old stuffand and sort of.
Sometimes they just stay on the, on the CD or on the album and
they never get unearthed what isyour favorite song to perform?
performing you know, oh gosh, Istill like playing our hits.
(29:37):
Honestly.
I like because for me up thereand it's I know how to play the
song, I've done them hundreds orthousands of times but to me
it's the interaction and to seethe faces in front of us that
have paid to come and see us.
Because when I'm playing a songthat I've written or co-written
with the guys and there's stillsomeone out there having a fun
(29:59):
time with a song that's 30 someyears old, I love that.
I mean that's.
There's no better feeling thangetting to see their, the
reactions of the people.
So, while new songs are alwaysfun because they're new and you,
I'm always in love with ournewest song because they're
gonna love it, or I love itbecause it's new, it's a new,
bright feeling.
It's the old ones that getpeople's hearts and hands in the
(30:23):
air.
You know, and I like to seethat.
That's a good interaction,while my eyes are still good
enough to see the first row.
I appreciate looking at thesmiling faces.
I love that it's great.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
But now of course you know you as a magician and out
on the road with all these otherbands and stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Is there?
Do you have any kind of likestories about very famous people
that you've met that you canshare with us?
Are we doing a tell-all podcastnow?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
No, I just want to hear something, one fun one.
I want to hear one fun oneBecause I do have.
I do want to talk to you aboutthe one the bathroom issue.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Oh, yes, I am going to bring that up Besides him.
You make it sound like a reallyweird story now.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So the bathroom issue I will clear that up, folks,
jim Salfeld and his IBS problem.
I will clear that up.
We Like meeting when you metEddie Van Halen.
That was exciting for you,right it was.
That was like a big, huge.
Thing.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I mean meeting and standing with some of the peers
that I idolize, because, youknow, we came from the 90s but
we listened to music from the80s and 70s and 60s.
So when we're out there, youmight cross paths with someone
who's on the downside of theircareer and you're on the upswing
and you look at the person like, oh my god, this is, you're the
(31:34):
reason I make music.
You know, even getting to do aphoto op, which we recently
posted, with Elton John was anamazing thing, because he was
probably by and far my biggestmusical influence in general
growing up and somebody thatinspired me and I wanted to be
like that, and so we had a photoop with him at some point and
(31:55):
our Facebook page just reprintedit and what you don't see in
the picture this is a littlefunny is that I'm still a fan.
You know we'd been in ourcareer.
We had Grammy Awards.
Elton John had all his millionselling hits.
I can't remember the event wewere at, but there we are and
I've got shyness.
I'm typically overcome with theshy guy.
(32:16):
Even when I want to just get anautograph or shake the hand of
my idol, I'm always no, I can't.
He's gonna think I'm an idiotand in this picture without John
I you don't see I've got shovedin the back of my pants an old
Elton John album.
love it that I've brought that Ireally want to get Elton John
to sign to me and I panic and Iyou know, freak out, and I
(32:37):
didn't do it so there I'msmiling with my you know arm
next to elton john and you don'tknow, there's you know rock of
the westies in my pants for youI'm sure he would have, but I'm
um, you know, I get myself-doubt and yeah, my paranoia
comes back and I'm like he'snot not going to want to sign
that.
So I just had a sweaty albumthat was in my pants for 10
(33:00):
minutes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
No, big deal.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Probably warped the record.
If anything, it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Do you have any pre-show rituals or
superstitions that you have todo before you perform?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
No superstitions per se.
I did have a lot in my lifewith a lot of things, usually
supporting my sports teamsbecause you know the jersey you
wear could impact the teamthat's playing a thousand miles
awayit does, so you want to wear the
right one, uh.
But we didn't havesuperstitions and and honestly,
we were so terrible for, likewhat would typically be a good
(33:33):
idea called warming up, we werewinging it a lot because we're a
rock band, we don't want to goby the rules always, but we
always did a shot together,which was always just a nice
coming together moment to kickoff.
You know about to walk on stagein front of a lot of people,
and so when I uh had to learnthat I cannot drink responsibly,
I had to not do the shotanymore.
(33:54):
I hated that.
I always hated that.
I had to hold up like gatorade.
I was like what a wuss this guy.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
There's some mocktails that I did listen.
There's plenty of good thingsto drink without alcohol these
days, yeah, so we still do theshot everybody else does real
shots and I do the the mocktailand it's fine.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Uh, you know we try and keep it simple.
Uh, you know, everyone hastheir individual responsibility.
We've always lived by this.
We don't have to look out foryour bandmate.
Are you getting ready?
Are you warmed up?
Are you doing the right thing?
You expect everybody to get onthat stage fully prepared.
So, whatever everybody has todo individually, whether it's a
(34:31):
long nap in the afternoon or anextra shot before you go on
stage maybe.
Whatever that is, we all expecteach other to get it right.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
What about the?
Did you have any fun tourriders?
The rider in the contract didyou have like green M&Ms or
anything in?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
your dressing room.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Ours.
I'm fascinated by bands.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Just so if you haven't, Because we liked to
have a lot of fun back in theday and we were young and hard
and always just thought if thisis the last day we're ever on
stage and we've got a bunch offans here, let's party.
I don't even think we put afood item on our rider so many,
many years later it was justlike how much budweiser can you
fit in the dressing room?
(35:10):
And jim beam and jagermeisterand some light.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was just the second thought that's right, you
can get us food too, too.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Eventually we realized, yeah, we should get
some food too, but it was always.
It was just the earliest days.
You know even our contract.
There was no rider, it was whatyou got paid to do a gig name
the bar.
In the southeast you know wewould often just get paid in
beer.
(35:37):
Yeah, in the southeast we wouldoften just get paid in beer.
If there was not enough peopleor we didn't agree on a set fee
or nobody showed up, just pay ussome beer.
We're always good with that.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Those are the stories I want to hear about.
We turn the mics off for thoseso we don't get anybody in
trouble.
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Another interesting question what's the craziest fan
encounter that you've ever hadthroughout your years?
I guess.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
There were some really weird people that popped
up in the mid-90s, and by weird,like you know, we were still
getting a lot of fan mail.
So email wasn't a thing.
There was no social media.
Email probably existed, butthat wasn't the way anybody
communicated.
You got fan mail, so you getsome just bizarre fan mail of
(36:24):
people either claiming things ormaybe claiming God told them
some things that they, you knowyou maybe were the chosen one,
or maybe I'm going to beat yourshow at this certain place and
tell you they're going to bewaiting for you there and like,
oh that's really awkward andpeople did at times show up and
have to be removed or show upcontinually, I think maybe the
(36:47):
nice old word is called stalkingand for the most part I don't
think many of them weredangerous, but maybe just a
little delusional.
And through the years you getyeah, you just get people that
come to believe certain thingsand you don't know why, and it
might be a little bit of amental health issue at times.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
claiming that I mean yeah just some stuff that I'm
not even going into it couldn'tphysically have happened.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yet they're like no, and this stuff isn't even that
old.
Now we are years, decadesremoved from the big time where
we were traveling andinteracting with fans, and 20
years later you get a strangecorrespondence that says Well,
now you're called the police.
Yeah, like hi Dad, what Notgoing there?
(37:38):
Yeah, not so much.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
That is hysterical.
I do want to go through quicklyjust a couple of my favorite
parts of the book.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
If that's okay with you.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Again, everybody Swimming with the Blowfish.
I am telling you, pick up thisbook and read it.
It is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
And support your local booksellers.
Yes, absolutely, I supportedyou, I supported you, I
supported you.
Down in Powell, charleston, isBuxton Books.
Yes, buxton Books, that's right.
And Mount Pleasant is VillageBookseller.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Mine was already signed last time when I met Jim
in.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
January, it was really pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
So we're going way back to the fire, right?
The kitten died.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
I mean, I'm just letting you know it doesn't ruin
the book, but I was reallyupset, as you can see.
I mean.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I knew the cat people of the world would pick that
out and have to say something.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's literally like five words and I was like, did
you really have to put it inthere?
Yeah, but I did love the partwhen you were going down to help
the young lady in the firstfloor with the dog and you were
trying to get her to dog,wouldn't leave her and she was
in the shower again.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I'm not, you have to read it, it's really funny fire
does a really weird thing to thehuman mind and it's in the form
of panic.
So the fact that I evenremembered anything about those
moments when I realized ourapartment is on fire, yeah, uh,
this is a slight miracle, uh.
But the stories are importantbecause they show sort of what
(38:59):
goes through the mind.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
When that happens.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
One of my next favorite parts was the whole
background of.
Some of you may not know thatJim wrote Hold my Hand, one of
the biggest hits for Hootie andthe Blowfish.
And I'm just reading, andreading, and reading and all of
a sudden I start with a littlelove and some tenderness.
I'm like here we go and I juststarted to cry.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I mean happy cry.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
A very happy cry.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But that song well, so many of them.
But that song, like I said, itwas in the middle of my 20s and
it came out and it took mybreath away when I heard that
song for the first time and thento read you and you being like,
oh, you know, oh, my God, thisis working.
I'm actually writing this songto turn again to turn out to be
a song that there can be anybodywho doesn't know that song.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yeah, the roots of that song are interesting.
You know that it was justanother attempt which I had many
failures, as a new songwriter.
It was just another attemptwhich I had many failures as a
new songwriter to writesomething that I thought was a
combination of catchy and uniqueand clear.
It was when it was firstworking for me.
So the fact that that song endsup traveling through time, not
(40:16):
just that the band liked it in1989, but that we recorded on a
cassette and then a cd and thenit's a song we end up playing
from south africa to australia,to wherever we've traveled in
the world, that's always in ourset.
So it's a.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
It's been a great journey for that song, yeah oh,
absolutely, all right, two morequick things and then we'll have
just the two more quick thingsand then, um, we will finish up.
So one of my favorite thingwhen you were going in to record
your first album with theproducer manager, dick hud
hudgen, did I say that, right?
Yes, his quote about um beingin the record business really
(40:53):
made me laugh.
I'm gonna read it, if everyonedoesn't mind, because it really
cracks me up.
So he says to the guys so youboys really want to be in the
record business, do you?
And so of course now they'reall excited and they want to
hear about being in the recordbusiness.
I'm not going to say the badwords that are in here, jim,
because we're a business podcast.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You say them and I'll just try and bleep them out.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Well, the music business is like a big
superhighway and you need totake certain roads that will
bring you to that bigsuperhighway.
So there's all these roads andmany detours too.
But if you work hard, get gooddirections, have patience and,
of course, make great music, youcan get on that superhighway.
I mean, listen to that Is thatamazing, right?
(41:35):
But then my fun part it goesand you guys are still sitting
in the blank kitchen looking foryour blank car keys, and I just
love that.
You have to start somewhere.
But I love those words ofwisdom.
I thought it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
We dared to ask for some advice and maybe we hoped
that Dick would give us someencouragement Because we thought
, yeah, we made this cassette,we're probably going to get
signed to a record deal reallyquickly and Dick had experience.
But he was also.
The best thing about it was hewas honest.
We needed to have somebody bevery honest with us and say, hey
(42:07):
, here's where you are on thejourney in reality, not where
your mind thinks you are.
So we needed that truth and himand some other people along the
way were always honest with usto say hold your horses or keep
working.
And so we always tried to takethat advice and we did keep
working.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
And then I'm going to go back to the bathroom story
for a second to clear up anymisconceptions on the bathroom
story.
But it is about a verywell-recognized rock musician
and there was an issue with that.
I won't go into all the details.
You've got to read the book.
We'll just call him.
Bob Dylan, we'll just call himBob Dylan, and there was
(42:46):
something with lyrics with BobDylan and one of the band's
songs and Jim ran into him inthe bathroom.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, at an award show Very surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Like what?
There's dylan and two stallsdown.
Yeah, and it was so funny andall like I and he said he was he
wanted.
I can't even say well to setthat up.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
We, but we were.
I was still holding on to aresentment with bob dylan and
his, his lawyers, because theyhad sued us about use of some
lyrics which they had originallysaid we could use them.
And then, when the song we usedthem in became a huge hit,
there was now a debate which isjust typical of the music
business.
No one cares what you do withart, and if there's money made
(43:33):
on it, then there's going to bea lawyer involved.
So I was still a little burntfrom that.
And here I am right near mrdylan and, uh, I'm thinking I
know how I can get him back.
And it has to do with somethingthat takes place in the
bathroom, of course, so I won'tspoil it, but uh what is bob
dylan we're talking about here?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
but we think he saved we, you know, the bodyguard
stopped you from doing it whichkind of probably, you know,
saved a little, a little bit ofissues with you and Mr Dillon
going forward.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
That was a funny one, oh goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm going to have to read now to get the full story
Everybody has got to read thisbook.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
They really do.
And the other secret that Ilove talking about that we
learned at the luncheon, ofcourse, we learned through the
book is how you met yourbeautiful bride.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Well, I knew my beautiful bride because we had
been friends for many years andwe had.
The crazy thing is in thegreater Hootie family.
We all get used to you knoweach other's families, distant
cousins, because you traveledall over and you always meet
them all and we all had wives inthe mid 90s and late 90s and
girlfriends, and so you kind ofget used to the picture of that
(44:42):
whole group, right.
But then divorces starthappening and and then all this
great people are moving away todifferent towns to live in the
band and and people come and goand fast forward many years
later.
Two great things are happeningin 2008 on one weekend that if
you were in the hootie familyyou never would, sort of you
(45:04):
couldn't conjure if you tried.
And one of them was that on thesame weekend, darius rucker is
coming to charleston, southcarolina, back home, uh, to do a
big reunion homecoming gig as acountry artist, which doesn't
make any sense if you're sittingin 2007 or 1998.
What?
That doesn't make any sense, acountry artist.
(45:25):
And that same weekend, anotherthing is happening that sort of
shakes up the hootie world alittle bit if you're in the
family, and that I'm gettingremarried and I'm marrying Laura
, my wife of 15 years now, whohappened to have been married
and had three kids with ourguitarist, mark Bryan.
So that was a big like what?
(45:46):
So between Darius CountryHomecoming and Reunion and Laura
and I a wedding in the sameweekend, it's something that
doesn't look like it makes anysense or it's a weird story.
Both of them worked out prettywell now, didn't they?
Well, in hindsight, yeah, again, sometimes you can't understand
something except for lookingback at it.
(46:06):
So, 15 years later, yeah, lauraand I are married and our
Hootie family which includesMark and our kids and my ex-wife
too four adults raising fivekids together ends up because
we're all adults working outpretty okay.
You know, and it did seem weirdat the time and I apologize to
all those people who thoughtwhat the?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I'm sure it is not the only time that that has
happened, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
It goes back to, I think, the beginning of the book
.
There's a page you have likebeginning of the book.
There's a page you have adedication page, you have
acknowledgments, and there's apage where the book company says
you get to write a quote.
No, I take that back.
This is in the book.
It's the quote that I thinkbest describes that moment,
(46:54):
which I think it says Love isfor the daring, and I felt like
that was summed up that moment.
It's like love doesn't alwaysmake sense when you're in it,
right, right, it makes us dodumb things, exciting,
courageous things, but it isonly for the daring.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
So where are the whereabouts of you and Laura and
the band in the Charleston areathese days?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Well, we've always had roots here.
When Darius came back in around2000, I think maybe because
he's from Ravenel originally.
So when he came back it starteda little trend.
Mark and Laura moved here fromColumbia, dean moved here and
got married and I was left inColumbia.
But fast forward, when Lauraand I get married, I dragged her
(47:37):
kicking and screaming toColumbia.
Because who wants to go live inColumbia?
But fast forward, when Lauraand I get married, I dragged her
kicking and screaming toColumbia.
Because who wants to go live inColumbia when you live in Mount
Pleasant?
Speaker 1 (47:45):
honestly, and she still married you and she did.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
She still married me, but now again, I promised her
that one day we would return orwe'd come back here and live.
So we get to be part of thatnow.
For a few years now I've beengoing back and forth from Mount
Pleasant to Columbia and I'vereally enjoyed it, because I've
never lived here.
I've really enjoyed it.
I have family here and Laurahas a lot of old friends, so we
(48:09):
have enjoyed being part of thiscommunity and getting to relive
some of the old days where weplayed at the Windjammer and we
played at some clubs downtownthat have long since been gone,
I'm afraid, but it's been a goodthing getting back here for us.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Good, good.
I love the old Windjammer days.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Yeah, we still go there, we go to see shows, and
boy do I feel old.
I say does it start at 7?
Is it a non-smoking show?
I don't want my clothes tosmell.
I really sound like I'm 85years old.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well, that's what we should do.
We should get you guys to playthe wound down.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
I know, yeah, well, I think you know it helps that
the drummer is closer by now.
Well, exactly, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Right down.
You know, yeah, Mark stilllives down here.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Darius does part of the time and Dean does, so yeah,
that looks like it would be aneasier thing to accomplish than
the old days when you had to bedragged from Columbia.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Well, just do me a favor If you ever play the Wim
Jammer or anything the size ofthe Wim Jammer, just give me a
little heads up so I can befirst on line to get tickets,
because those will sell out.
I'll have to fight people forthat.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
I'm okay because those are still out.
I have to fight people for that, well, even, yeah, right, yeah,
every year, every year, yeah,there's a lot of good venues
down here and we've reallyenjoyed, uh, playing here our
homegrown series.
That lasted a long time andthen got sidetracked by our 2019
tour and and uh, covid has notyet returned, so we're not sure
what we're gonna do with that,darius has got a great festival
here too, so the RiverfrontRevival is an incredible
opportunity too.
(49:44):
So he puts together a greatshow.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Any chance you could play at that?
Yeah, there's always a chance.
See, I know, really Breakingnews.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
You never know.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Thank you so very much for coming on and spending
some time with us today.
I could say it 18 times I'm ahuge, huge, huge fan, and I
think it's important for artistslike yourself to know the
impact that they've made onpeople, because I don't know if
you get to hear I mean, I'm sureyou'll be oh, we love you.
But literally you impacted anentire generation of people, jim
(50:19):
.
So it's just very it's an honorto meet you and an honor to
talk to you.
It's just something you guysshould all be very proud of.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Well, thanks for continuing to be a fan.
And you know this is somewhateasier as an older guy to do
podcasts and chamber events andall that.
I never thought that would be afun thing, but when you're 59,
oh yeah, I can do that.
Well, that's because it's theMount Pleasant At 12 in the
afternoon.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, it's the Mount Pleasant Chamber.
That's why it's so cool.
Nobody else is as cool as weare.
Just so you know.
We've got the best guests.
I told you we have the bestguests, but really again to have
you.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Just call me.
I'll bring my acoustic guitarand my book.
That's even better.
I'll bring some new stories.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I was going to say please don't forget Swimming
with the Blowfish, HootieHealing, and One Hell of a Ride.
It is an amazing book.
Please, please, pick up a copy,Support your local bookseller.
That's right.
Buxton Books, you said right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Downtown and then out on Mount Pleasant is Village
Booksellers.
So I'm sure there's more.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I just haven't seen it yet Absolutely, absolutely,
get this book.
You'll really enjoy it.
So, again, I want to thank oursponsors of Charleston Radio
Group Brian, you're amazing, asalways and, of course, the, as
always.
And, of course, the MountPleasant Chamber of Commerce.
If you're interested insponsoring our podcast or being
a guest on our show, just reachout to any one of us at the
chamber and we'll get back toyou.
(51:44):
Make sure to like and subscribeto all of our media channels.
We'll be on Spotify, itunes,youtube, instagram, facebook and
LinkedIn.
So again, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
Until next time, mount Pleasant.
Until next time, listeners.
Hello and welcome to the Building Business Podcast
powered by the Mount PleasantChamber of Commerce.
We're here recording in theCharleston Radio Group Studios,
huge supporters of the chamber,Thank you.
And thank you, Brian Cleary,for recording us today.
My name is Kathy Herman, I'mthe current president of the
Chamber of Commerce and I'm alsothe marketing director of Mount
(00:21):
Pleasant Town Center, and Ihave a new co-host with me today
, Jennifer Maxwell.
She is the past president ofthe Mount Pleasant Chamber of
Commerce.
Say hello, Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello, Jennifer Maxwell.
Thank you so much for having meVery excited to film my first
podcast today.
My real job I'm a regionaldirector of sales for REINS and,
yeah, immediate past president.
Glad to be here with thechamber.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well, you picked a good one.
We had a list, the best one,just so you know.
We had a list out the doorwanting to come in today to talk
to you, but I wasn't lettingjust anybody come.
It had to be.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Jennifer, it had to be Jennifer you know why too,
Because she's from here.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
She's a local.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
She too, because she's, she's from here, she's a
local, yeah.
So, um, she'll agree that.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
You know, hootie was one of the best things to ever
come out of south carolina, butI'm going at getting ahead of
myself everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I am so excited that we have jim sonnefeld, the
drummer of hootie and theblowfish and author of an
amazing book excuse mytagsimming with the Blowfish,
hootie Healing and One Hell of aRide, which I have read, and
I'm going to tell you a coupleof things.
(01:31):
First of all, you are going tohear some spoiler alerts during
this podcast today, but thatdoes not mean that you don't go
buy the book and read the book,because there's going to be
things that we're not going totalk about that you need to know
about.
But seriously, jim, what anamazing, amazing book.
We met you back in January whenyou were a guest speaker at our
(01:52):
chamber luncheon and I meanwhat a I'm still thrilled, what
a thrill that was to meet you.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Thank you all for having me then and also today,
to be here to talk more aboutthe book.
And I don't know.
My experience is down in SouthCarolina.
Like you, I came from somewhereelse to get here many years ago
.
But they let me stay.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I have to say Like I said, I think Hootie is one of
the proudest moments of South.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Carolina history.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I mean good South Carolina history.
You all know what I'm talkingabout.
But seriously, jim, we're soexcited to have you and I have,
as you can see, my little notesto talk about some of my
favorite things in the book.
But I'm sure, for those whomight not know you, can you give
everyone just a little rundownof where you came from and how
(02:39):
you ended up at the Universityof South Carolina and, part of
this, the most amazing band.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, we I had been coming down here with my family,
who were based in the Midwestin the 70s, and we had some
family down here in SouthCarolina so we'd come to visit.
We were out at Sullivan's Islandand in the early to mid 70s and
came a few times and enjoyed it, went to Myrtle Beach and
stayed in Columbia and so I hada little bit of an idea of the
(03:07):
warm weather and the niceattitudes.
And so when it came time forcollege and I was wanting to
play Division I soccer, Ipointed my ship towards Columbia
at the University of SouthCarolina and the coach there at
the time was nice enough to giveme a fair tryout.
That's all he could offer me.
I wasn't recruited heavily oranything, but I made the team
and continued with my very longjourney to get a four-year
(03:33):
degree, six years to be exactand at the end of that I ended
up.
My soccer dream had sort ofcome to a close and my music
dream that I had as a kid, as adrummer most of my life, was
sort of taking the front seatand I found three guys called
Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan andDean Felber, who called
(03:55):
themselves Hootie and theBlowfish and who needed a
drummer and well, that's how Irestarted my, my future in a lot
of ways.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Well, that's one of my yellow tags here and I want
to talk about the fire.
That's something else thatupset me about the book, the
only thing that upset me aboutthe book, but the passing of the
hat at that first show.
I mean that is almost like aforetelling of what they did for
you, and then I don't know howit affected the rest of your
life.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, I mean, when I was sitting down to write this
book and then began shaping itto pull out the parts that
weren't important and look atwhat might be dramatic or ironic
, I looked back and realizedthere was a great importance to
how I first saw Hootie and theBlowfish.
Obviously, I auditioned forthem and I knew Mark Bryan from
(04:46):
one of my audio productionclasses.
But it was actually this nightwhere I had about 12 kids from
the university got burnt out ofan apartment on one morning in
February of 89.
And it was.
The twist was that that night Iended up like I always used to
If I had a sorrow, I went to abar.
(05:07):
Right, that's where we maybecure our sorrows.
At least I did at that time,and I walked in and recognized
the guitarist as this kid frommy audio production class and
I'd never seen Hootie and theBlowfish before.
I'd heard of them being aroundcampus.
But you know, mark did a crazything that night.
It occurred to me that was themost important impact that they
(05:30):
had on me before I joined theband even, which was Mark Bryant
, stopped the show and toldeveryone in the crowd which must
have been, you know, maybe 100people, to be fair that there
was a fire on campus and if theyhadn't heard about it, a bunch
of kids lost a lot of theirstuff.
And one of them was standingright in the bar me and he took
(05:51):
his sweaty Terps ball cap offhis head he was from Maryland
and he had, I think, a Terps haton and passed it around and
said give what you can.
And five minutes later therewas $35 sitting in that hat.
I was like astounded that thatwas the memory I took of that
band that that night.
Not what they did on stage, nottheir quality or anything, it
(06:12):
was that they did something forme who they barely knew.
They used their moment, theirinfluence, to do something
impactful, so for someone,because they needed help.
And I, six months later, when Iwas auditioning for the band, I
still didn't know much aboutthe band, but I remember that
moment, of course.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, still to this day, that stands out.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Can you share a little bit more about the early
phases of you joining the band,and did you envision the success
that you've had today?
Speaker 3 (06:40):
We didn't have necessarily a whole lot going
for us in terms of, I don't know, a business model or
connections to the music world.
We had a lot of fire under us.
We wanted to write originalmusic.
We had a great work ethic.
We'd all been raised to work sowe knew that hard work often
(07:03):
paid off.
We all had day jobs.
We had degrees that were rolledup and shoved under our beds
somewhere and we didn't want tonecessarily go into regular jobs
.
We all wanted to play music.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
It took you six years to still hold up under your bed
, huh.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
It took me six more to explain that to my dad, who
was maybe wishing I would havehad a job that paid and had
health insurance.
But we just started off andjust tried.
We were green and so we didn'tknow any better than just to try
our hardest.
Knock on every door, take anygig we could, and mainly the
gigs that we were taking at thetime were parties on campus or a
(07:42):
club that wanted us to play fora few hours, and we would take
that money.
And here was the beginning ofthe Hootie.
Business model is that we wantedto write original music and get
a record deal, but at the timea studio was really expensive.
You couldn't have a laptop thatserved as your computer
Technology had not gone forwardyet.
(08:03):
So we took the money from thesegigs that weren't great and you
had to play forever and you hadto play a bunch of cover music.
We took that money and investedit in studio time so we could
start recording the music thatwe were writing at the time.
So that was our earliestbusiness model, besides buying a
van, insuring it, making surethere was tires that were good
on it and taking every gig wecould.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's awesome.
You guys are very, verysuccessful.
I grew up going to the CreditOne Stadium here at Dana Island.
That was kind of like ourannual tradition.
Every August is me and myfriends and family would go out
there and hoping one day to getthat back.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too.
You know, in the early 90s wehadn't had a dream that put us
on a stage that big even, letalone bigger or anything.
We thought we could win over afew fans at a time with our
effort and our you know swingingour hair and taking our shirts
off on stage and drinking a lotof beer and just having a good
(09:05):
time.
That was.
It was a pretty simple world.
In the small world we lived in,we had our sights set high.
You know, we knew we wanted togo somewhere, but we would have
never admitted that we had bigdreams.
That was something you keptclose inside and you just tried
hard, day after day, and when wedidn't have gigs or couldn't
get gigs, we rehearsed or wewrote more music.
(09:28):
It's the way you start goingbefore technology comes many,
many years later.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's right.
But I, just like I said we weretalking earlier when did you
realize maybe I should say and Iknow it's other than selling
the gazillion, million,thousands of copies of the album
of Crack Rearview that you soldbut when did it hit the band
that I mean, this is somethingthat you're never going to be
forgotten.
Like you are, you are not a onehit wonder.
(09:57):
You are, you are like, almostlike the band of a whole
generation.
I mean, everyone knows you.
When did that hit?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
For me, I think it's only in hindsight that you can
reckon with bigger ideas likethat, that you are maybe a
worldwide band or that maybeyour music does have a place in
time and it will not beforgotten because it was so
impactful.
It's hard to see that as it'shappening.
It's definitely impossible tosee it before it's happened.
(10:27):
So that's why we always focusedon the short term, trying to do
what the next right businessthing was and try and write the
next cool song that washeartfelt and sincere and
authentic.
So it's only in hindsight thatyou get to look back and go, wow
, we have longevity.
That's maybe one of thegreatest things no one ever
plans for in a band.
To look back and go, wow, wehave longevity.
That's maybe one of thegreatest things no one ever
(10:47):
plans for in a band, because youare eager to be just in the
moment and live your dream.
That's happening now.
You don't always think of thefuture.
As artists, I don't thinkthat's a regular thought.
So to be 30, some years downthe road and look back is Wow,
we've survived, we've had animpact.
(11:08):
We went from cassettes andalbums to this compact disc
format, to downloading, tostreaming and what the heck's
next.
Who knows Implants?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I'm just kidding, you're right.
Who knows, that'd be okay withme.
But now Cracked Rearview isstill one of the top-selling
albums of all time.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah in the US it is still, and that was the album
that we put out to give it somecontext.
After five years of working asoriginal songwriters and trying
to get up the ladder, we got arecord deal with Atlantic
Records, who at the time hadproduced some of the biggest
bands in rock history, and so weknew it was maybe an
(11:51):
opportunity to to really get outthere, but there was no
guarantees.
So Atlantic produced what wouldbe Cracked Rearview in 1994 and,
like I just mentioned thesedifferent formats to, to be able
to have a record that goes fromrecord to cassette to all the
other formats and through theyears is a little lucky and also
(12:16):
a great big gift, because somebands, music, dies with the
format that went away, I agree,and if you can eclipse each
format and go forward, say Ialways use the eagles greatest
hits as an example that wasfirst released on an album and
it was a huge seller.
Well, everybody, when CDs camealong that wanted to listen to
their Eagles' Greatest Hits withno scratches, re-bought the CD
(12:40):
version.
So it allowed them to sellanother couple million more than
likely and that helps yourcareer, just pulls it forward.
So we've had the benefit ofthat and that helps your career.
Just pulls it forward.
So we've had the benefit ofthat and again, a little luck
maybe.
Not sure what to give credit tothere, exactly, besides the
fans who are buying it.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
When you've toured all over the world.
Do you have a?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
favorite place that you've performed.
You know there's not one placethat I would say is the place,
but we have some high marks thatastounded us along the way.
And you know, when we first, Ithink, got to leave the first
time we played in anamphitheater to our fans who had
bought our tickets and we hadbeen opening up for a couple
(13:24):
other bands in early 94 as theopening act in 1,200, 1,500 seat
theaters.
So to move from that toheadlining 15 to 20,000 seat
amphitheaters was an amazingmoment and I write about that in
the book.
That first it scared the hellout of me.
Actually, the first time Iheard the wave, which is not
(13:45):
just an audible thing but is afeeling that comes against your
body when that wave of soundhits you.
And I was at the back of anamphitheater stage drumming,
like I do, and when we enteredthe stage it scared me at first.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I thought what is that?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, I thought, is there like a tsunami coming in,
or I just thought there was somesound and a feeling I had never
experienced.
So getting in an amphitheaterthe first time was a big moment.
Going overseas, I think, ourmemory.
As a band we always go back toDublin, ireland, and we played
this hall which held a couplethousand people, and we realized
(14:21):
they were singing louder thanour music was playing.
And as we stopped, they justkept singing in a beautiful sort
of Irish lilt and it just wasso sweet to know that we're not
home, we're not even in ourcountry and we're getting this.
We move on.
We go to play for our US troopsabroad, taking us to Southeast
(14:43):
Asia, taking us to Saudi Arabia,and that's impactful because
you're doing something forpeople who are protecting our
country, which is a whole otherlevel of meaning for us.
So there's all these spotsalong the way that you get to do
and if you're lucky, you get toreturn to them and maybe
experience it a second time.
But sometimes it's just aone-off A thing that happened.
(15:06):
You hope someone took a pictureof it and maybe you have it in
your calendar, because otherwisesometimes they can be easy to
get blurry or forget well, Iremember we again talk about
this earlier.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I was lucky enough to see you on that first tour,
that amphitheater tour, in newyork at jones beach, one of the
best places to have a concertever and it was sold out and it
was, um, just absolutelyincredible and um, and that was
just the beginning.
Yeah, and it was sold out, andit was just absolutely
incredible, and that was justthe beginning.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, and that was probably one of those early
moments in that first summer ofamphitheaters that told us we
just had to look in the mirrorand go is this happening to us?
We were getting attention and alot of it is the feeling of the
attention you're getting, notjust that you're playing in
front of a lot of fans.
That's amazing.
But when there's attentiongiven from outside, it gives you
(15:55):
this other feeling.
We had people that were fromNew York on TV or in other bands
that we admired coming out andbeing part of what we were doing
and it felt like a little bitof your peers saying welcome or
you've made it, and thatattention always felt good too.
It's something you can get kindof sucked into and it can
become a bad thing too.
If you get too attracted to it.
(16:16):
That flattery can go sidewaysat times.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Unbelievable I wanted to ask about your autobiography
Swimming with the Blowfish,because it delves into your life
and death.
What inspired you to write thisand what do you hope readers
will take away from your story?
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Well, I had been toying with the idea that maybe
the life's journey I'd had atthat point, which had gone from
sort of humble roots in theMidwest to my dreams of playing
soccer at a high level, intomusic and eventually success in
(16:53):
music, but then also goingdownwards in my spiritual life
and struggling with addiction, Ifelt like it's a whole story.
It just felt for a few years.
So I started writing in pen andpaper to try and put some stuff
together and my wife finallysaid you know, they have laptops
and you type right in there andthey sometimes correct the
(17:14):
words and you can type real fast.
Maybe you want to do that, andso on my birthday in 2017,
october 20th, I said I'm goingto open up this laptop, and she
showed me how to create a littlefile and I just started writing
.
Four years later is when I wasable to convince someone they
(17:38):
could publish it for me.
The journey gave me enough timeto write an honest, authentic
sort of piece, get it edited,for it to be better and more
concise and, along the way, feelthe sting of many rejections as
well, which brought me back tothe hootie days of well, when
you get rejected, you keep going.
You just sort of don't take oneno as the final answer.
(18:00):
I got a lot of no's on a lot oflevels there and somebody
finally sort of encouraged meand said all you need is one yes
.
So I kept fighting for that oneyes and finally got it from
Diversion Books up in New York.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Like I said, I mean I absolutely loved it.
And, jennifer, I'm glad youbrought it up because I wanted
to kind of switch our topic fora second now Out of Hootie and
onto a very meaningfulrevelation in this book.
A very meaningful revelation inthis book.
And I'm going to say thatbecause I don't think, jim, that
there's anyone who does notknow someone who has either
(18:36):
dealt with alcoholism or anykind of substance abuse, or
knows somebody or has beenthrough it themselves.
And I think a lot of the timespeople don't know what to say or
don't know how to notice it, ordon't know you know why, why
are they doing this?
And I really felt the way youwrote your book.
I've got a really good glimpseinto what you were going through
(18:58):
and, in all honesty, I thinkthat's going to help me If I and
let's hope not ever have todeal with someone.
I love going through that and Igive you a lot of kudos for
that.
I mean it really kind of blewmy mind and gave me a lot to
think about and so thank you forsharing what you went through
(19:21):
because I think it's going tohelp people.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
When I first reached out to try and get help for what
was mainly what I thought Icouldn't control my drinking and
some drugs I'd dabbled in alongthe way, I thought that was my
only problem.
But I realized there was moredepth to it than that.
I had other problems and therewere people along the way that
really were there, prepared togive their time and their
(19:44):
experience to help me.
And I wanted to to, in a book,say something that could be
helpful.
And my editor was wise.
He said you know, instead oftalking about your feelings,
about you know your feelings,how you felt and all this, just
tell what happened.
When you tell it like bluntlypeople are, they can decide what
(20:05):
it means to them.
So I think maybe you're a readerthat can say here's a black and
white story of what some guydid, not, what he felt or what
not some angle that I want tospin on it.
I just said here's what I wentthrough and here's also what I
went through when I asked forhelp, and I think it leaves it
then interpretive to the readerto say, oh, you know, that's I,
(20:30):
have that person in my life ormaybe even more deeply, that's
me.
I had a few people in my lifethat had to give up their
favorite alcohol, and for yearsthey had told me about it and it
was never quite impactful.
I wanted to make something thatreally just sort of was black
and white and plain and let yousee, oh, that stinks.
(20:50):
And to me.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
it's also the little details too, of all that you
wrote about hiding all thealcohol in the cabinets and
trying to find the five minutesthat someone wasn't going to be
there so you could go make adrink, yeah, and hiding up in
that little room, the back room,and sleeping all day.
I mean just all the little andI'm dealing.
Or if you have someone that youlove that's going through this,
(21:13):
people might not know to lookfor that, yeah, right, well, I
and I, well, I learned a lotfrom it.
So I I just really appreciateall those details that you put
in about that, because I thinkit could help people.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It took me a lot, a lot of years of of the pain of
living through them, but thenthe sort of miracle of surviving
them and finding a better way,which was only brought to me, as
I said, by other people helpingme.
I wanted to sort of just try togive that to other people as
well, because a lot of peoplewho struggle in addiction
(21:45):
they've lost hope, they've losttheir self-worth, they've lost
the idea that they can be amiracle, and that's part of the
disease, I think.
So to show someone who has gonefrom hopelessness to hopeful
and having some self-worth andknowing that you can be valuable
(22:05):
for other people is just what Iwanted to say.
It meant I had to tell somehonest stories.
Some of the stories that wereout there were a little dark,
and I've saved the readers fromsome of the more ugly ones, and
you don't have to shareeverything, right?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
No?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Well, that was thankful to.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Laura my wife and a good couple editors.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They said, yeah, if you tell more it will be a more
dramatic story.
But then you say but do youwant to tell more?
Your children will probablyread this book, and your
ancestors and people around you.
It's not necessary to telleverything.
Everybody does not need to knoweverything.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
No, I don't want to scare away the children.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, that was going to lead into my next question.
Maybe not the ugly stuff, butis there any other fond memory
that you have from yourexperience throughout the band
and traveling, or anything thatdidn't make it into your book
that you can share?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, you know some of the moments even that we're
living into now.
You know, the book sort ofwraps up.
We got lucky with the timingthat the story was ending and it
has a nice twist ending.
It sort of sums up or wraps uparound the end of 2019.
So I I'd like that I was ableto put a nice bow on it, and it
(23:21):
happened all before COVID.
So, but COVID gives us anotherwhole chapter, and some with my
band, as we're here now in 2024,about to embark on another tour
, the first since 2019.
You know, things have happenedsince then that are meaningful
to me as well in ourrelationship as a band.
You know, just surviving theCOVID era, and that means
(23:48):
looking at our singer Darius,the COVID era, and, uh, that
means looking at our singerDarius, who likes to work hard
and had to, you know, put hisband aside, his country music,
to see that and see how heworked through that.
Uh, you know, honorably, and,and, and he didn't want to.
You know a lot of people werenot given things that they
wanted, and so to see him gothrough that and still thrive,
and to see how we all reactedwith our families and and
(24:10):
through that whole periodthere's.
There's more cool stories thatgoing forward, that just in a
general sense, give me hope that, well, maybe we're meant to be
out here making music a littlelonger and I'm excited to see,
uh, what's to come and and howthe tour will go.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I know it'll be very, very successful.
How are you guys preparing togo back out after being off for
a couple years together?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, it's different for everybody.
I have to dust off a fewcobwebs around my drum set
because I don't drum a lot in myfree time.
I mainly am playing guitar andpiano and doing shows for the
recovery audiences and someother speaking opportunities.
So I've got to do certainthings to make sure I'm prepared
to sit back there on the drumsevery night for a couple hours.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Is it like a bicycle, though, Jim?
I mean like once you get going,is it?
It is like a bicycle in someways, Because you've played
those songs thousands of times,right?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, and I think some of it is as you get older
that muscle memory gets a littleweaker.
So while I could hop right backup there and make it work
because it's ingrained in me, mybody has changed too.
You know, I'm approaching sixzero and and so it'll be.
It's different than it was whenI was five years ago or 10 or
(25:22):
20, so I need to just get remindmy body what it needs to do
behind a drum set, and, uh, Ithink it's maybe a little more
complicated than getting out ofbike, which you know is a good
analogy, though.
So we all do our own thing.
Darius has got to transitionfrom being lead country singer
and having a certain uh shape onstage to being on our rock
(25:45):
stage and going into playing thedeeper cuts of hootie and the
blowfish.
So that's, that's different forhim, and the other guys too.
I think Mark and Dean are likeme, where we got to kind of dust
some things off and rememberwhat we need to do.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Was this something you just wanted to go back on
tour again?
Or did something come up, anopportunity?
Or you just said we missed theroad.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
We at the end of 2019 , in a general sense, said well,
maybe in like five years wecould do this again, and with no
idea that COVID was going tosteal a couple years and that
lives continue to change andthings don't always line up in
timing with, you know, Darius'scareer or anyone else's
(26:26):
interests.
You never know what could getin the way of anything.
And so last year we just startedsort of measuring it and saying
, well, 2023 is too soon and2026 seems so far away and I'm
going to be busy because there'sa world cup soccer tournament
happening in our country, so I'mhighly obsessed with soccer
(26:47):
still.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Are they still obsessed with soccer?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yes, so there's like you have to measure and try and
do the best at lining thesethings up.
So 2024 looked like it might bethe best opportunity, and it is
, I know.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, listen, I know many people are going to be very
excited about this tour.
And what about new music?
Are we talking about any newmusic?
We talked about some new music?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Are we talking about any new music?
We talked about some new music,but it's honestly harder than
doing a 50 show tour and gettingready for it and going out and
doing it.
Harder than that is making arecord together, because it just
is.
It takes longer.
Writing songs as older mentogether is not the same as it
was when we were in our twentiesor thirties.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
We're talking about grandchildren, yeah honestly
like.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
What are we?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
writing about here.
Oh, my granddaughter.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yeah, so we did a lot and it took a lot to make the
record called Imperfect Circlethat we put out with the 2019
tour.
But coming into this, we justfelt like let's simplify this a
little bit for us and stay awayfrom making a whole new record.
We'll release a song that hasnever been released before that
(27:57):
we made in 2017, I think.
I think that will be releasedright before the tour.
So there will be new music,technically, just not a whole
album.
Do people listen?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
to albums anymore?
I don't think they do, and Ithink that I mean my friends and
I talk about this all the time.
I like deep cuts, like I'm adeep cut album girl, so maybe
I'm not the right one to talk to, but you know, the majority of
people that go to a concert wantto go hear their top band's top
20 songs and that's all theywant to hear.
I'm completely opposite.
(28:27):
Give that's all they want tohear.
I'm completely opposite.
Give me that last song on the Bside, but that's what makes the
fans happy, right?
So?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
that's what keeps them coming to the shows.
We asked through our socialmedia what do you fans want to
hear out there this summer?
Because we have people that aresuggesting the deeper cuts, the
ones that we haven't played orever played, and then, of course
, like you said, there's thehits.
But when we came back with allthe information and someone in
the band asked me so what wasthe conclusion of all the
(29:00):
answers, I said basically everyfan out there wants to hear
every deep cut.
We've never played theirfavorite song and it would be
great to do that, but it wouldalso be probably impossible.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I have deep cuts that we've never played.
That I want to hear.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
I can't convince you know everybody to want to dig
them out of the earth and playthem.
It's hard to learn old stuffand and sort of.
Sometimes they just stay on the, on the CD or on the album and
they never get unearthed what isyour favorite song to perform?
performing you know, oh gosh, Istill like playing our hits.
(29:37):
Honestly.
I like because for me up thereand it's I know how to play the
song, I've done them hundreds orthousands of times but to me
it's the interaction and to seethe faces in front of us that
have paid to come and see us.
Because when I'm playing a songthat I've written or co-written
with the guys and there's stillsomeone out there having a fun
(29:59):
time with a song that's 30 someyears old, I love that.
I mean that's.
There's no better feeling thangetting to see their, the
reactions of the people.
So, while new songs are alwaysfun because they're new and you,
I'm always in love with ournewest song because they're
gonna love it, or I love itbecause it's new, it's a new,
bright feeling.
It's the old ones that getpeople's hearts and hands in the
(30:23):
air.
You know, and I like to seethat.
That's a good interaction,while my eyes are still good
enough to see the first row.
I appreciate looking at thesmiling faces.
I love that it's great.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
But now of course you know you as a magician and out
on the road with all these otherbands and stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Is there?
Do you have any kind of likestories about very famous people
that you've met that you canshare with us?
Are we doing a tell-all podcastnow?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
No, I just want to hear something, one fun one.
I want to hear one fun oneBecause I do have.
I do want to talk to you aboutthe one the bathroom issue.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Oh, yes, I am going to bring that up Besides him.
You make it sound like a reallyweird story now.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So the bathroom issue I will clear that up, folks,
jim Salfeld and his IBS problem.
I will clear that up.
We Like meeting when you metEddie Van Halen.
That was exciting for you,right it was.
That was like a big, huge.
Thing.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I mean meeting and standing with some of the peers
that I idolize, because, youknow, we came from the 90s but
we listened to music from the80s and 70s and 60s.
So when we're out there, youmight cross paths with someone
who's on the downside of theircareer and you're on the upswing
and you look at the person like, oh my god, this is, you're the
(31:34):
reason I make music.
You know, even getting to do aphoto op, which we recently
posted, with Elton John was anamazing thing, because he was
probably by and far my biggestmusical influence in general
growing up and somebody thatinspired me and I wanted to be
like that, and so we had a photoop with him at some point and
(31:55):
our Facebook page just reprintedit and what you don't see in
the picture this is a littlefunny is that I'm still a fan.
You know we'd been in ourcareer.
We had Grammy Awards.
Elton John had all his millionselling hits.
I can't remember the event wewere at, but there we are and
I've got shyness.
I'm typically overcome with theshy guy.
(32:16):
Even when I want to just get anautograph or shake the hand of
my idol, I'm always no, I can't.
He's gonna think I'm an idiotand in this picture without John
I you don't see I've got shovedin the back of my pants an old
Elton John album.
love it that I've brought that Ireally want to get Elton John
to sign to me and I panic and Iyou know, freak out, and I
(32:37):
didn't do it so there I'msmiling with my you know arm
next to elton john and you don'tknow, there's you know rock of
the westies in my pants for youI'm sure he would have, but I'm
um, you know, I get myself-doubt and yeah, my paranoia
comes back and I'm like he'snot not going to want to sign
that.
So I just had a sweaty albumthat was in my pants for 10
(33:00):
minutes.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
No, big deal.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Probably warped the record.
If anything, it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Do you have any pre-show rituals or
superstitions that you have todo before you perform?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
No superstitions per se.
I did have a lot in my lifewith a lot of things, usually
supporting my sports teamsbecause you know the jersey you
wear could impact the teamthat's playing a thousand miles
awayit does, so you want to wear the
right one, uh.
But we didn't havesuperstitions and and honestly,
we were so terrible for, likewhat would typically be a good
(33:33):
idea called warming up, we werewinging it a lot because we're a
rock band, we don't want to goby the rules always, but we
always did a shot together,which was always just a nice
coming together moment to kickoff.
You know about to walk on stagein front of a lot of people,
and so when I uh had to learnthat I cannot drink responsibly,
I had to not do the shotanymore.
(33:54):
I hated that.
I always hated that.
I had to hold up like gatorade.
I was like what a wuss this guy.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
There's some mocktails that I did listen.
There's plenty of good thingsto drink without alcohol these
days, yeah, so we still do theshot everybody else does real
shots and I do the the mocktailand it's fine.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Uh, you know we try and keep it simple.
Uh, you know, everyone hastheir individual responsibility.
We've always lived by this.
We don't have to look out foryour bandmate.
Are you getting ready?
Are you warmed up?
Are you doing the right thing?
You expect everybody to get onthat stage fully prepared.
So, whatever everybody has todo individually, whether it's a
(34:31):
long nap in the afternoon or anextra shot before you go on
stage maybe.
Whatever that is, we all expecteach other to get it right.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
What about the?
Did you have any fun tourriders?
The rider in the contract didyou have like green M&Ms or
anything in?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
your dressing room.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Ours.
I'm fascinated by bands.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Just so if you haven't, Because we liked to
have a lot of fun back in theday and we were young and hard
and always just thought if thisis the last day we're ever on
stage and we've got a bunch offans here, let's party.
I don't even think we put afood item on our rider so many,
many years later it was justlike how much budweiser can you
fit in the dressing room?
(35:10):
And jim beam and jagermeisterand some light.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
It was just the second thought that's right, you
can get us food too, too.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Eventually we realized, yeah, we should get
some food too, but it was always.
It was just the earliest days.
You know even our contract.
There was no rider, it was whatyou got paid to do a gig name
the bar.
In the southeast you know wewould often just get paid in
beer.
(35:37):
Yeah, in the southeast we wouldoften just get paid in beer.
If there was not enough peopleor we didn't agree on a set fee
or nobody showed up, just pay ussome beer.
We're always good with that.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Those are the stories I want to hear about.
We turn the mics off for thoseso we don't get anybody in
trouble.
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Another interesting question what's the craziest fan
encounter that you've ever hadthroughout your years?
I guess.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
There were some really weird people that popped
up in the mid-90s, and by weird,like you know, we were still
getting a lot of fan mail.
So email wasn't a thing.
There was no social media.
Email probably existed, butthat wasn't the way anybody
communicated.
You got fan mail, so you getsome just bizarre fan mail of
(36:24):
people either claiming things ormaybe claiming God told them
some things that they, you knowyou maybe were the chosen one,
or maybe I'm going to beat yourshow at this certain place and
tell you they're going to bewaiting for you there and like,
oh that's really awkward andpeople did at times show up and
have to be removed or show upcontinually, I think maybe the
(36:47):
nice old word is called stalkingand for the most part I don't
think many of them weredangerous, but maybe just a
little delusional.
And through the years you getyeah, you just get people that
come to believe certain thingsand you don't know why, and it
might be a little bit of amental health issue at times.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
claiming that I mean yeah just some stuff that I'm
not even going into it couldn'tphysically have happened.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yet they're like no, and this stuff isn't even that
old.
Now we are years, decadesremoved from the big time where
we were traveling andinteracting with fans, and 20
years later you get a strangecorrespondence that says Well,
now you're called the police.
Yeah, like hi Dad, what Notgoing there?
(37:38):
Yeah, not so much.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
That is hysterical.
I do want to go through quicklyjust a couple of my favorite
parts of the book.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
If that's okay with you.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Again, everybody Swimming with the Blowfish.
I am telling you, pick up thisbook and read it.
It is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
And support your local booksellers.
Yes, absolutely, I supportedyou, I supported you, I
supported you.
Down in Powell, charleston, isBuxton Books.
Yes, buxton Books, that's right.
And Mount Pleasant is VillageBookseller.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Mine was already signed last time when I met Jim
in.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
January, it was really pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
So we're going way back to the fire, right?
The kitten died.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
I mean, I'm just letting you know it doesn't ruin
the book, but I was reallyupset, as you can see.
I mean.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
I knew the cat people of the world would pick that
out and have to say something.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's literally like five words and I was like, did
you really have to put it inthere?
Yeah, but I did love the partwhen you were going down to help
the young lady in the firstfloor with the dog and you were
trying to get her to dog,wouldn't leave her and she was
in the shower again.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I'm not, you have to read it, it's really funny fire
does a really weird thing to thehuman mind and it's in the form
of panic.
So the fact that I evenremembered anything about those
moments when I realized ourapartment is on fire, yeah, uh,
this is a slight miracle, uh.
But the stories are importantbecause they show sort of what
(38:59):
goes through the mind.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
When that happens.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
One of my next favorite parts was the whole
background of.
Some of you may not know thatJim wrote Hold my Hand, one of
the biggest hits for Hootie andthe Blowfish.
And I'm just reading, andreading, and reading and all of
a sudden I start with a littlelove and some tenderness.
I'm like here we go and I juststarted to cry.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I mean happy cry.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
A very happy cry.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
But that song well, so many of them.
But that song, like I said, itwas in the middle of my 20s and
it came out and it took mybreath away when I heard that
song for the first time and thento read you and you being like,
oh, you know, oh, my God, thisis working.
I'm actually writing this songto turn again to turn out to be
a song that there can be anybodywho doesn't know that song.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yeah, the roots of that song are interesting.
You know that it was justanother attempt which I had many
failures, as a new songwriter.
It was just another attemptwhich I had many failures as a
new songwriter to writesomething that I thought was a
combination of catchy and uniqueand clear.
It was when it was firstworking for me.
So the fact that that song endsup traveling through time, not
(40:16):
just that the band liked it in1989, but that we recorded on a
cassette and then a cd and thenit's a song we end up playing
from south africa to australia,to wherever we've traveled in
the world, that's always in ourset.
So it's a.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
It's been a great journey for that song, yeah oh,
absolutely, all right, two morequick things and then we'll have
just the two more quick thingsand then, um, we will finish up.
So one of my favorite thingwhen you were going in to record
your first album with theproducer manager, dick hud
hudgen, did I say that, right?
Yes, his quote about um beingin the record business really
(40:53):
made me laugh.
I'm gonna read it, if everyonedoesn't mind, because it really
cracks me up.
So he says to the guys so youboys really want to be in the
record business, do you?
And so of course now they'reall excited and they want to
hear about being in the recordbusiness.
I'm not going to say the badwords that are in here, jim,
because we're a business podcast.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You say them and I'll just try and bleep them out.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Well, the music business is like a big
superhighway and you need totake certain roads that will
bring you to that bigsuperhighway.
So there's all these roads andmany detours too.
But if you work hard, get gooddirections, have patience and,
of course, make great music, youcan get on that superhighway.
I mean, listen to that Is thatamazing, right?
(41:35):
But then my fun part it goesand you guys are still sitting
in the blank kitchen looking foryour blank car keys, and I just
love that.
You have to start somewhere.
But I love those words ofwisdom.
I thought it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
We dared to ask for some advice and maybe we hoped
that Dick would give us someencouragement Because we thought
, yeah, we made this cassette,we're probably going to get
signed to a record deal reallyquickly and Dick had experience.
But he was also.
The best thing about it was hewas honest.
We needed to have somebody bevery honest with us and say, hey
(42:07):
, here's where you are on thejourney in reality, not where
your mind thinks you are.
So we needed that truth and himand some other people along the
way were always honest with usto say hold your horses or keep
working.
And so we always tried to takethat advice and we did keep
working.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
And then I'm going to go back to the bathroom story
for a second to clear up anymisconceptions on the bathroom
story.
But it is about a verywell-recognized rock musician
and there was an issue with that.
I won't go into all the details.
You've got to read the book.
We'll just call him.
Bob Dylan, we'll just call himBob Dylan, and there was
(42:46):
something with lyrics with BobDylan and one of the band's
songs and Jim ran into him inthe bathroom.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, at an award show Very surprisingly.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Like what?
There's dylan and two stallsdown.
Yeah, and it was so funny andall like I and he said he was he
wanted.
I can't even say well to setthat up.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
We, but we were.
I was still holding on to aresentment with bob dylan and
his, his lawyers, because theyhad sued us about use of some
lyrics which they had originallysaid we could use them.
And then, when the song we usedthem in became a huge hit,
there was now a debate which isjust typical of the music
business.
No one cares what you do withart, and if there's money made
(43:33):
on it, then there's going to bea lawyer involved.
So I was still a little burntfrom that.
And here I am right near mrdylan and, uh, I'm thinking I
know how I can get him back.
And it has to do with somethingthat takes place in the
bathroom, of course, so I won'tspoil it, but uh what is bob
dylan we're talking about here?
Speaker 1 (43:52):
but we think he saved we, you know, the bodyguard
stopped you from doing it whichkind of probably, you know,
saved a little, a little bit ofissues with you and Mr Dillon
going forward.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
That was a funny one, oh goodness.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm going to have to read now to get the full story
Everybody has got to read thisbook.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
They really do.
And the other secret that Ilove talking about that we
learned at the luncheon, ofcourse, we learned through the
book is how you met yourbeautiful bride.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Well, I knew my beautiful bride because we had
been friends for many years andwe had.
The crazy thing is in thegreater Hootie family.
We all get used to you knoweach other's families, distant
cousins, because you traveledall over and you always meet
them all and we all had wives inthe mid 90s and late 90s and
girlfriends, and so you kind ofget used to the picture of that
(44:42):
whole group, right.
But then divorces starthappening and and then all this
great people are moving away todifferent towns to live in the
band and and people come and goand fast forward many years
later.
Two great things are happeningin 2008 on one weekend that if
you were in the hootie familyyou never would, sort of you
(45:04):
couldn't conjure if you tried.
And one of them was that on thesame weekend, darius rucker is
coming to charleston, southcarolina, back home, uh, to do a
big reunion homecoming gig as acountry artist, which doesn't
make any sense if you're sittingin 2007 or 1998.
What?
That doesn't make any sense, acountry artist.
(45:25):
And that same weekend, anotherthing is happening that sort of
shakes up the hootie world alittle bit if you're in the
family, and that I'm gettingremarried and I'm marrying Laura
, my wife of 15 years now, whohappened to have been married
and had three kids with ourguitarist, mark Bryan.
So that was a big like what?
(45:46):
So between Darius CountryHomecoming and Reunion and Laura
and I a wedding in the sameweekend, it's something that
doesn't look like it makes anysense or it's a weird story.
Both of them worked out prettywell now, didn't they?
Well, in hindsight, yeah, again, sometimes you can't understand
something except for lookingback at it.
(46:06):
So, 15 years later, yeah, lauraand I are married and our
Hootie family which includesMark and our kids and my ex-wife
too four adults raising fivekids together ends up because
we're all adults working outpretty okay.
You know, and it did seem weirdat the time and I apologize to
all those people who thoughtwhat the?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
I'm sure it is not the only time that that has
happened, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
It goes back to, I think, the beginning of the book
.
There's a page you have likebeginning of the book.
There's a page you have adedication page, you have
acknowledgments, and there's apage where the book company says
you get to write a quote.
No, I take that back.
This is in the book.
It's the quote that I thinkbest describes that moment,
(46:54):
which I think it says Love isfor the daring, and I felt like
that was summed up that moment.
It's like love doesn't alwaysmake sense when you're in it,
right, right, it makes us dodumb things, exciting,
courageous things, but it isonly for the daring.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
So where are the whereabouts of you and Laura and
the band in the Charleston areathese days?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Well, we've always had roots here.
When Darius came back in around2000, I think maybe because
he's from Ravenel originally.
So when he came back it starteda little trend.
Mark and Laura moved here fromColumbia, dean moved here and
got married and I was left inColumbia.
But fast forward, when Lauraand I get married, I dragged her
(47:37):
kicking and screaming toColumbia.
Because who wants to go live inColumbia?
But fast forward, when Lauraand I get married, I dragged her
kicking and screaming toColumbia.
Because who wants to go live inColumbia when you live in Mount
Pleasant?
Speaker 1 (47:45):
honestly, and she still married you and she did.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
She still married me, but now again, I promised her
that one day we would return orwe'd come back here and live.
So we get to be part of thatnow.
For a few years now I've beengoing back and forth from Mount
Pleasant to Columbia and I'vereally enjoyed it, because I've
never lived here.
I've really enjoyed it.
I have family here and Laurahas a lot of old friends, so we
(48:09):
have enjoyed being part of thiscommunity and getting to relive
some of the old days where weplayed at the Windjammer and we
played at some clubs downtownthat have long since been gone,
I'm afraid, but it's been a goodthing getting back here for us.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Good, good.
I love the old Windjammer days.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Yeah, we still go there, we go to see shows, and
boy do I feel old.
I say does it start at 7?
Is it a non-smoking show?
I don't want my clothes tosmell.
I really sound like I'm 85years old.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well, that's what we should do.
We should get you guys to playthe wound down.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
I know, yeah, well, I think you know it helps that
the drummer is closer by now.
Well, exactly, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Right down.
You know, yeah, Mark stilllives down here.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Darius does part of the time and Dean does, so yeah,
that looks like it would be aneasier thing to accomplish than
the old days when you had to bedragged from Columbia.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Well, just do me a favor If you ever play the Wim
Jammer or anything the size ofthe Wim Jammer, just give me a
little heads up so I can befirst on line to get tickets,
because those will sell out.
I'll have to fight people forthat.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
I'm okay because those are still out.
I have to fight people for that, well, even, yeah, right, yeah,
every year, every year, yeah,there's a lot of good venues
down here and we've reallyenjoyed, uh, playing here our
homegrown series.
That lasted a long time andthen got sidetracked by our 2019
tour and and uh, covid has notyet returned, so we're not sure
what we're gonna do with that,darius has got a great festival
here too, so the RiverfrontRevival is an incredible
opportunity too.
(49:44):
So he puts together a greatshow.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Any chance you could play at that?
Yeah, there's always a chance.
See, I know, really Breakingnews.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
You never know.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Thank you so very much for coming on and spending
some time with us today.
I could say it 18 times I'm ahuge, huge, huge fan, and I
think it's important for artistslike yourself to know the
impact that they've made onpeople, because I don't know if
you get to hear I mean, I'm sureyou'll be oh, we love you.
But literally you impacted anentire generation of people, jim
(50:19):
.
So it's just very it's an honorto meet you and an honor to
talk to you.
It's just something you guysshould all be very proud of.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Well, thanks for continuing to be a fan.
And you know this is somewhateasier as an older guy to do
podcasts and chamber events andall that.
I never thought that would be afun thing, but when you're 59,
oh yeah, I can do that.
Well, that's because it's theMount Pleasant At 12 in the
afternoon.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, it's the Mount Pleasant Chamber.
That's why it's so cool.
Nobody else is as cool as weare.
Just so you know.
We've got the best guests.
I told you we have the bestguests, but really again to have
you.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Just call me.
I'll bring my acoustic guitarand my book.
That's even better.
I'll bring some new stories.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I was going to say please don't forget Swimming
with the Blowfish, HootieHealing, and One Hell of a Ride.
It is an amazing book.
Please, please, pick up a copy,Support your local bookseller.
That's right.
Buxton Books, you said right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Downtown and then out on Mount Pleasant is Village
Booksellers.
So I'm sure there's more.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I just haven't seen it yet Absolutely, absolutely,
get this book.
You'll really enjoy it.
So, again, I want to thank oursponsors of Charleston Radio
Group Brian, you're amazing, asalways and, of course, the, as
always.
And, of course, the MountPleasant Chamber of Commerce.
If you're interested insponsoring our podcast or being
a guest on our show, just reachout to any one of us at the
chamber and we'll get back toyou.
(51:44):
Make sure to like and subscribeto all of our media channels.
We'll be on Spotify, itunes,youtube, instagram, facebook and
LinkedIn.
So again, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
Until next time, mount Pleasant.
Until next time, listeners.
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