Tom Bukovac: Strings, Stages, and Psychotic Bengal Cats

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it?
It's already time for seasonsix of Chewing the Gristle with
yours truly Greg Cox.
So many delightfulconversations to look forward to
.
We'll talk about music.
Yes, sure, but you know whatelse we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind.
So stay tuned.
We got some good ones for you.

(00:29):
Chewing the Gristle, season 6.
Ladies and gentlemen, this weekon Chewing the Gristle, we have
the mega Tom Bukovac.
Uncle Larry, if you will,session Ace in Nashville,
immortal slinger of guitar andhell of a cool cat and quite a

(00:51):
humorous internetsman, as I liketo say as well.
This week on Chewing theGristle, uncle Larry, tom
Bukovac.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, the time has come once
again for us to gather aroundthe gristle fire For a little

(01:11):
chewing the gristle with yourstruly Gregory Calk.
I'm here with the illustriousUncle Larry Gracious Mr Tom
Bukovac.
Bukovac, bukovac.
He's going to attack thatBukovac.
Ladies and gentlemen, he's here.
Well, he's actually inNashville.
Is there a snake back there?
Is that what I see in thatenvironment back there?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
A lizard.
It's a lizard.
My dear boys have these.
They each have a leopard, a redheat lamp.
Oh shit, you froze there for amoment.
Oh no, you locked up.
Are you there?
Okay, you got me.
Now I think we're back, allright, okay, yeah, yeah, and
they like that hot heat lampthere.

(01:57):
They like that.
Yeah, buddy you doing.
Good man, I can't complain.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, buddy you doing good man, I can't complain.
I finally got home from thetour that I saw you on when we
got together there in beautifulNashville in Rockboy.
That sure was a blast.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Thanks for doing that , you guys have been out busting
it, haven't you In the GristleMissile?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
In the Gristle Missile.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
How many gigs are we talking here?

Speaker 1 (02:20):
That's a good question.
We did three before we joinedthe Allman Betts thing, and then
there was 10, and then therewas another three.
So what's that?
16 in a row?
Yeah, How's your ears.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
How's your ears?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
holding up.
You know not bad, I put an earthingy in my left ear because
that's kind of facing the firehave you had ringing your whole
life pretty?
Much just in my left ear andit's not horrible and it doesn't
really bother me, and I noticethat it does diminish quite a

(03:00):
bit when I'm not.
It kind of calms down.
I think where I lucked out isthat I'm just a tall son of a
bitch, as you are, so I thinkthat all of the heat is kind of
going down by my knees.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Your boy can hit them cymbals though, boy, can't he?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, he's not afraid he's not afraid to pound them
skins.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
He's a badass drummer man.
Oh thank you.
He's not afraid.
He's not afraid to pound themskins.
He's a badass drummer man.
Oh thank you.
Yeah, he's a sweet, sweet guy.
You've done well with him.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh well, thank you, You've done well.
He's a good boy.
It's been a lot of funtraveling around with that
ensemble.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Is it weird being in a band with your son?

Speaker 1 (03:40):
No, it's really not.
I mean it's really not.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I mean it's like like do you ever, do you ever have
to turn dad on his ass?

Speaker 1 (03:47):
You know, not really.
I mean I, when we first startedtouring, you know it was one of
those things where he wasn't,he didn't have a steady
girlfriend.
So I would see things that asas as a parent, yes, I was
horrified, but as a bandmate Iwas impressed.

(04:08):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Does he still come to you for advice?
He does, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you guys have a greatrelationship.
I'm sure you're thrilled aboutthat.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, it's great.
I mean, it's kind of surreal,to be honest with you,
especially when you get to be acertain age and you look back
and you just remember them whenyou know they're just you know a
little peanut.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, you change those diapers.
And now he's giving you thebackbeat.
Exactly, you know, man, it's socool, man, it's wild, it's so
cool.
And then your daughter issinging and playing.
She's doing great yeah yeah,yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
So she like a couple of years ago she posted some
like a TikTok of her playingguitar and singing.
I'm like what is this?
Because I she took a guitar upto school when she went to
college and we were visiting onetime, helping her move to
another place, and I picked upthe guitar and I played a chord
and it was perfectly in tune andI thought, well, that's weird.

(05:03):
And so she had this littlefinger style pattern.
She's singing this song and I'mlike Isla, what is that song?
She goes oh, that's one of mytunes, so she has all these
tunes.
So next thing, you know shemoved home and she got a job
down here because she's up inMinneapolis.
That's where she went to school.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
She graduated the power of the dna buddy.
Yeah, it's crazy.
It's so like you got how manytotal kids four and how many of
them are musical well, they allhad musical proclivities.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
But, um, my daughter, grace is, she's more of a
theater person, she's more of atheater comedian, clown.
She actually went to clownschool, okay, yeah, as well as
theater and so on and so forth,uh.
But my youngest played sax, butnow he's in the air force and
he doesn't want.
But he had a good little touch,he had a nice little vibrato
and good improvise okay.

(05:56):
But he just said you know, I'mnot doing that yeah, I know it's
coming back to me.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
I asked you that before.
I remember you saying that hehad a good touch on the sax.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
He did.
Oh man, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Dylan was always trying to get him to jam with us
.
Dylan's like come on, let'splay the chicken and he's like
no, he just wouldn't do it.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I would love to be in a band with one of my kids
someday.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
That would be amazing , well, your.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
But you know it's going to be a good while before
he's old enough to travel on thegristle missile with me.
Yeah, it's going to be a while.
Yeah, I need to come up with aname for my own traveling
vehicle.
What would you call it?
Hilarious, the Buka van.
Are you glad to be home, buddy?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I'll bet I am, you know it.
Um, we ended up in minneapolisand, uh, my in-laws are up there
and we timed it.
So we played on a friday andthen on saturday my
brother-in-law's uh songraduated, had his graduation
party, so we did that and then,while I was up there, I got a

(07:04):
random email from someone saying, hey, we had a cancellation for
this festival and no, uh, insomewhere in Wisconsin, uh, can
you guys do it?
And the money was.
It was good.
So I said, yeah, that soundsgood.
Cause Toby had to go all theway, cause he's from Minneapolis
, he was going to have to driveto Milwaukee to pick up his van
anyway, so it worked out great.

(07:25):
So we did one more gig onSaturday night, a little bonus
gig.
Yes, and it was a good taste, asthey say, like one of those
corporate gigs money.
No, it was just one of thosemunicipal.
You know some city money youknow this little town had some
money and whoever it wascanceled.
There was a band from New York.

(07:46):
I'd never heard of them, butthey were called something
Adriatic.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
But they had already set up the dough and you were
like I'll take that.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yes, I'm like that'll work out just fine, so we went
down.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
It was a little hot, but yeah, it's hot here, man
Jesus God.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
So you went all over the place doing stuff.
You were down doing that,marcus King record.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, vince Gill, this tour that I'm on this
summer.
Thank God this chair that I'msitting in is very squeaky.
I'm sorry, that's all right.
It's all indoor,air-conditioned theaters, man.
No outside festival gigs wherethere's flies all over the
catering.
You know none of that.

(08:29):
You know none of that man.
We're like, we're nice hotels,indoor old theaters.
We can play the Fox in Atlanta,beautiful, all these.
You know you play them Likethose gigs are.
There's a million of thoselittle theaters across the US
and it's like it's justbeautiful 2,000 seats.
You know he sells them out.

(08:50):
It's been great, you know.
I mean, I've certainly done myshare of painful outdoor gigs in
110 degree heat.
I don't want to do that anymore.
No one does, you know God man,those are rough, ain't they?
Oh yeah, yeah, those are rough.
So with Vince it's pretty muchlike Thursday through Sunday and
then you go back home again,something like that yeah and

(09:11):
he's like, he realizes that, youknow, not only does he have his
own family, but he realizesthat the guy's a band of young
kids, right.
So he's been very cool about it.
He about, he like I don't knowif I mentioned this to you, but
this is how cool of a guy he is.
He could have got by withputting all of us on one band
bus.
It would have worked.
But he's got two brand newfreeboats buses because he

(09:35):
wanted us to be able to bringour kids if we wanted to, oh
nice, so he split the band inhalf.
Instead of having, you know,the whole band on one bus, we've
got half on each.
There's tons of open bunksthat's what a sweet thing.
Just so we would be morecomfortable.
And if we wanted to bring ourkids out, I took them up on that
.
A couple weekends I've taken myguys out.

(09:56):
They've never been on a tourbus before.
Man, the magic of that.
They fucking love it.
They love it.
I mean like the first time Itook them both out when it ended
and they saw that bus pullingaway.
When I got back in my truck totake them back home, leo, my
youngest, he goes.
It feels like the world isending.

(10:18):
He was already hooked on theroad life and the traveling life
.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
You know, you remember the feeling the first
time you got on a tour bus.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Remember that feeling .

Speaker 1 (10:28):
You know, what's funny is that I've never
actually toured on a tour bus.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Oh Jesus, man.
Well, I thought for sure youwould you probably play with
everybody, haven't you at thispoint?

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Oh, I've always, you know, I've always had my own
thing.
I've done a few sessions hereand there and I would sit in
with all these different buddiesof mine and whatnot, but never,
you, never toured as a sidemanwith anybody.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Nope, well, I can get you one of those gigs in two
seconds, if you want one.
You want one?
Get you on a big old, fat tourbus.
If you want?
Oh, dude, you'll be staying infive-star hotels.
You want that?
Well, what One of the hours?

(11:12):
Right?
Oh man, damn dude, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
I'll tell you what it was.
One of those things where itjust you know, I had a buddy of
mine from town here, a reallygood singer-songwriter guy named
Willie Porter, and I played inhis band.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I've heard of him.
Yeah, he's great.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Sings great, plays great, and I did that for a
while and I just realized that Iam not.
I mean, I play well with others, I know how to do what needs to
be done, but I don't.
I like to be in charge.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh dude, yeah, the Sideman gig is not for everybody
.
It is not for everybody.
The Sideman gig is not foreverybody, it is not for
everybody.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Oh man, I mean, were you doing primarily sessions for
most of your career?
How often would you go out onthe road?

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Here's what happened.
I moved.
I grew up in Cleveland and whenI was 24, I moved to Nashville
and I didn't know anybody and Ithought I think I told you this
when we were hanging backstageat that gig the only way I could
talk myself into moving was Isaid, if I just give myself one
year, I was afraid to move.
You know, I'll give myself oneyear.

(12:15):
If I can't get something goingin one year, I'll go back to
Cleveland.
And that was the deal I madewith myself, the only way I
could talk myself into doing itright.
And, man, within the first fouror five months I was on a
fucking gig tour bus.
Because it's not difficult toget one of those road gigs in
Nashville with the up-and-comingartists.

(12:35):
It doesn't pay very well.
There's plenty of those gigseven now still available.
I feel like Nashville.
You can say it's too crowded oryou can bitch about the jungle
heat and all other things, butit really is the land of
opportunity for musicians.
Man, even now a fella can movehere and get in one of those 250

(12:58):
a night road gigs backing upsome up-and-coming artists.
Get on a tour bus just to getof get out there in the
professional world.
It's not the best thing in theworld, it's not the best gig
you're ever going to get, butit's just a way to get started.
And then you just leapfrog fromone gig to the next trying to
find more dough, more prestige.

(13:20):
But I've said many times, man,and I know you know this man, it
doesn.
But I've said many times, man,I know you know this man, it
doesn't matter if you're playingfor a fucking upstart, barely
signed new artist, or PaulMcCartney.
A Sideman gig is a Sideman gig.
The only thing that changes isthe dough and the prestige.
Right, the rest of it is thesame.

(13:43):
You're working for someone else.
You know you're playing theirmusic.
You know, uh, you're, you'retotally replaceable.
You know all that shit.
Right, it's always that man.
And, uh, you know I respect whatyou're doing, because when
you're playing your own musicit's worth, you know, struggling

(14:04):
a little bit, because whenthose people clap and when they
respond, they're responding tosome shit you wrote that you
came up with.
It's way more gratifying.
You know like for the soul toplay your own music.
You know.
And, um see, I've been theeternal sideman my whole life.
I didn't start, I didn't makemy own my first record until I

(14:28):
was 50, my first record of mymusic.
I was 50 fucking years old whenI made my first album, you know
.
But up until that point all Idid was play for other people,
play on other people's records.
So I get it.
I get what you're doing and Irespect what you're doing.
It's your thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's always what I want to do you know what I mean,
and so I've found other thingsto you know.
Obviously, supplement theincome, yeah, whether it be
guitar demos or whatever thecase may be.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
But you put on a damn fine show, Mr Great.
Well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I'm glad you dug it.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
It's very entertaining.
You're a natural-bornentertainer.
You know, you could have donethat in the 20s.
You would have always been.
You know, you would have been abluegrasser or something like
that.
You would have been a showmanback then.
You got it man.
Well, thank you sir.
You got it man Well, thank yousir.
You're a natural ham, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
I'm delicious.
That was a cool menu.
That analog was a cool joint.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I had so much fun that night.
That was awesome.
I've never been to that placebefore.
That was my first time everthere.
That was very cool.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, I dug that.
I mean we've played a fewdifferent places down there and
we haven't quite found a room,but that felt good that place
and people came out.
We did that blue room one timeJack White's place, and that was
pretty cool yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I don't know about that place either.
I've never been there.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
It was kind of cool.
Guthrie came out and sat inwith us there, did you?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
like it better than the analog room.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
I kind of dug the analog Plus.
They put us up.
We got to stay there and thefood was good.
It was good.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, the crowd loved you man.
You guys went over really well.
That was great.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
That was a good night , and then we went on from there
to Asheville.
I love Asheville.
That's a great town.
We had a good time there aswell time.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
We had a good time there as well.
Yeah, what's been the?
Uh, what's been the roughestgig you played?
Uh, roughest, roughest placehardest gig you've done.
You mean recently or back, yeah, like in the last like year or
two, what's been, what's been ayou got any nightmare stories um
you know, I guess it would justbe from a load in well here,
here's.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
This actually didn't turn out to be a nightmare.
It was actually cool.
But we got to this place andand we had this tour out in
california and, um, we needed agig in in san diego.
And so the agent's like, listen, I got you a gig at this place.
It it's called Dizzy's and it'sit's a jazz room and it's

(17:07):
basically just a room where yougo in and you just make all the
door yeah, and I'm like, well,fuck, I'd rather do that than be
off.
So it was like a Tuesday night.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
And so I called to advance the gig and they're like
hey, you can load in at six,but not before that, because
there's an aerobics class that'sgoing on in there.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
How big was the place ?
What was the?

Speaker 1 (17:27):
capacity Boy, it's hard to say.
It was just kind of a long hall, yeah, and it was attached to
the music union and it was justwood floor.
So they literally just got donehaving an aerobics class.
But then they had a decentstage and they had a vocal only
PA.
And we go in there and theguy's like, yeah, well, you know

(17:49):
, we'll see what happens.
I'm like, okay, he puts outlike three chairs.
I'm like, oh, my God, what'sgoing to happen, you know?
And we we set up and, quitefrankly, I like doing vocal only
PAs in a lot of these placesbecause we know how to handle
ourselves and we're loud enoughyeah, 20, 20, 26 in his bass
drum he's playing exactly and uhand all of a sudden people

(18:11):
showed up, you know, and and ontuesday night we walked out of
there with like a grand from the, from the door, and then, uh,
sold a bunch of merch and I waslike shit, this turned up.
So we, we have found that withthis, this band, um, we just,
you know as hard as we try, wejust don't have a bad night.
You know what I mean it's likeeven if the door is shitty, the

(18:33):
people that show up will buymerch you know what I mean,
because they understand theyunderstand the mission.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
You know what I mean oh, and you got low overheads.
Just Just three guys.
Exactly.
You don't have a crew.
You got nothing.
Exactly.
Yeah, man, that's the way to doit Keep your overhead low and
you get all the dough.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
And you know what?
We stay where we want to stay.
I never figure out the hoteluntil the day of.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, you guys want to stayhere, so I, you know, we stay at
hampton ends, you know, becausehave you, have you?

Speaker 2 (19:04):
have you ever got screwed and not been able to
find a room?

Speaker 1 (19:07):
no, I mean, I've kind of, if I figure, you know, if
we're in a situation where theremay be a problem, I will book
ahead of time.
Yeah, uh, but but we've neverhad a problem, good, and we stop
and eat where we want to eat.
And well, if you had to, youcould probably sleep in the Well
if you had to.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
you could probably sleep in the Gristle Missile if
you had to.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
If we had to, we could.
Yeah, I mean it was kind offunny because when we were out
with the Allman Betts guys, Imean they stay on the bus and
then they shower at the gigs andthen they only get hotels on
days off, and for me it's likeman, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
That's a big hell, no .

Speaker 1 (19:48):
I gotta stay in a hotel.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh dude, oh my God, I hate when they try to pull that
.
That's almost worse than whenthey try to get you to double up
on a room.
Oh man God, Uncle Larry did notdouble up on rooms.
Call me a diva if you must, butI do not double up on rooms.
Call me a diva if you must, butI do not double up on rooms now
, oh Lord.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
What was that Strat you brought?
It was like a 1970 Strat.
I really dig a 1970 Strat.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, but those Hendrix Zero ones, they didn't
make a lot of those Right Like.
You'll see 65s, 66, 66s, butfrom 67 through 70 you don't see
them right.
71 and onward you'll see plentyof strats.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
They must not have made many strats between 67 and
70 which is weird because thatwas jimmy's heyday and he was
the best rock star in the world.
You think they'd be making himhand over fist?

Speaker 2 (20:43):
yeah, yeah, I was just talking with Greg Boros
about that tonight, the guywho's the head of repair at
Groom Guitars.
Yeah, they just got a 67 CandyApple Red Strat in and he said
it was.
I asked him if they gotanything cool in lately and he
said that.
And I said, man, you never seea 67 Strat, you just don't see

(21:08):
them.
Uh, it's a rare year for strats, like you'll see thousands of
62s, 63s, you know, but neverthose big headstock ones are
rare, man, I love them.
Yeah, they're cool.
And uh, I I fell in love withthat guitar when I was at
chicago music a while back.
We were on the road and I and Iwent in there and I just played
it and I was like, damn, thisis a really nice guitar and they
wanted way too much money forit.
And I and I told the guy thatworks at dave, he's a sweet guy.

(21:28):
I said, bro, I'm willing to payyou tip-top retail for this
guitar, but I can't pay 30 overtip-top retail, right right
right, you know.
So he, he went to his guy and weworked on a deal.
I still paid a fortune for it.
Man, it's hard to find gooddeals on that kind of shit.

(21:49):
That is, it's too expensive.
The old stuff we all love thoseold guitars, but it's kind of
got how much money they are.
It's taking it out of them.
Any young kid or a guy who'snot a you know, doesn't have a
damn good job, is never going tobe able to afford any of that

(22:10):
shit.
It's sad.
Yeah, I agree.
I wish that you could.
It feels like in my mind, likein the, if I could make things
right with the world.
It feels like the most rarecollectible, like a burst, could
be like 100 grand.
You know that would still beout of touch of the normal man,

(22:32):
but that's kind of what it'sworth, right the fact that
they're 400 grand you know,ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's ridiculous, right, if you remember, because
we're about the same age.
I'm a couple years older, butyou know when we were tykes,
yeah, you go into like rememberthere was a place in town here.
It's called record head, so yougo and get used records.
They'd have it was a head shopand then they had guitars on the
wall, yeah, and it would justbe a rack of, like you know, uh,
late 60s, early 70s, strats,tellies, les pauls, and like a

(23:00):
68 strap back then was 450 bucksand it was, and that still
seemed like a lot.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
It's like 450 bucks, yeah, this shit's always been
out of reach, right, right.
What's the?
What's the best deal you evergot on an old, cool, old guitar
in your whole life?
Best deal you ever got, Mostlike you know?
Holy shit, I can't believe Ijust scored this for that much.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, it was an amp.
I got an Immaculate TweedDeluxe for like $200.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, those are $10,000 now, I know, I mean I
love Tweed Deluxe.
They're one of my favorite amps.
They are ridiculous how muchthey cost.
Yeah, I mean I thought that wasridiculous when they were
$4,000.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Right Now it's like $10,000.
And Tweed Basements as well,are ridiculous.
I love me a Tweed Basement,good God.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Blackface Pristons are $4,000.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
What the fuck man you know?
In Nashville every fucking guythat plays guitar wants a
Blackface Princeton Reader.
I could sell if I had anendless supply.
I could sell 20 of those a week.
I get calls constantly frompeople looking for those.
Every hipster wants a blackfacePrinceton reverb or a deluxe

(24:16):
reverb.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
That's all they want.
None of them can play loudbecause of the gigs they got.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Right, you know what else is really hot still in
Nashville?
Any cool old Gibson acoustic,any old Fender bass, like any
old P-Bass.
People love those.
Those are the hot items.
Like you know, the DeRoguerhipster guitar that used to be a
Jazzmaster is now Gibson ES-330.

(24:45):
All the hipsters they love the330s because they're as close as
they can get to a 335 withoutspending 335 money, even though
it's a totally different animal.
No center block, fully hollow.
I mean there's a lot ofdistance between a 330 and a 335
as far as its design, Right.

(25:06):
But people love those P90s andthey're great guitars, you know.
They're great, Although they'reterrible for live gigs.
They just howl.
They howl like a beast.
Did you ever try one?

Speaker 1 (25:16):
of those on a gig.
Well, no, although I'll showyou my recent acquisition, even
though this is a… yeah, yeah,even though people can't see me
out there in movie land.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
This guy that I went to high school with.
He called me up and he's likehey, I'm guessing that's a
junior, yeah.
Oh yeah, just wait, just youwait and see, this thing is.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Oh man 225.
Yes, yeah, buddy, oh must waitand see.
This thing is oh man 225.
Yeah, buddy, oh, that is killer.
52.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
This is a 57.
Look how immaculate A 57.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Okay, so they kept the trapeze on that model longer
than Les Paul, right yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Wow, it's just missing this little Dude.
That is a beautiful guitar.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yes, wow, I bet that's just missing, this little
dude that is a beautiful guitar.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yes, wow, I'll bet that's a monster in it.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
It sounds glorious you know, you could, you could.
You know, glazer makes thatretrofit, that retrofit bridge.
That'll go on that bale, noshit, that'll make that guitar
dead in tune.
Oh, you're kidding me.
Yeah, you can use thattailpiece, unscrew the head and
put this uh bridge on there.

(26:30):
That'll get that guitar dead intune.
Man intonated bridge for that,if you want it sounds glory,
well I'm gonna take man that's,I'll bet that's got the killer
neck on it yes, it does.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's got a little bit of a v.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yep, yeah 57s are the shit.
Yeah, I love a 57 neck man.
Those are great.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Wow, did you so you had that was a friend of yours,
like an old buddy that had that,yeah, a guy I went to high
school with.
He called me this summer.
And no, it is summer.
He called me.
Uh, that was probably fourmonths ago and he's like hey,
I'm moving out to vegas.
My uncle is kind of in badhealth.
He's a guitar player and he hasthis old Gibson Can you help me
sell it?
And so we figured out kind ofwhat it was worth.

(27:12):
And if he would have sold itthrough, you know, my buddy,
dave at Dave's Guitars or Steveout at Wildwood, you know they
would have taken 25%.
So we just I said I'll justgive you the cash for it, and so
I bought it and that was that.
Oh man.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Killer guitar man.
Rare to see one of those bigcardboard cases like that, the
alligator cases that are big,right, that's rare, yeah, I mean
that's a cool guitar.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
It looks like it's all there too, yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
It's immaculate.
Does it have the spacers underthe pickups, like the factory?
The rings that go underneaththe covers, like the spacers?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I haven't investigated yet.
I like never take apart myguitars.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well, I mean you'd be able to see them Right here.
Does it look like there's anykind of plastic spacer
underneath the cover?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
On the pickup, on the bridge pickup or anything like
that.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
No, not the bridge pickup, anything like that?
No, I'd not.
Yeah, yeah, god, that's akiller guitar dude.
I'll bet that thing is awesome.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Is it real light?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
oh yeah, damn, yeah, it's a killer oh, dude, that is
badass man, yeah, so that's kindof I bet.
I bet it's rowdy sounding too,isn't it?
Yes?

Speaker 1 (28:21):
damn, it is a beastly creature.
Yes, man, this wasn't anythingmajor, but it's just kind of fun
because it's got the oldDeArmond pickup on it.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
So it's an old Epiphone Caballero.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Caballero, yes, indeed, with the DeArmond
pickups, those are great.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah, it's a little snotty number.
And again both of these guitarsbecause they're not the real
iconic ones.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
they were relatively inexpensive, well but that 225
being in blonde is verydesirable.
I mean, if it was a burst itwould be kind of average.
But blonde one in thatcondition, that's nice, that's
good.
Good score there, buddy.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Thank you, sir, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
What's next on the books for you?
You guys going back out.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, we're going back out in August.
Well, we got a couple things inJuly.
We've got that gig coming upwith my daughter, yeah, and then
I'm doing that.
Andy McKee you know that greatacoustic guitar player, andy
McKee.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, man, you play with him.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
We're doing his guitar camp out in Wichita or
whatever.
So we're going to load up thegristle missile and go out there
and do that, and then we'redoing this blues festival in
Wisconsin on the way back andthen I'm flying out to Wildwood
and doing some videos out thereat the end of July and then we
will head out for another tourwith Devin Allman and company.

(29:57):
So there'll be a little bit ofa route, kind of out there.
It's all out in the East Coast.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
And then we'll get down there and then we'll route
kind of out there it's all outin the East coast, yeah and then
we'll get done there and thenwe'll come back.
Then we're coming back down toNashville, we're doing a gig
with my buddy, tracy guns fromLA guns, so we're doing a show
at the basement East.
Is that yes, indeed, yeah.
So we'll be there on August27th.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Oh, great man.
Well, for sure That'll be fun.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
We'll raise hell once again.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
We'll get Guthrie out there too.
Yes, you and Guthrie are pals,right.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
We are indeed.
I first met Guthrie, oh my God,20 years ago probably, yeah,
yeah, and he started to do somestuff with Fender when I was
doing Fender stuff, and we justhit it off immediately, you know
, being from Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Do you happen to know a keyboard player who became a
Nashville Session?

Speaker 1 (30:49):
guy Tim Lauer?
No, I don't know him.
He grew up in.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Wisconsin.
I wonder if you knew him.
You know what?
What about Glenn Wharf, thebass player?
Okay, those are both legendaryNashville Session guys that came
from Wisconsin.
Oh, no kidding, I was wonderingif you knew them, yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
No, unfortunately, yeah, yeah, no, unfortunately,
yeah, okay, all right, all right.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah.
But so yeah, let's hook up onthat gig.
That'll be fun, absolutely,we'll get a good GT out there.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
So what do you got coming up next?
How long is the Vince thinggoing?

Speaker 2 (31:17):
We're going until the end of August.
He's capping it off with likeweek residency at the Ryman
theater, but up until then wejust got weekends.
Right now he's making a bunchof records.
He's written a zillion songsand so we're booked for the next

(31:40):
10 days recording at his studio.
He's got this ridiculous studioin his house.
You wouldn't believe theguitarist days recording at his
studio.
He's got this ridiculous studioin his house.
You wouldn't believe theguitarist that I've heard tell
it's insane.
I mean it's unbelievable.
I mean I I said to him one timeI go, man, it's like, it's like
an addiction.
And he's like he's like oh, Iknow he goes, I don't do

(32:02):
anything else.
Man, this is my vice.
You know I don't drink, I don'tdo anything else.
Man, this is my vice.
You know I don't drink, I don'tsmoke weed, I don't do anything
.
But he loves buying guitars andman, all of his stuff is just
like he's got a whole fuckingwall of Blackthorne tellies,
right, a whole wall of Les Pauls.
He's got hundreds of reallynice old Gibson, gibson

(32:24):
acoustics, martins.
I mean it's like overwhelminghow much cool shit is there.
And when you bring a guitarover there, if you're doing a
session bringing a guitar overthere.
It's like bringing sand to thebeach.
If you don't, you know, youdon't, you don't need anything,
it's all right there, you know,you know, I mean I bring a pedal
board, you know, because I, youknow that's all I need to bring
.
But everything else is there.

(32:44):
He's got mandolins, you knowfucking everything you'd ever
want.
It's beautiful, really cool,nice stuff.
Um, I was over there today and,uh, we've been working over
there all week and uh, man, justeverything you pick up is all
set up right.
You know he's all tweaked.
You know all the frets are good.

(33:05):
He's got them all playing good.
It's really cool, really cool,man, nice shit.
You know the stuff.
I like I'll find stuff in hiscollection.
I'm like, wow, I didn't evenknow he had this.
Like crazy shit, you wouldn'tthink he has.
Yeah, I was like man, where'dyou get this old Firebird?
He goes, you told me to buythat and I'm like I don't

(33:27):
remember that.
But he's got this great oldFirebird.
Can you picture him playing aFirebird?
I love Firebirds.
Me too, man, me too Do you ownone.
Now you got an old.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Bird.
I don't have a Firebird.
I've got this Telebird guitarwhich is a Firebird body with a
bolt-on maple neck but it's gota Johnny Winter signed mojo tone
neck pickup and then Telebridgepickup and stuff.
So that kind of slakes mythirst for the Firebird Beast.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
They're so cool, man.
I mean when I played with JoeWalsh back in 2017.
I brought out several guitarsand I tried them over the tour,
but but I have this old 64, bert, and he would always say I like
that firebird, like that's theone that he really liked the way

(34:24):
it sounded.
So I ended up using that a loton that tour and he always, he
always loved that it's a greatone.
And, man, they're they're alittle awkward at first getting
used to them, the gangliness,but man, they are so unique,
totally and the sound is likethey're the Fender-iest of the

(34:44):
Gibson world.
They're great man.
I've owned a bunch of them overthe years and I just love
Firebirds, man.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
I got a hankering for a white one, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
You ever have.
They made old ones with P90stoo.
Those are great too, man.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
If you were going to, if I wasgoing to look at your reverb
search lately, what would be thenumber one thing?
What have you been huntinglately?

Speaker 1 (35:11):
I've been relatively good.
But I've been relatively good.
But you know I've beensearching for a white Firebird.
Okay, I'm just kind of lurking,and I always lurk, for I want a
white late 60s Strat, okay, youknow, because I've got my one.

(35:33):
That's a reissue and I've gotmy pickups in it.
But I want a white Jimmy StratRosemont board.
No, I want a maple neck Mapleboard.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, you want the Woodstock one.
Yes, okay, wow, okay, man,those are hard to find.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I think I paid like 16 for that.
For that 70 I just bought.
That was a lot.
That's a lot of loot.
Yeah, that's about what they'regoing for now.
Yes, it's not in 70s, but man,they're out there you know
there's something about thosepickups.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Those late 60s pickups had a thing they're
great.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
yeah and uh, they didn.
They didn't wax pot them, theydipped them in lacquer.
They're always microphonic, butthey're cool sounding.
They're very cool.
Do you ever notice how, every68 Tele you ever played, the
pickups are totally microphonic?

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah Well, my main guitar when I was growing up was
a 68 Tele.
It was microphonic as hell,right.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
You get the switch and it goes when you can really.
You know, they're always likethat and I always wondered why.
And recently someone explainedto me that that's when they
didn't they stopped wax pottingthe pickups and they just
lacquered.
They just put, they dipped themin lacquer and they thought
that would be enough.
But that's why they're alwaysmicrophonic.
The pickups on that 70 StratI've got are very microphonic.

(36:57):
You can hear the switchclicking.
Oh yeah, and you know, I guessI was talking to my repair guy.
He said that it's kind of like,even if you wax pot them, it's
not really going to help.
So they're kind of they arewhat they are going to help
those.
They are what they are.
They are what they are, butthey're cool.
Man, that's a cool era.
If I see one, I will send it toyou.

(37:19):
I'm always finding guitars, man, if I see it.
You want a bird, a non-reverse,I mean a reverse bird with the
fiber pickups, Two pickups withthe Lyra Vibrolo you want?

Speaker 1 (37:34):
that.
Yes, I want the Johnny Winterwhite.
Yeah, yeah, Okay, you know, aguy came out to a gig we were
playing down in Boca Raton atthat Funky Biscuit.
Yeah, he's like, hey, I got awhite.
He had like a 76 reissue whiteversion.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, like one of those bicentennial ones.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Exactly, yeah, yeah and yeah, like one of those
bicentennial ones.
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And he brought it out and Iused it for the whole first part
of the gig and god damn, thatthing sounded good.
Plus, it looks cool on mebecause we're bigger dudes, and
that's a more, shall we say,physically appropriate yeah,
they're, they're big man.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
When you put your arm on that thing, it feels like
you're resting on a table, man.
There's so much good there.
I mean I love them, man.
They're so fun.
You know they weren't.
The guy that designed themwasn't worked for Ford.
He didn't know shit aboutguitars and he designed the

(38:37):
guitar and I always wonderedwhen he turned that design in.
I always wondered if they werelike this is great, ray, but we
kind of already have a guitarthat looks like this.
You know it's very explorer-ish, although there's so many
things that make it unique.
The neck-through design is veryrevolutionary and, man, they're
just great guitars, man, and Ithink they're very misunderstood

(39:00):
.
I think they're the mostmisunderstood of all the Gibson
guitars.
People think that they're onlygood for, like, heavy rock, and
this is so not true.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
No, it's a jangly machine.
They really are man.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
And they work great in a large band.
I play them on sessions a lot.
They cut through a big mix witha lot of people playing.
They've got great mid-range,which is great.
I love birds man.
I love them.
They're great.
Man.
I'm going to find you one.
All right, I'm going to findyou one man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
So let's just talk sessions for a minute, because
I'm always fascinated by it.
I always enjoyed doing sessions, you know, and I'd get called
and I remember I went to schoolfor music at this little college
in central Wisconsin.
Yeah, and back then is like ifa lot of the people were like,

(39:57):
if you want to be a session guydown in chicago, because that's
where all the jingles werehappening, it was in chicago.
It's like you know you better?
They run through it once justto make sure the notes on the
page are correct.
It's not even assuming that youdon't read to the, to a, to an
absolute t, so I was alwaysparanoid.
It's like my writing, you know,I can read a chord chart down

(40:17):
in two seconds flat, but ifthere's any single notes, I got
to quick woodshed that shitbefore I play it.
So when you're doing sessions?
Are they charted out as justnumbers or no, no notation.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Ever for the shit I do.
I can't read.
Mary had a Little Lamb man.
I really my reading skills arezero Like you.
You know I know shit, tons ofmusic theory and I know all the
chords and stuff, but manreading notation I would fall
apart if I had to do that.

(40:50):
So all you'll ever see inNashville on any normal session,
if it's not movie date orsomething specific, um, it's
just court charts that justbasically show you the courts
and nothing's written out unlessthere's like a like.
If you're, if you're playinglike a street, you know I've got
a guitar here If you're playinglike a, like a, there's like a,

(41:17):
there's like a.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
A little pick thing like that.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Don't try to write that, Just the rhythm of it and
shit.
I have a hard time just evenreading that.
Like the rhythms really is whatthey'll write.
But you know, there's only beena few moments in my entire
30-year session career that thatnot being able to read has
fucked me.
Uh, there was.

(41:43):
There was one time I got on adate where I was playing
acoustic and there was a30-piece live orchestra and the
guy pulls out a notated chartand I said to the producer I go
bro.
I told you I cannot read.
He's ah, don't worry, you'll befine.
And I'm like kicking off.
It was a jody messina christmasrecord and I had to like do

(42:04):
these these little things?
Yeah, intros and stuff withjust acoustic and these guys
like 30 piece orchestra, they'rejust waiting for me to get it
right.
And it was stressful.
I almost I've tried to firemyself.
I told the producer I go bro,I'm not the guy for this.
He's like you're great, You'regoing to be great, Just do this,
do this.
He got me through it.
But man, it was frightening andI really respect those guys

(42:29):
like George Deering and DeanParks and all those heavy
hitters that can read like that.
I mean movie dates.
That's heavy duty.
I mean that's way beyond myprice range.
You know, I've got a reallygood ear.
All I got to do is hear it onceand I can play it back to you.
But in terms of reading shit,hell no.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Kind of funny.
It was this last road trip.
I was on the keyboard player inthe almond beth spin.
Do you know?
A guy named john ginty, b3player, keyboard plays fantastic
.
He's a great musician, anyways,it's uh, we were talking.
It was.
You know, brian wilson died whenwe were and they were talking
about yeah those session guysback in the day man they had,
they had little lingo for endingsongs.

(43:12):
They'd be be like hey, this one, give me two Batmans and a
stronger than dirt.
I'm like what is that Batman?
Batman, stronger than dirt.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, they still use that shit.
I still hear that.
I still hear Batman, pat Boone,debbie Boone, all that shit.
People still say that shit.
I know you already know thisshit, but the Nashville number
chart thing truly is brilliantwhoever came up with that

(43:46):
Because it was really onlydesigned so that you didn't have
to rewrite a chart when youchanged the key Right exactly,
and it's genius man, so that youdidn't have to rewrite a chart
when you changed the key Right,exactly, and it's genius man.
Yeah, like, whoever thought tothink of it in terms of numbers
is just brilliant, I mean, and Iguess that happened in the
fifties, that's.
People started doing that, youknow, and it's still that's all

(44:08):
we do here.
Nobody hardly ever writes outletter charts, right?
You know, um, and you know it'sa little confusing when you
first learn it, because you gotto really get familiar with your
relative keys, right, you knowyou got to be able to, you don't
?
You don't have a minute tothink what's the sixth minor of
a flat, right, you know youdon't have you got to know that,

(44:29):
right.
But then, once you got it,those number charts are amazing,
right they're very handy I Imean, they're great.
And if I'm ever on a sessionwhere somebody has letter charts
where the chords are writtenout G minor, I will say, play me
the song once and I'll make myown number chart Because it's so
much easier for me.
I'm just so used to it.

(44:49):
You know what I mean, but it'sa genius thing.
Can I have one second to get abeer?
What I mean, but it's a geniusthing.
Can I have one second to get abeer?
Yeah, no problem, I'll be rightback.
One second, one second man, noworries, I'm just.
The fridge is right here.
Yeah, yeah, batman, batman,mm-hmm.

(45:13):
So is there like how manystudios you got around where you
are?
Is there any like?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
you know there's a few.
You know I used to do a fairbit of stuff around here and
down in in Chicago a bit.
Yeah, did you ever?

Speaker 2 (45:30):
work at that place called the.
What's that big studio inChicago?
Um, it was a like the beststudio in chicago.
I used to work there once in awhile yeah, I know what you're
saying.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
It's escaping me the uh, what the fuck was the name
of that place?
Um, anyway, uh, you had to goupstairs, like it was like an
elevator, to get up to thestudio.
You remember that place?

Speaker 1 (45:55):
I never did a session .
I every time I was down there,I would work with this one guy
and he had, and he had a studioin his house, yeah, and uh, and
it seemed like every other monthhe was swapping stuff out.
His house was majestic, it wasall like.
You know, it's kind of a funnystory it was.

(46:20):
It was then that my in-lawsfinally thought maybe this guy's
not such a loser.
I ended up doing, um, you know,I did.
I actually did a Fender clinicdown in Chicago at this at the
store Gann Music.
And uh, at the end of theclinic the guy who owned the
store is like, hey, you shoulddo sessions down here.
I'm like, yeah, well, that'd begreat.
No, he goes.
No, I got no guy that doessessions all the time.
Uh, I'll tell him about you.

(46:40):
I'm like okay, and you're likeyeah, okay, whatever.
And literally like two dayslater I get this call saying hey
, uh, you.
They're saying your sightreading has to be impeccable.
You know what I'm thinking?
I'm fucked, right, yeah.

(47:00):
So I ended up going in thereand doing it and it turned out
fine, and and um, and like yougot an amazing year.
You know, I was able to.
There was one point.
So it was like these three bankAmerican commercials, right.
So I was one point.
So it was like these three bankamerica commercials, right.
So I get to this session and Iknow this other guy in the
session.
He's like do you know who's allin this room?
I was like don't tell mebecause I'll shit in my pants.

(47:21):
So they had hired all theseguys that were like session guys
from you know all the, the, thechess and cadet sessions.
Yeah, they were there.
And then howard levy was thereplaying mandolin and in
harmonica, and right.
So we do this one tune and I andI'm just doing this chord thing
and figure out a little part.
And then the next thing I didlike a sync delay thing.

(47:44):
That worked out, cool, this isgoing good, cool.
And then the next one they'relike the producer comes in and
he's like, hey, I want you toplay the melody, I want you to
double Howard's part.
And I'm like fuck me.
So I quickly found the singlenote thing and while he was
going around the room, you know,talking to the other guys about

(48:05):
what he wanted to do, I had towoodshed and it was not hard,
you know, but I had to learn it.
So I did that.
But I walked out of there.
I had no idea if I did good,you know, I was like fuck, this
is.
Was it horrible, you know?
But they called me the next dayto do another session.
So the next session was a.
It was an Oldsmobile commercial, to tell you how long ago it
was, and the whole commercialwas for this car that was coming

(48:27):
in.
It was just guitar and it waslike a bluesy thing and like
congas and know, it's the kindof the sexy thing, the car
coming in.
And so that next couple monthslater was christmas time and we
go out for christmas and andthat commercial comes on and I'm
there with my in-laws, I'm likeI played on that one.
They're like, oh, and then Iwas no longer they finally got

(48:51):
it right.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
It was no longer the reprobate bar urchin, how did it
sound to you when you heard thecommercial?
Did it sound?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
good, it sounded good .

Speaker 2 (49:00):
I was like fuck that strat sounds good Hell, yeah,
dude, dude.
That's amazing.
How long ago is that?
Like 20 years that had to havebeen 1995, 6.
Damn.
Yeah, the early days of sessionwork are scary, aren't they?
It's frightening.
The learning curve is justridiculous.

(49:22):
It's so much to learn.
You wonder how anybody everlearns it.
It's so complicated.
God, my early accessions werepitiful, abysmal.
Just terrible.
Demos in people's basementswith guys that are terrible
players, terrible songs.
You know, you know it's all youcan do.

(49:42):
When you first get started, youknow Right and then slowly,
slowly, you start getting alittle better shit and start
working with a little bit betterguys.
I'm kind of glad I had anopportunity to suck so bad for
so long, you know, becausethat's really there's no other
way to learn it.
You just got to learn it bydoing it Right, totally.

(50:02):
I mean, it's fucking brutal.
I mean people ask like allthese young guys are coming at
me like all the time going man,what do I need to know?
Because the thing that I alwayssay is like you don't know, no
sane person, I love the fridgeopen.
It's beeping.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
I'm glad I could hear that.
Yeah, like when you're doing asession.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
you have to do things regularly that you would never
practice when you're a kid, likewho sits there and goes like
you know, do a click Right andmakes it gridded perfectly on
the click.
You don't play that kind ofshit when you're a kid.

(50:51):
You're like Like the parts willjust be, be like stuff.
Like you know, like you got todo that for 12 minutes and make
every one of them Right, exactly, and like you don't.
You don't practice that shitwhen you're a kid.
But that's what you end updoing in the studio, right and

(51:11):
like.
No wonder people are havingthese discoveries, because the
studio is like a microscope thatshows you immediately how much
you need to work on.
Like every weakness is exposedimmediately if you can't.
You know like I had a hard timein the early days when I was
playing acoustic, like to try togo like a like if it was a real

(51:34):
slow waltz, you know to just beable to go like as simple and
boring as that sounds, to nailthat shit in the pocket.
But it's real, man, I mean,it's fucking horrifying.

(51:55):
I remember coming home fromsessions crying because I felt
like such a failure that Icouldn't do that, you know, and
I would just sit with metronomesand practice, and practice.
It's heartbreaking, it's somuch to know, man, but then,
like, if you just keep going andyou do it for years and years,

(52:16):
you become like an iron man.
Nothing that somebody could sayover the talkback can fuck me
up anymore.
I'm like forwarded in iron.
I've been beaten by everyonefor so long.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
What were some of the worst things that people said
to you over the the time?

Speaker 2 (52:35):
You hear it all man, like some people, just like they
just are they're relentless manthey you know they, they, they
always want to everything, likeI've been on such when people
hated everything I played.
You know, and uh, or there's areally control freaks, you know

(52:57):
and uh, or there's a reallycontrol freaks.
You know they might like whatyou're doing, but they have to
have it exactly how they want.
You know, these tiny detailsthat, like, are so
inconsequential but it means somuch to them and you got to sit
there with them and it's, it'spainstaking, you know, and it
and it's like my thing is likeI'll work for a total asshole as

(53:18):
long as they're a genius and Imight learn something, and I'll
work for someone that doesn'tknow shit about music as long as
they're nice, you know, as longas they're not condescending.
So, like I don't mind workingfor somebody who's mean, as long
as they're a real badass andthey know what they're doing,
because I always look at themlooking to learn more and more.
You know, but, man, as long assomeone's nice and they're not

(53:41):
condescending, I'll follow themdown any road they want to go
down, even if I know it's wrong,just to help them.
Because what you're doing onthese sessions is like when you
really zoom out, you trying,you're trying.
These are people's dreams.
They're making records.
Their dream is to make a recordand then do something like

(54:02):
they're spending a lot of moneyand they want, they want this
shit to be great.
Man, you have to alwaysremember this is someone's dream
you're working on, right.
This is not just a session.
It's like it's, it's reallymeaningful to someone, right?
So it's like you got to alwayscome at it from that angle, man.
And it's just a weird job, it'sa mind fuck, it's 99% of that

(54:26):
job is psychological.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
What would you say has been your favorite if you
had to pick like a session whereyou're like holy shit, I can't
believe I'm on this session.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Man, like even just today, man, like like what I was
doing today with vince gill,he's got like a like a seven
piece band and these fuckers areso damn good right, like if
this was an, if if playing inthis band was an amusement park
ride, everybody would want to beon it like it's like I was
thinking about that like the,the joy of of like, of doing a
three minute song in beautifulsounding headphones with a band

(55:03):
that good, where every note youplay someone notices, right?
you know what I mean.
Yeah, the listening that'sgoing on with those guys.
It's're so good.
Everyone is so talented.
I feel lucky to be there.
I'm just like this isincredible.
What a ride this is.
I don't care what the session is, I just like playing with

(55:25):
really good players.
As long as people are reallylistening to each other and they
really care about what's goingon, I don't even care if the
songs suck or the artist is notgreat.
It doesn't have to be like that.
I just want to play with goodcats, man.
I mean, that's all it mattersto me.
But it's really nice when youplay with good cats and the

(55:45):
artist is great, the songs aregreat.
That's a bonus, you know.
But when you're in a session,man, the thing you got to get
used to is like on tuesday youhad an amazing session of shit
that that you couldn't believehow good it was, and on
wednesday you're playing theworst shit you ever heard in
your life and it's like theconstant ups and downs are it's

(56:07):
a fucking, it's mindfuck.
Man like you go from thegreatest shit you've ever been a
part of to the worst shit inone day, right?
It's amazing.
So you can never.
You can.
You can almost guarantee thatif you're on a really great
session, you can almostguarantee that God is going to
punish you with three or fourterrible sessions, right after

(56:28):
it.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Right, it's just how it goes Now.
Do you interface with everybodythat's booking you, or do you
have somebody who books you forthat?

Speaker 2 (56:34):
I don't.
I don't have a manager.
I don't think very few of theseguys have like what you'd call
a manager.
I think everybody kind of selfbooks.
Right, you got a littlecalendar and and usually the
artists have these they'recalled pas production assistants
, right, and they just callaround and see who's available

(56:54):
on what days, sometimes by email, sometimes by text, and they'll
say what are you doing July 17,18, or whatever?
And you're like nothing.
And then you want to play onthis so-and-so record and you
only get that one shot.
You write it down and theydon't bother you again.
They know you booked it,install it and then, like two

(57:15):
months later, they'll be likethey'll give you a one-day
reminder, tomorrow's thatsession and, man, you got to be
on it.
Man, believe me, I've fucked upmany times.
I've forgotten to write shitdown.
I've double booked myselfbecause I'm really not very good
with calendars and shit likethat.
I've got myself in a lot oftrouble.
Man, I'm double booking myselfand shit like that.

(57:36):
I probably should have afucking manager or secretary or
something, because, man, I'malso notoriously hard to nail
down a perception.
I'm bad about texting peopleback.
It's probably my biggestpersonality weakness.
I don't want to be reachableall the time.
I hate being, I hate thisimmediacy of this technological

(58:00):
world and all that shit.
God, sometimes I just want togo off the grid for days at a
time.
Are you like that too?
Oh yeah, oh man, absolutely,it's terrible.
I mean all this cause I'm still.
You know, we're on.
We're like the last you knowgeneration that remembers life
before the internet.

(58:20):
Right, think about how rarethat is, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
It's like the grandfather we used to talk
about that remembers beforetelevision, exactly Like we were
that guy, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yep, we know.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
I was just talking about this with my kids the
other day.
I was, like you realize, mygrandpa, my grandpa was in world
war one.
Right, right, right man.
It's crazy.
How old were you when you firststarted playing?

Speaker 1 (58:47):
uh, I was 12, although my I always wanted to
play guitar, yeah and uh, and mymom played piano and she and
none of my other siblings played.
I was the youngest of seven.
No one else played, but theyall had records.
They all were into music, yeah,and my mom taught me like a
boogie woogie pattern when I wasa kid, so I had the blues
progression already ingrained asa pretty young kid.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
You still play piano.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Not really.
I piano, yeah, not real.
I mean, every now and againI'll work up to the point where
I have some semblance ofsomething.
But you know, I played drumsfor a little bit.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
But you know any other instruments besides guitar
.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
I just play guitar you know, what?
At one point I was like youknow, yeah, I mean I, if I had
to on a record, I could, youknow, play like I played b3 on
one of my daughter's tunes, um,but again, you know, I just
played.
You know, figure, oh, what'sthe progression?

Speaker 2 (59:39):
oh, let's do this uh, you are, you are natural.
You were probably a badass bythe time.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
You were like 14, right like you, you could well I
I do like to tell people thatyou know back when I was, you
know my parent, I, my parents,were not stage parents.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
My dad was horrified, I want.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
I mean they were supportive.
I shouldn't say that theyweren't supportive, they were.
They made sure I got lessons,yeah, and and you know and all
that kind of stuff.
But the idea of becoming amusician horrified them.
But you know, I was.
I tell people like, look, bythe time I was 19, you'd
recognize everything I.
You know that I play.
Now you'd recognize the vibratothe phrase all that shit was

(01:00:20):
already then hell yes and um,because I, you know, I was not
someone that was like you know,like a metal guy, and then
discovered the other shit.
It's like I've always been intothe same shit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Well, you know, I've had, I was kind of I was
wondering that when I waswatching you the other night, I
was wondering if you started asa shredder and then sort of
morphed into all that shit.
But you're saying that that wasalways the thing.
What you're doing now Exactly.
It was always there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
It was the.
You know I was a Hendrixfanatic, creamier or Clapton.
And then, right there, I justgot into the blues shit, yeah.
And then I heard albert leeright away and I was like what
is this?
And then between albert lee andray flack and dickie betts that
were kind of my embryonic youknow, and and and mark knoffler.

(01:01:07):
And then I went back and Iheard all the you know, the
james burtons and right ohjurtons and Jimmy Bryants and
all that kind of stuff and gotinto Chet and Jerry Reed and all
that kind of shit.
But literally all that by thetime I was out of high school.
I mean there's a lot.
There's tunes in my set listnow that were in my first band
set list.
I did all those tunes back then.

(01:01:30):
What was the name of your firstband?
Well, the Stray Cat Blues Band.
It was before the Stray Catswere out.
It was the Stray Cat Blues Band, no shit.
We interrupt this regularlyscheduled gristle-infested
conversation to give a specialshout-out to our friends at
Fishman Transducers, makers ofthe Greg Caulk Signature Fluence
Gristle Tone Pickup Set.

(01:01:51):
Can you dig that?
And our friends at WildwoodGuitars of Louisville, colorado,
bringing the heat and theshadow of the Rocky Mountains.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah.
I was wondering that very thing.
I'm glad you said that, becauseI was wondering if you because
I started out like I just wantedto be a shredder, like I was
playing.
When I was wondering if youbecause I started out I just
wanted to be a shredder, I wasplaying when I was like 14, 15.
I was just trying to play asfast as humanly possible, right,
that's all I wanted to do.
And I remember I was in mybedroom just wailing away and my

(01:02:31):
sister who's not a musician butshe's a music fan she was
ironing clothes in the next roomand she walks by and she said
that sounds terrible.
And I immediately knew what shemeant.
These aren't songs, this is notmusic, this is just technique.
And that was a moment for me.
I started just like you know,I'm not going to do this, this

(01:02:52):
is not where I'm going.
And then I turned it around.
I started just like you know,I'm not going to do this, this
is not where I'm going.
And then I turned it around.
I started getting way more intoit, way simpler stuff, and that
served me well.
But man, the temptation to shredis there when you're a kid.
Oh, no doubt you see that goingon.
You see people doing that.
I mean, I taught lessons at amusic store and they were all

(01:03:14):
shredders.
Oh yeah, you know all those.
I'm sure you grew up and runtons of shredders, right,
absolutely yeah, so playingcountry was a pretty radical
thing back in those days.
Yeah, I noticed you have a lotof that claw right-handed claw
technique from that, and so youwere doing that like when you
were a kid, huh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Well, I would ditch the pick and just do it with my
thumb and fingers and I'd kindof go back and forth and I
didn't really, you know, forcemyself to do the hybrid thing
until I was around.
I remember it, I was in myearly twenties and I said I have
to learn how to do this shitwith the pick Right.
And it was.
It was not easy, but I alwaystell you it's like so many times
you're dealing with, especiallywith online stuff, it's like

(01:04:00):
you need to be able to let thesepeople know.
It's like, look, this shit isnot easy.
It's like fucking put the timein in order to be able to, and
it was painful.
Oh dude, you know, as we know,but a lot of people just want
you know, as we know.
But a lot of people just wantyou know, in this day and age,
they just want you to open uptheir craniums and pour in the
information like sorry, it takesmultiple kicks in the groin

(01:04:24):
decades of getting your asskicked.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Oh, my god, you know, the only way I can relate to
the I, I, I'm a, I'm a.
My only hobby is playing chess.
I'm a terrible, terrible chessplayer, but I play constantly on
chesscom, okay, and like, like,I am the equivalent on the
chess board of a terribleweekend cover band guitar player

(01:04:51):
.
You know, that's where I'm at,on the chess board.
And I know, like, I've talkedto real chess players and they
and they said if I would just dothis and this and this, if I
read these books, I can improvegreatly.
But everyone's looking for thequick hack, right, you know,

(01:05:11):
like, I know that if I I put thetime in and read those books
and memorize all those openings,I could improve my game greatly
.
But I'm never gonna do that.
I'm too lazy.
Oh yeah, that's how the guitarplayers are, right, they want to
get great, but they don't wantto work right and and like I can
, I can relate to that fromchess.
So much, man, like, I want tobe a bad chess player, but I

(01:05:34):
don't want to read all thesebooks, you know.
So it's just, you know, theythink that there's some magic
pill they can take that's goingto make them a great guitar
player.
It doesn't work like that Iknow it doesn't, man.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
no, I mean, I remember, you know, I remember
like hearing, um, like more of ajazzy blues thing, right With a
3-6-2-5 turnaround and peoplewould throw shit in there.
Is that a harmonic minor?
Is that a melodic minor?

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
I was like ah, fuck, tritone sub.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I remember when it clickedand I was like oh my god, I can
hear that shit now and just amillion of those little
discoveries over the many years.
And then of course you lookback and like shit, that's a
while ago now.
But you know, I remember when Ididn't know how to do that shit
and they were like how is thatpossible?
Or the Chet Atkins stuff.

(01:06:29):
You know I finally.
I actually got a transcriptionbook.
It's like fuck it.
I got to learn this shit and Iremember just taking one measure
at a time, just going at it,and you know, you just.
But then you just get to apoint which you know I'm not
telling you anything, anythingyou don't already know, but it's
just when you all of a suddenyou're like you know what, if I
put my time in, I can prettymuch play almost anything that I

(01:06:52):
want.
I mean, there are things youknow, certain classical things,
and really deep, you know divejazz shit and so on and so forth
.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
All his words and shit Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I can't do that you know, you know, and I'm not a,
I'm not a tapper, I don't do anyof that shit, but I mean all
the stuff that I really wantedto learn I could learn you know
what I mean and you've got anamazing ear.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
You can learn, I could learn.
You know what I mean and you'vegot an amazing ear.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
You can hear it immediately, right, you just
know it.
You just know it.
Well, you know, with the chatshit, I I could, that was hard
to.
That was one of the thingswhere I'd sit down the records
like, I I don't get this, andyeah, but when I all I did was
one transcription.
Once I was did onetranscription, then it made
sense to me and then I couldstart figuring this stuff out by
ear and I could hear where thestuff was going.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
He was a bad motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
He was.
He was a bad motherfucker.
Yeah, he was pretty ahead ofhis time in that regard.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
I mean, if you think I mean almost all, I mean
between him and Les Paul andDjango and Jerry Reed and Jerry
Reed they did.
If you think I mean almost all,I mean between him and Les Paul
and Django and Jerry Reed andJerry Reed, they did all the
shit.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Yeah, no shit.
And guitar was, like you know,the featured instrument on that
shit.
It was like it was popular.
Guitar was having a heydayright then, you know, and they
were wearing it out Jerry Reedand all those motherfuck that's.
They were so good and they musthave spent so much time
pre-internet, no distractions,right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
you know, there's no way you can get that good unless
you just put the time in,there's no doubt no, man, I mean
I remember chet's just sayingthat jerry reed would just make
the shit up and he'd be likehold on, let's record that.
And then he'd record it andthen he would never remember it.
He'd have to re-record itbecause he just came up with it
on the spot and you're like what?

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
The guy that fucks me up the most.
I think he must be an alienlife form In his prime Lenny
Burrow man.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Oh yeah, he was insane, it's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
What fucking world is that shit coming from?
He got weird as it got later onbut, man, when he was really
hitting it, oh yeah, insanity.
Like insanity Him andHoldsworth and like there's a
couple of guys that just seemlike they're not even on this

(01:09:11):
planet to me, like I don't get.
I don't get like most of theseguys that I love, I got, at
least I understand what they'redoing and where they're coming
from but a couple of these cats,man, like I don't get.
It Like what fucking planet?

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
was all it's just.
It absolutely astounds andperplexes me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I just absolutely astounds and perplexes me.
I just, yeah, it's like whenyou hear him play, it's like he
never.
It sounds like he never heardanyone else ever play guitar,
like he wasn't copying nothing.
It was like he may have beencopying shit, but you can't tell
by listening to it what it washe was copying and then I would
always be astounded that he waslike oh, I played.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
You know, he was always so self-deprecating.
Oh, that was horrible.
And you're like.
Every time I hear him I'm likeI could never.
What mistakes.
It seems like it's flawless.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Yes, man, he was fucking, I mean, probably the
scariest of anybody that I'veever seen, you know, oh my God,
without a doubt.
I mean what a beast man.
Jesus, fucking, mind-numbing.
It was incredible.
When a guy is so good that youdon't even feel like you play
the same instrument he plays.

(01:10:23):
I guess I technically am aguitar player, but that's not
what he's doing, is not the sameshit.
It's insane, absolutely.
Who's your if you had?
I know this is a hard question,but if you had to pick an all

(01:10:43):
time favorite guitar playerpersonally?

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Oh, it's Hendrix, without a doubt.
Oh really, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Yeah, all the way.
What's your favorite record?

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
I think Totality probably acts as bold as love.
Yeah, me too.
Me too, I mean just from thesongs and just the tones and
everything.
But I do love Electric Ladyland.
I mean, every now and again Ican listen to it and I can still
remember the feeling I had thefirst time I heard it.

(01:11:15):
Every now and again, you knowwhat?

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
It was just such I mean, that was just such a
visceral thing the first time Iheard that record, Because it
was one of the records mybrother didn't have and he would
always tell me once he knew Iwas into Hendrix.
He's like you, wait till youhear electric ladyland, he goes.
that's the shit yeah, but oneday he came home from this party

(01:11:37):
and, uh, we roomed togetherbecause you know, there were
five girls in between us.
So I had a room with my olderbrother and I'll never forget it
.
He put on still rain and stilldreaming.
And I woke up there and I knewright then and there was like
this is the greatest shit I'veever.
I remember going to thebathroom and looking in the
mirror, just going.
What just happened was atransformative experience.

(01:11:58):
How old were you when that?
I was probably 10, 9, 10, maybeyounger, because I I did a
report on hendrickson.
I was in third grade.
So in third grade it'd havebeen like nine or nine or ten,
something like that right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
So you're all jimmy, that's your thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Yeah, oh my god, yeah you know, even to this day, I
mean I just, you know, it'sbecause it's because it was one
of these guys where he justplayed.
He had fun playing what he inthe in, in the scope of what he
knew.
He, you know, he could hearhimself play through changes
more than most blues rock guys,uh, but but he just created just

(01:12:40):
this marvelous shit with theskillset he had, yeah, and, and
it was like an alien.
I mean.
I mean a lot of people, youknow, think that's hyperbolic,
but I mean it's like it's true,it's like there was music before
him and there was music afterhim.
Yeah, man, and it's just.
And plus, when he plays theblue shit, it's just.
Him on a clean strat is myfavorite thing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
I've often said that that slow version of Voodoo
Child with Wynwood playing organis the most awesome recorded
guitar tone.
It is that fat ass bass whereyou can hear the guitar coming
through all the drum mics.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
And I think that's a showman.
I think that's a showman onthat tune.
You know, it's just.
Of course, it wouldn't havemattered what it was, because he
would have just made it happen.
It's just killer man, god damn.
But you know another awesomejust.
You know what's great on thisAllman Betts tour this guy named
Chris, who was the light guy.
He was Greg Allman's light guyand he used to work with Bill

(01:13:41):
Graham back in the days an oldhippie dude yeah, hendrix
fanatic like I am.
So we started doing the deepdive on all the obscure shit and
it was just and it's likeremember this recording.
One of my favorite things is onthe on the um the radio, one um
bbc sessions there's twodifferent versions of a tune

(01:14:01):
called driving south.
I don't know if you're hip tothose.
It's the most amazing shit.
And I remember the first time Iheard I was a freshman in high
school and there was this oldera guy was a senior when I was a
freshman and he was a Hendrixfanatic and he had all of this
bootleg vinyl stuff and he hadthe BBC shit bootleg before it
was ever released and I heardthat driving South and like that

(01:14:23):
was how I focused my guitaractivities for years.
And then when Stevie RayVaughan came out, you know I was
like, oh, he was definitely hipto that shit, you know, because
he did the deep dive on theobscure Jim shit.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
He totally did.
Man, If you had to pick asecond place, who would that be?

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
You know it's, I would have to say Albert King,
yeah yeah, yeah, man.
It's like Albert, I hear Albertplay and it's I mean it's hard
to say, because I mean I couldsay Clapton as well, because
that Cream Era shit, I meanthat's deep, you know.
And then BB King was anotherhuge one, and all the you know,
of all those guys, it all goesback to BB.

(01:15:05):
I mean all of those licks thatended up I'd take from Hendrix I
would like, all the shit goesback to BB King.
He did all that shit, yeah, andso it's hard, it's it's hard to
say.
But then you know, depending on, there was a time where I I
lived, breathed, you know, liveat the Fillmore of Allman
brothers, I mean that was myfavorite shit.

(01:15:25):
And then Johnny winter and live, and then Bloomfield, you know,
and then Albert Collins, andthen there were, you know, I
would just kind of ADD, kind ofhyper-focus on someone and just,
you know, devour all that shit.
But yeah, it's, it's hard topick, pick a favorite, but Jimmy
would absolutely be the guy.
How about you?

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
I always say you know , I hadn't changed my my, just
so, all those guys you mentioned, I love.
I love Hendrix, but I'm not Idon't know every cut.
I love him.
I love this shit.
I think David Gilmour is myfavorite.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
Oh, no shit, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
Just his writing and his compositional.
I love, I just love Pink Floyd.
I love those songs, I love hisshit and I love Pete Townsend,
man, oh, I do love Pete Townsend.
I think Pete doesn't get thecredit as a guitar player that
he did.
I mean, he's brilliant man, bigfan.
I love Hendrix, I love, oh man,so many of them, man.

(01:16:28):
But I think overall, overall,gilmore's touch and his sound
and the parts he came up with,it just moves me, man.
It always has, man, you know,and I'm a big Beatle freak,
that's all I cared about for thefirst 13 years of my life is
all Beatles, man, you know.
So that's my benchmark, youknow.
But how are you with theBeatles?

(01:16:51):
Are you a big Beatle guy?

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
I'm a big Beatle guy, but I was always a ladder
Beatle guy.
Ladder Beatle guy, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
But then later on.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
I enjoyed the first half, but I was like in my house
it was uh, it was white album.
Abbey road and let it be out.
Where do you have with stones?
Oh, I'm an absolute stonesfanatic.

(01:17:17):
Yeah, uh, favorite stones.
Uh, I gotta say beggar'sbanquet is my favorite.
That's a good one.
That's a good one, man, and butyou know sticky fingers.
I probably learned the mostfrom get your yayas out.
As far as guitar shit though,fuck yeah, first slide solo ever
learned with Mick Taylor onLove in Vain, all that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Let me ask you the most annoying over-asked
question, but I need to knowyour personal answer Beatles or
Stones, that's hard.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
When I was younger I definitely would have said the
Stones yeah.
But I mean mean just from likeraunchy, greasier shit which I
gravitate to.
I'm a Stonesman, butcompositionally the Beatles win.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
You know what I mean oh, man, that's the oldest, most
over asked question.
I mean it's so dumb to argueabout that, but it's probably
the number.
Argue about that, you know.
Uh, you know, but it is theit's probably the number one
debate in all of music.
It's like ford versus chevyright version of music, right.
I remember, uh, I did a record,uh a couple years ago with this

(01:18:23):
band called the struts.
You ever heard of them?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the guy that sings, uh, thelead singer of that guy, he's
brilliant, he's a young Englishkid, he's a total musicologist.
He studies this shit.
Brilliant, mind man.
He really knows his history andwe were joking around on the
session talking about that andhe goes.

(01:18:46):
I figured it out, man, he'stotally English, his name is
Luke Spiller.
He's great, he goes.
Here's the thing, man, he'stotally English, he goes.
His name is Luke Spiller.
He's great, he goes.
Here's the thing, man, peopleargue about the Beatles and
Stones.
He goes.
But think of it this way youput the Beatles on when you're
on a drive or, if you want tothink, you put the Stones on

(01:19:06):
when you want to fuck.
Right, it's really that.
Can you picture anybody puttinga Beatles record on when
they're getting it on.
It's so that the Beatles shitis intellectual, it's for a
drive or when you want to reallygo on a metal journey, and the
Stones shit is just more fromthe waist down, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
It's so true.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
And when he said that , as simple of an observation as
that is, I was like it reallypainted a clear light on the
age-old debate.
That's exactly what it is.
It's like you know, the Beatlesare way more intellectual, both
brilliant in their own way, butthe Stones were nastier and

(01:19:53):
more raunchy, right In general,man.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
You like that bad boy shit?
I was like yes, I do, yes, forsure.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Yeah, man, so you were 12 when you started.
I would have thought youstarted when you were like 5 by
the way you play, I I started.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
I started out 12.
I always wanted to play, youknow, but I there was not a
guitar around and it wasn'toffered in school.
I tried cello, I tried this,that the next thing.
Yeah, uh, but the amount of mysisters had a friend up the
street who had this nylon stringguitar and I borrowed it across
the street, showed me a coupleof chords and I was off to the

(01:20:35):
races.
That's you going, man?
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
All right.
So, after all these years ofplaying, I'm interviewing you.
Actually, uh, what, what is myjob?
Easy, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, if,if you know we're, we're all
about to check out we're, we'reon the we're where there's one
bar left on the phone battery ofour lives.
You know what is the finalstage of learning gonna be for

(01:20:59):
you with guitar?
Like, what, what?
What is the last thing that youwant to explore?
That you always wanted to learn, that you haven't quite gotten
into your health?
What direction do you seeyourself headed in with that?

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Well, I guess, just from a just a purely um, uh kind
of a thing I've never done butalways want to do because it
amazes me, is any of thatflamenco shit?
Yeah, you know what I mean?
I see that popular chia shit.
And yeah, you know what I mean.
I see that pop shit and yeah,you know, and that young kid now
, that italian kid, that mateo,whatever his name is, with the

(01:21:38):
fingers.
But just there, there's somecool shit that those guys do
with just their hands.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
To me that is that is so you find yourself looking at
that shit on youtube sometimes,oh yeah, yeah, and going down
there I I've, I've always beensort of anti-jazz and I've joked
around jazz curious.
But man, what I can alreadytell the final chapter of my

(01:22:03):
guitar playing life it'll belike the country western swing,
shit, yeah, yeah.
And it's like I mean I lovethat shit, I, I.
That's the only way I caningest jazz, right, as if it's
got a country tinge to it.
Yeah, I hear you.
Like I'm not a hardcore job,I'm not a bebop guy.
I mean I respect it, but it'snot what my heart said.

(01:22:24):
But but jazz in, in terms ofcountry jazz, I can take love,
you know, and you probably grewup playing that kind of shit,
didn't you?
You love that, like JimmyBryant and all that shit.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
Well, I did get into Jimmy Bryant pretty early on.
I mean I couldn't play a lot, Imean I figured out some of it
and we used to do a few of thosetunes like the Knight Rider and
a couple of those other tunes.
I learned, but yeah, I alwaysliked some Western swings, I,
you know it was.
It was weird, I mean I alwayswas in jazz band and I went to
school.
I was a jazz major, but I wasalways, you know, I was always

(01:22:59):
put off by a lot of jazzacademia.
Like if you bent a string anddidn't play a solid, or if you
didn't play a hollow body guitarlike an ES-175 with flat wounds
through a polytone, you werethe antichrist, you know Right.
And so it took me a whilebefore I could even play, like a

(01:23:19):
major seventh chord because Ihated it so much.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
And the problem was is that I don't know about you,
but I just the standards,especially when I was younger,
didn't speak to me at all.
Right, as I got older standardsthere were certain ones like oh
, I like this one, I like thatone, and I learned a few, you
know, and I got my mind around.
You know the harmony and how tonegotiate them and so on and so

(01:23:42):
forth, but there was such along time, it's like you know.
So to me it was like these jazzguys learned this amazing
ability to reharmonize thesesongs.
But I didn't like the songs tobegin with because they didn't
speak to me.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Totally get it.
I totally get it.
I had very short tenure offormal guitar lessons when I was
a kid for a couple months witha hardcore jazzer when I was
about 12, probably and he sentme home with a stack of vinyl
records.
All this shit you would expectIf you were going to make a list

(01:24:22):
of like 30 jazz records fromlike the late 70s.
All this shit you would expect.
Name it, Go ahead.
You know, Johnny Smith, TalFarrello, you know Harley
Christian Wes, Montgomery, GrandGreen.
Yeah, yeah.
He sent me home with theserecords and said listen to this
shit, you know.
And I took it home, man, Ilistened to it and it all

(01:24:43):
sounded exactly the same to me.
I was so not moved by it.
The only thing that I liked inthe whole stack was Stephane
Grappelli's fiddle playing onthat Django shit.
Yeah, yeah, I could feel thefire from that, right.
I remember thinking that's abad motherfucker, right.
But that jazz shit was soboring to me as a kid I said I'm

(01:25:06):
never going to like this.
I know I'm supposed to likethis, you know, but it just
never was the thing.
I mean, I still can't get withall the shit.
You know all the stockingvoicing, you know all the shit
that jazz guys play.
I can't stand it when peopleplay like that with the typical
jazz voicings.

(01:25:26):
It's just not my thing, mansings.

Speaker 1 (01:25:32):
It's just not my thing, man.
I mean that.
That's why I like the, thegospel-y stuff, you know, like
the quartet guitar stuff,because that's yeah, that's more
modern approach and it's, it'sjust more refreshing.
Yes, yes, and I'm like, ah,that's, that's cool because
that's alive.
Still, the other stuff is likeit's, you know, it's.

(01:25:53):
I don't know, I mean I havetotal respect for people who
have mastered that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
Absolutely Me too.
Me too Can you play some ofthat flamenco shit.
Have you been fucking with that?

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
No, I haven't those trills.
I've been trying to do thatwith pick and fingers and I've
almost got it to the point whereyou know like I like to do
those little intros to songswhere I do like a little etude
of a sort that I'll come up withyeah that's kind of my thing.
It's like I don't, I don'treally want to learn somebody

(01:26:23):
else's tune.
I want to learn a littletechnique and then make
something up and do my versionof it right exactly yeah, you do
, yeah, you do that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
Well, my friends, I was blown away by that crazy
echo shit you were doing.
God, you really got that shitdown.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Oh, thank you, that's .
That's an old tune, man.
I I uh I'll never forget when Icame up with that thing, Cause
I I had seen a blues SaracenoRemember him, I remember the
name.
He still is a great guitarplayer.
I remember he had come out witha record and he had actually
done some gigs with Jack Bruceand Ginger Baker.

(01:27:02):
So to me he was cool, you know,because he was playing with the
boys.
But then he got hired I thinkhe was like under contract with
Lenny Kravitz for years and hehad to be.
His only gig was that Yamahaamps and there was a Saldano
designed Yamaha amp and so theyhad this special little room and

(01:27:37):
blue Saraceno was the guy thatwas demoing the shit and I
walked into that room and he wasdoing a sync delay thing like
that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
And, and the thing is , he was a bad motherfucker.
And I was hearing this thing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
I was like that's a cool idea, and every time I play
that people are like oh, that'sCathedral by Van Halen, and I
knew later on that Van Halen haddone it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
But I didn't have that record.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
I only had the first three Van Halen records and
because, as you know everyone,our age was a Van Halen freak
and I was like, oh shit, that'snot what I'm into.
I mean, I I always liked VanHalen as far as coming up with
amazing shit and he was totallya genius as far as coming up

(01:28:21):
with new things and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
But it wasn't my bag Right, so I didn't really.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
I'd never figured out eruption, I never figured out
the tapping stuff and Icertainly didn't figure out this
tune called cathedral, which Ifigured out later on I heard
it's like, oh, that's that sametechnique.
Yeah, it was.
I saw blue Saraceno do it at abooth at NAMM.
And then I came home and I wasleaving a message on my
answering machine and I had thisone lick that was a Mike Stern

(01:28:47):
lick.
I took off a vital informationrecord and when I slowed it down
or did it with the sync delay,I was like, well, that's cool.
And then the other thing was aWest Montgomery.
The other thing is a WestMontgomery lick I came up with.
It was like going down from thefive to the four from a West
Montgomery Jimmy Smith recordand I, just when we put those
together with the delay, I waslike, well, that sounds kind of

(01:29:08):
cool.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
That's amazing, man.
Yeah, you know, like, uh, likeI'm kind of with you on the Van
Halen thing.
That was kind of like I lovedhim and respect him, but it was
like the shadow that he that heput.
I mean, you, every guitarplayer was trying to do exactly
what he did.
It was, it was crazy, right, Imean probably the most imitated

(01:29:31):
guitar player in history,wouldn't you say, oh, without a
doubt, yeah, I mean Jesus man,like to do something different
from what he did, was man.
It's amazing, right, did youever go look back at the YouTube
videos that there's somerecordings You've probably seen
them like that were in like 74of him just like on a cassette,

(01:29:53):
you know, like, you like likeplaying in his house and shit
and like a lot of that shit'salready there.
Oh yeah, like you were sayinglike it was already formed.

Speaker 1 (01:30:01):
You know, right, you know it's pretty crazy man and
what I dug about him too, isthat you could definitely hear
the cream influence.
You know what I?
Mean it's like he he would dothose, he'd speed up those
Clapton licks in a really coolway and and I dug all that.
But for me it was like one ofthe things is that once I saw
them on MTV it's like I can't.
I can't get behind this.

(01:30:22):
Yeah, because I was used tofucking Jimmy page and Clapton
because I was used to fuckingJimmy Page in Clapton and those
guys looked like they were likeBen Hendricks I mean, the
coolest motherfuckers ever towalk on a stage and then you're
seeing these guys in like tightsand fucking David Lee Roth.
I could never.
I never understood that.

(01:30:43):
You know what I mean, right?
And so I was just like, yeah,I'm done, I'll let you guys, you
know, you guys have fun withthat.
I'm gonna.
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna.
I'll let you guys you know, youguys have fun with that.
I'm going to be over heresomewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Who's the most underrated guitar player in
history?
Oh boy, that's hard Like reallylike you can think about it for
a while and come back to that,but like who would you put in
that category?

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
Well, you know, just as we were talking about before.
I mean, you got like Jerry Reed.
Everyone knows him as thefucking trucker.
They have no idea.
Yeah, he was such a, and GlennCampbell is another one.
He was frightening.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
Yeah, he was.

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
And because they were such good entertainers, people
overlooked the fact that theywere actually frightening.

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
Oh yeah, and people think that Roy Clark was a
better motherfucker than JerryReid was.
They don't even know howserious Jerry Reid was Exactly.
Roy Clark was great too butJerry Reid was a freak.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
Whole other level.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of who I would
say is the most underratedguitar player.
It doesn't get the props theydeserve.
It's tough, I can tell you afew overrateds, but I'm not
going to do that on this program.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
Well, I'm always bad about that.
I mean, I like, if anyone isinto good guitar playing and
they enjoy music, that's allwell and good.
And and, and I have no qualmsabout you know, I, I, I'm kind
of like with music, I kind oflike with pizza, it's like I
like it all to varying degrees,yeah, but, but John Mayer drives

(01:32:26):
me fucking crazy.
He's a great guitar player.
He's written great songs.
When I hear him talk, I don'tknow what you know.
They say that people who annoythe shit out of you.
It's something you need tolearn in this incarnation.
I got a lot to learn from johnmayer, because that motherfucker
crazy people talk about oh, mygod, he's the.

(01:32:53):
You know it's like, okay, he's,he's great, but there's nothing
new going on there.
Right, there's nothing new andand and and plus I.
I had an encounter with himonce and he was, he was, he was
a dick.
You know he was a dick withears.
So you know it's like and I'veheard that from a lot of
different people and I know it'slike, oh, he's changed his ways

(01:33:16):
and whatever else.
You know, I hope he has.
I might meet him sometime.
He might be the nicest guy inthe world?

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
Oh, maybe so that's usually.
What happens is like you thinksomebody's a total douche bag,
and then you actually work withthem and end up meeting them.
You're like why did I everthink that, right, all these
years?
That necessarily happens, youknow.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
And we all, we all have our moments but you know,
but that's, that's just one thatyou know, people I mean.
But here's the thing I alwayssay it's like it depends when
you start the clock.
It's like with people, a lot ofthese young guys that got into
blues and and kind of rootsoriented music john mayer was
their their gateway drug and I'mlike, okay, cool, I get it, you
know, that's it.

(01:33:53):
And then they went back fromthere and you know, that's all
well and good, I get it, but, asI said, I must have a lot to
learn from man, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
I'll never forget this man.
When I was, when I was, thisJohn's you think of his first
album was a long time ago, right, right, I remember I heard that
first album.
He did Room for Swearing.
There was a couple of songsthat I really liked and I
brought it over to a friend'shouse an older guy who's a good
musician and I said check thisrecord out.

(01:34:24):
And I played him a couple ofsongs.
He goes yeah, that's great.
I liked it the first time andit was called michael franks.
Do you remember michael franks?
I remember that, yeah, and we,if you, uh, I don't know if dude
was stealing from dude, but ifyou listen to the those old
records, man, it sounds exactlylike what he was doing in the
early days his vocal delivery,right, everything.

(01:34:45):
And I don't you know, it's likeyou know, maybe it's a
coincidence, I don't know, butbut uh, it's a coincidence, I
don't know.
It's funny when you hear thatit sounds like a predecessor to
Melissa.
Interesting.
A little homework for thepeople out there in the
listening land.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Forgive me out there people.
If you're a John Mayer fan, I'mnot judging you, I'm judging me
.
I have things to learn,personal things.
Thank you, john mayer, becausebecause of you I know I've got
some work to do do you normally?

Speaker 2 (01:35:22):
uh, is it?
Your kids are grown now soyou're able to do whatever you
want with your own personal life?
Uh, you probably, like I, I'mstill on little kid hours.
Like those guys are up at 6o'clock, no matter what.
You know, even though we're onsummer break now, my schedule's
a little fucked up.
What time do you normally wakeup in the morning, when it's
just you?

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
Well, it depends, because when it's just you, well
on the road, I get up at 7 am,regardless of when I get in.
You're an early riser, yes, butthis morning, when I'm home, we
have Bengal cats which arefucking psychotic Really.
Oh yeah, so 4 o'clock, what dothey need?

(01:36:03):
3.45, 4 o'clock they want toeat.
So my wife and I take turns, sothis morning was my turn, so
I'll wake up and then I can'tget to sleep for a good hour.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
What are they?
What are they?
What's what is?

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
I don't even know what that angle cats look like
little snow leopards.
Wow and uh.
They're beautiful and they'reand I mean they're.
We love the cats but they'rethey're not like lap cats.
They're not gonna like curl upwith you and you know.
It's like they want to bearound you, but they're not very
affectionate.
They're beautiful and a lot ofenergy and they're very vocal.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
So women like that yeah, very similar to some women
I know.
So they're like highmaintenance.
Yeah, yes, yes, they are.
Whose idea was that?
To get them?

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Well, I've always been extremely allergic to dogs
and cats.
So the kids always wanted tohave an animal.
And I remember when the youngertwo were bugging the shit out
of me like can we get a pet?
I mean, you know, technologyhas gotten to the point.
Where isn't there medicine youcan take?
I'm like Jesus Christ, have youever had an asthma spasma?
Kids, you don't want it.

(01:37:09):
Jesus Christ, have you ever hadan asthma spasm?
My kids, you don't want it.
But I went on Facebook and Isaid, hey, does anyone know
what's the latest inhypoallergenic pets?
And this guy reached out andhe's like hey, man, you should
check out Bengal cats.
Everyone that's allergic tocats is not allergic to these.
And they're smart.
They're like smart, like dogs.
I'm like really what?

(01:37:29):
And so then he goes I got a catguy.
So he gives me this guy's name.
Well, I know this dude.
We used to rehearse at hishouse.
He used to be the roommate ofone of my drummers back in the
day and he was a school teacherand he was into music.
But he discovered breedingthese cats and he's like
printing money you should seethis guy's 335 collection.
It's fucking insane Frombreeding these cats, wow.

(01:37:50):
So next thing.
You know, I'm over at thisguy's house and he lets me take
one of the cats to see if I wasallergic to it.
I wasn't, so that was like 10plus years ago now.
So we've had these cats for 10years.
Damn, how long did they livefor?
It can be like 18 years.
Oh shit, wow are they expensive?

(01:38:14):
yeah, they are yeah, yeah, I got, I got the uh, the good guy
price, and then if you sayyou're not going to breed them,
then they're a little bit lessexpensive.
But uh, yeah, let's just say Icould have got a pretty nice
guitar any uh regrets aboutpurchasing the bengal cast with
you know.
I will say that they have beenwelcome inclusions into our

(01:38:36):
family unit, but they are highmaintenance.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
Here's one of the things that happens with them.
That is fucking insane.
If we take them to we finallyjust overcame this If we take
them to the vet at the same time, which we try to do, when we
get home the male cat won'trecognize the female cat because
she smells different, becauseshe's been handled by somebody
else, so he'll fucking attackher with intent to kill.

(01:39:02):
So then we have to have themseparated, sometimes for three
or four months, and we try allthe different things, like, oh,
why don't you try this?
We tried it all.
And we would say to the vetslike, what the fuck do we do
with these cats?
And so we'd go through thesesessions, whereas literally be
months.
And so finally, this last timewe had a different vet and he's

(01:39:23):
like why don't you try this?
Why don't you shower the onewhen you get home and there's
these pheromone, uh necklaces.
They can wear these collars andthat's going to have them.
They get these pheromone thingsand plug them in, and so it
actually only was a couple ofdays that they couldn't be
together, but it's.
That sounds like a nightmare.
Oh my god, god, man, insanity,why they don't even.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
They don't even hug you or no, you get no oven
whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:39:48):
Dude, oh my god, but they are beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
They are maybe, maybe when it comes time to hug you.
No, you get no lovin'whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
Dude.
Oh my God, but they arebeautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
Maybe, when it comes time to re-up, maybe you'll chew
something different.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
Well, listen, we better shut her down.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
This has been the longest version of Chewing the
Gristle, which has been anabsolute pleasure, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Enjoy your company.
You're a sweetheart.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
Likewise my friend, and we should do some more play
in one of these days, Please man, please, in my future I see a
fucking record.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
That's just for fun.
I'll do like a 10-song recordwith 10 badass guitar players
each collaborating on a track.
I haven't thought about thisfor a while.
That would be so much fun.
I'll sing you some vows and putsome badass shit on there.
I'm down.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
And vice versa.
We'd love to have you climbaboard the gristle train.
I hope I didn't bore yourlisteners to sleep tonight oh no
, enjoy this one oh man,likewise we might lose a few on
the John Mayer thing, but youknow what that's.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Okay, man, that's alright, we're just being honest
, man, there's a lack of that inthe world.
It's refreshing, alright, man,get some sleep tonight.
Man, you too, my friend, apleasure, thanks so much.
There's a lack of that in theworld.

Speaker 1 (01:41:13):
It's refreshing.
You get a little hussy.
All right, man, get some sleeptonight.
Man, you too, my friend, it's apleasure.
Thanks so much.
Love you.
Peace, buddy.
You too, my friend, take iteasy, all right, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Ladies and gentlemen, toanother episode of Chewing the
Gristle.
We certainly do appreciate youstopping by.
Make sure you tell your friendsall about us.
I think they might enjoythemselves.

(01:41:34):
So thanks again for tuning inand we'll see you next time.

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