Billy Hector Interview 3/11/25

On February 19, 2018 blues guitar legend Billy Hector and an outstanding line up comprised of Sim Cain on drums, Winston Roye on bass, David Nunez on keys, Tommy La Bella on tenor sax, Steve Jankowski on trumpet, and John Martin on baritone saxophone delivered a blistering, high spirited performance at the Saint in Asbury Park tempered only by a graceful guest appearance by the lovely Suzan Elle on lead vocals for the enchanting ballad "Wild Heart".

Recorded by 3X GRAMMY award winning engineer Tom Ruff, mixed and mastered for Dolby Atmos by James Sleeman, and mastered in stereo by Tim Pannella at Asbury Media, The Billy Hector Band "Live at the Saint Vol.1" truly illustrates a legendary musician at the height of his musical prowess. From his heartfelt vocals, understated but assured stage presence, sultry strat riffs and fiery slide outbursts, Billy Hector proves yet again why he is so highly regarded and venerated.

Sadly the legendary Saint has recently closed its doors on Main Street in Asbury Park, but thanks to the immersive sound capability of Dolby Atmos, discerning music fans can relive one glorious night again and again. “

With 93% of artists highlighted in Billboard's 2024 Top 100 Artists having released music in Dolby Atmos, and Apple Music paying a 10% higher royalty rate for spatial audio releases, and the availability of exceptional live recording and Dolby Atmos mastering available locally via Asbury Media, we realized it was an opportune time for AERIA Records to resume its contributions to Asbury Park, NJ music scene ever expanding cultural legacy. We could not think of a better place to start! Helping preserve and promote this aural time piece of Billy Hector raising the roof with his trusty strat in spatial sound is what we are all about..” - AERIA Records

Additional information at: http://BillyHector.com 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/open-mic-with-colie-brice--6563363/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, you're listening to open micro coly Brysis is
our very first podcast. And I'm here in the studio,
the home studio, the Dragon's Lair, the Bear's Den, the
Den of Inequity, Billie Hector's home studio with his lovely
partner Suzanne, and I'm just quite frankly blown away by

(00:21):
the place here. I'm little, I don't I wasn't really
figuring how I'd start this, but it's got to be acknowledged.
What's going on here. It's pretty Uh, it's a pretty
special place. There is a patina of rock and roll
that is not something you can buy on eBay. I
guess is the best best I can describe it.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's you have to live it to get all this
stuff he got. It's like an old head shop.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Amazing. So I see all kinds of year here. What
what are some of your most treasured relics here? I
see this well showman here.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
That sort of judged actually the one I got a
two fifteen showman cabinet that I bought my father when
I was fifteen in nineteen seventy two, and it came
with a band master head. The mad Master had got
robbed in New York City about nineteen eighty five out. Yeah,

(01:15):
that was a bad one. And so then I a
friend of mine told me to get some blonde amplifiers
because nobody was really in the eighties. Nobody recred for them.
It wasn't a thing. Guitars were singing Dubai but not amps.
So you could get an amplifier for four hundred dollars,
which is still a lot of money in nineteen eighty

(01:38):
But I could pull it together.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah bands, Actually I got paid back then. Right, you
can make a living in the club scene and probably
a it was barely. Yeah, it was never really easy.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It depends what you were playing. But you know, since
I rode down the road less traveled, it was really hard.
You know. I was playing blues in a state where
you know, ran the place, and if you weren't playing
Top forty or Mustang Sally, you weren't working basically, And
I played. I was an artist. I did what I wanted.

(02:10):
I wrote my own songs. I played blues. I thought
people will enjoy it because people were coming out for
the Nighthawks. But when the Nighthawks weren't here, you know,
I took over. But there was No, it was a
sleeping giant. I just had to push into it and
find it. And I never said die. But there was

(02:32):
so many things if you're doing it, you know, financially,
you know, I wanted to survive, and that's basically all
I did.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
What were some of your favorite places to play?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Then?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
What was the scene? Like?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I created my own scene. You know, we had
all the there was big clubs like Baby O's, you know,
you know the Pony.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But it was a real scene. It wasn't a virtual
scene of social media.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh no, no, really, that wasn't the real world. No.
What happened with me. I was trying to survive after
the eighteen years old. Eighteen year olds couldn't drink anymore.
So there was you know since you know, from seventy
five on or seventy four on, the bars were really
doing very well because all the eighteen year olds could drink,
and so they did real good. It was just a

(03:24):
bunch of young people and rock and roll was being
played in the bars. It wasn't any more. The culture
has changed. Where Santana was being played for you know,
in clubs like that. You know, rock and roll was
being played. So all the rock kids. All the boomers
were there doing it. And then you know, because they

(03:46):
got the right to drink because they were going to
Vietnam and they said, hey, you send us to Vietnam,
can I have a drink where I go? And they
finally gave it a right to vote and the right
to drink, and then the drink and getting out of hand,
and they pulled it back at about nineteen eight. So
then all the clubs had host laws. They were called

(04:08):
host laws. What would happen if you went to a
bar and got drunk. The liability was on the bar owner,
so their insurance went up one hundred and fifty percent.
So it used to be fifteen hundred dollars for them
to operate for the year. Now it's fifteen thousand. So
all those bars are closing. And that's when I was

(04:29):
coming up, trying to get into that thing. And plus
that I was playing a music that wasn't really on
the top of everybody's list, so that's where we were
coming in. So we would get into the backdoor and stuff.
But during that time, I was playing a new wave band,
so he would do new wave music like what I

(04:52):
Like About You and pump it up by you know,
Elvis Costellos, things like that to keep a dance for
and then saw our own stuff in and that's when
the eighteen year olds could drink. And when that band
broke up, I just started. I said, screw it, I'm
playing blues. You know, That's what I wanted to do anyway.

(05:13):
So then I totally took a left turn and went underground,
basically because.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
So would you can consider yourself somewhat of a revivalist.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
No, I just I don't know. I was. I consider
myself foolish, like what a thing to do, But it's
really I had a few friends that did it. My
man David Mars was doing it, and you know, he
was still into it, so I said great. And then
my friend Billy Lily was a blues purist, and I

(05:45):
had to twist his arm to do rock and roll.
I had twist his arm to do slow Down. You
know the the a song that was on a Beatles record,
but it's a Johnny Ace I think wrote it. Is
that I hope I'm writing that.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So that's a pretty radical departure to go from like
new Wave, which was the popular pop music du jour,
and then make a steadfast determined decision to just go
your own way.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, but you know, the new wave thing was also
given way to the underground of like the Thunderbirds. You
know when they came out, they had to you know,
to slick back hair and everything so they could sort
of pass for a little bit. But they were really
blues and there was a there was some traveling bands
from the South that would come up. You know, they
had the Nighthawks, which it was the real band. We

(06:35):
we wanted to be wanted to be like them because
they were backing the Blues Masters. They would like I
Muddy Waters came into Washington, d C. They would be
as backup ban things like that. So that was very
exciting to think about that that could happen, but it
was only a dream. We just kept doing what we

(06:55):
were doing. And then we had we realized we had
to get people in because they were really digging on
the blues. You know, we could we could empty a
club out fast with the blues. So because we had
me Billy Lily was you know, a biker, so we
were just playing, you know, and then we got Susan

(07:17):
in the band, and then that was then she'd be
the only woman in the club because only only ugly
men were coming out to hear the blues. And somewhere
we started doing dance songs and somehow we caught on.
We caught on.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Where was your very first gig?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
My very first gig was my mother had a what
do you call that? A fashion show for the Cyo
or something like that, or the Women's club, and I
did that. I played chords and my friend Daniel O'Connor,
he played the notes on the guitar. We played whispering
and I'm in the mood for love, things like that.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
So what was your initial inspiration that helped you realize
you were going to follow this path of being a musician.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh, I sort of knew it when I was nine.
I wanted to play bad. I wanted to play more
than I had talent for.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Was there something particular you had heard that inspired you.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, you know, the Beatles basically, and all the music
coming out on AM radio from sixty sixty four to
seventy was just amazing. The people are still singing these
songs at least my generation, and there's still you know,
was a renaissance of you know, it as a cultural
explosion because only ten years before there was you know,

(08:38):
Who's that Dog in the Window and Chuck Berry, you know,
in the late fifties, and then in the sixties after
the Beatles, that was like unbelievable, you know, all these
instead of getting cell phones, everybody bought guitars back then,
and it was there was at least five bands within
the four block area my hometown.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
There's a new led Zeppelin documentary out right now and
it you know, they're obviously, you know, amazing. There aren't
adequate you know, adulation to give them. But as a
person who's been doing this for quite some time, what
is it that you feel that was in the songwriting

(09:21):
of these previous eras that because like I do cover
gigs and I'll play an old motown tune and there's
ten year old singing. How is it that some songs
and some genres and certain artists they just stay relevant
decade after decade after decade, and then other things are
more disposable. What are those ingredients to you?

Speaker 2 (09:41):
I don't know what it is. I'm trying to find
I was. I'm spending my lifetime to find that out.
You know, a lot of these songs, you can break
it down to three Blind Mice. You know, she shook
me all night long. You know, if I was in tune,
you know what I'm talking. Yeah, this happens in a lot.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
I never heard that song. Same again, thank you?

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, and you get that. There's there's like five Tom
Petty songs that start like that. They're almost like children's songs.
That's how he describes them. Very simple, and I don't
know what it is.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Right because when he went into his solo songwriting there
his drummer wasn't happy with him. And you know, he
had Mike Campbell's amazing guitars. They were a great band,
and I think the band kind of felt like he
was dumbing things down. And then he was like, well, yeah,
I'm dumbed it down into multidi platinum records every year.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Now. He's great, but you know I did so it
through all that mess. So I'm living in that sixty
six AM radio thing. Every day. You got you know,
Scooby Doobie Doo, you got you know when Jesus woa,
you know the Edmund Hawkins singers on AM radio along

(10:52):
with you know, uh, you know comedy songs. You know
they're coming to take me away things like that, so on,
just turning on. Everybody had an AM radio, so I
don't know. Somewhere along the line, I was driving my
car with my mother and Heartbreaker came on. Somehow they
played led Zeppelin on AM radio and let me tell
you a baby, that was seismic. I said, wow. But

(11:17):
you know, I listened to NJR, which is a black
rock radio station up in York before I go to
school in the seventies, and they were playing they would
actually play Johnny Hooker and funk was really happening then,
I mean really unbelievable came up in a great time,
and you know, all the rock bands were trying to

(11:38):
put soul and funk together. So you know you had
Buddy Miles and bands like that with the Horns, Egger,
Winter By Trash, you know, in the early seventies, you know,
and they're doing the soul music that that was on radio.
You would hear, you know, soul music on radio, but
not deep cuts. You wouldn't get deep cuts on the radio.

(11:59):
But all that was and you know, I tug it well.
I didn't think there was any bad music. I couldn't.
People were going off, you know, putting shit down I say, man,
it's music. It would just take me away.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
What was your first guitar and how did you find
your way to the stratocaster as your weapon of choice.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Well, I had an acoustic Kent guitar.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
And that'll build up your calsies.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, I played that I was nine till I was
about twelve or thirteen, and then at thirteen I got
a Harmony stratotone and my father bought it at a
porn shop for twenty five dollars. A great guitar actually,
So then I played that forever, and I played that

(12:47):
till I was sixteen. And during that time I asked
my mother I wanted to get a bass. I saw
one in Corvette's and she says, you got a guitar,
learn to play that one. I said, got it, So
I kept my mouth shut. And then when I was sixteen,
maybe seventeen, I got a strat. I got a strat

(13:08):
because that's what I could afford. I really wanted a
less pole. Less Paul's at the time are about eight
hundred dollars. Wow, and that's expensive even today, right, I
mean sort of, you know. So Strat was two hundred,
two hundred and ten dollars without a vibrato, two hundred
and thirty with a vibrato, and h three hundred dollars

(13:30):
with the case.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
And what year were we talking approximately.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Seventy two seventy three.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Wow, was that pre CBS Stratacatherne.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
No, that was after CBS. This was a three bolt neck,
So they a guitar player said, they were the worst
worst year the strats we ever made. Because there's three
bolt neck. The neck would move and go out of
tune because there's only three bolts do on the top,
one and the bottom, so that thing would move. So
a man, it was hard. It was hard because my
ear wasn't that good. There's no tuners. Let me tell

(13:59):
you too, tuners, there's no effing tuners. The only way
to taria you gotta be good, so you know, you
get it together. Mine needed a lot of training, so
I'd be wearing the patience of some of my bandmates
at the time. But that's what I did. So I
got that guitar and I just stuck with it. I

(14:22):
knew Hendrix had it. But the thing is is, nobody
on the street is talking about guitars in the seventies.
It's all a street language. You have to know somebody
personally to know what's going on, you know, So I'm.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
What you're looking at YouTube videos?

Speaker 2 (14:40):
You had to do no, no.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
You had to live life and find these.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah. So I got a guitar player down the street
who maybe wants to beat me up. I don't even
go talk to you know, things like that are happening.
I hear some rumors, but it's all Guitar Player magazine
did come out, but I still didn't understand. I didn't
understand what a humbuger was to maybe I was sixteen
sevent I didn't even know there was gage strings till
I was fifteen sixteen. I mean, I was trying to

(15:05):
bend those black diamond strings, man. And plus I didn't
even know how to bend because the guitar teachers I
was going to were old jazz players. So they're teaching
me Court of Melody. They have no idea what's going
on with our clapt and they they think it's like

(15:26):
the Blues, but they don't really know, and they don't
know how to stretch strings. With those old at tying
guys showing me his stuff and they're not happening, then
my cousin moved in from Nork. My man, Joey Fermata,
he moved in. He's his family and my family were
very tight. So he came in and he's playing like

(15:47):
Jimmy Page in nineteen seventy two. It was I just
blew my mind. I walked past his house. I heard
somebody playing Wild Horses and I heard the licks and
him saying, well, that sounds like these I says, is
that the record? And I realized there was somebody really
playing it, and I was like, wow, unbelievable. So then,

(16:07):
and he was a hard guy from Newark. He had
a definite different vibe than I have right here. Let
me tell you, so I sawhow.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Newark can be tough. Yeah, Jersey's tough. Newark's next level.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah. He was up there and it's north ward, a
place he called the Boundaries. It was pretty tough, tougher
than Orange. He came in and he had a SG
and he could really play. He could. I could see
his vibrato up closest is because I'm going to go
to see the woman brothers. I see him shaking his string.
I don't know what's going on. I'm just moving my

(16:40):
hand like this nothing's happening, and he showed me how
to do it, you know, bend a string up back
and up and that, and once I did that. I
mean I did that solid for a solid two once.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
So speaking of strings, like when I listened to a
lot of your recordings, sounds like you have some pretty
beefy strings. Do you have a monster tone?

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Thank you? Well, I used to use an eleven on
the top. I used to use tens and eleven on
the top, but now I go to nines because I'm
my joints started hurting my hand, you.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Know, Yeah, no it'll happen.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I don't know how that happened, but you know, I
use I think it's in you know, a lot of
the tone is in your head, like the drummers. You know,
when a drummer plays, you just got a stick and
a skin. Yeah, you know, the sound is in his head.
I mean you're just hitting a stick on it. Because

(17:40):
what's so damn different. The personality and vibe is totally different.
You know, that's really what's happening. Although there is a
sound in my head that I try to get, I guess,
you know, because now picking is such a thing, you know,
speed is such a the window dressing for guitar players
these stays, but.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
It's got pretty crazy. Have you checked out some of
the new.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, they're all very good, But you know, I want
I want Channon Lou Hooker to talk to me, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
I think that's what a lot of people like about
your strat playing is those single coils get a certain
kind of almost like the way a sax can have
a certain kind of sentimental and romantic vibe, that the
strat can really talk to you.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, my friends in college used to say that the
strat was a tenor saxophone. Wow, that's that's what That's
what he felt, So that's what we ran with. Yeah, well,
you know, I like I like roryby Cannon. He was
a real sweet player. I mean he invented sweet things
that sounded really nice. Although he was flashy and things

(18:44):
like that, but he could get to the soul of
a song. And that, in turn, you know, put Jeff
back on his roads for Colsey, end of his Lovers.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
So I have to ask you to weigh in on
the great debate Who's better Jimmy Page Jeff Becker collapped it,
Which yardbird is your favorite and why I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
That's a tough one, you know, man songwriting, Jimmy Page
got it. Jimmy Page is his songs are storing people's
lips now and really maybe fifty years from now, who's
going to give a shit about the guitar players, you know,
because now they're a dime a dozen. But each each
one delivered a vocabulary for the guitar players to play

(19:32):
that you can't take you can't take any of them away.
I see it, they changed. I see it like this
in Chicago, like five or six seven guys really did it.
You know, you got you know, they were just expanding
the language from T bone walkers, so you got t

(19:52):
bone every who And then you get like, are you
get Freddy King who was up there? You know he
got a he got Matt Murphy or there's some other
guys I'm not even getting into. So that happens. Those
English guys get it and they say wow, and they
really go with it. Captain sort of stayed in the

(20:15):
ballpark with the Blues, But Jeff Beck invented his own language,
his own language. Only he can play that language. But
the most fun to play really is his Zeppelin. You know,
they can talk all the shit they want about him
being sloppy. Who cares.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
It's Monster Monster.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
I know. I mean, you know, Keith Richards, you can't
take him out of that band. He is that band.
Is he a chops guy. He's not a chops guy's music.
He's a music guy. He don't need chops. I mean,
George Charrison is a great guitar player. As time goes on,

(20:55):
George Harrison's parts are very much more interesting to me
now than they were then because in the sixties there
was so much innovation going to come on. There was
so much you know, bright light. I mean, as soon
as I heard Jim McCarty played, you know, Devil with
the Blue Dress, I knew there was something up that
was on AM radio. So you heard somebody stretching strings
and AM radio said, wow, what the f was that?

(21:19):
And then you know Captain came out. Really didn't understand
what was going on. I really didn't understand what was
happening until so that came out when sixty eight, so
then so one of my twelve eleven and then you
know Hendrix came out too at the same time, and
I didn't even that shit scared me that that first

(21:40):
record I didn't know what the hell.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Was going on, scared most of the humanity, I think.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
You know. But then, as you know, when I got
to be fourteen and fifteen, so when I'm thirteen, Hendrick stares.
And then when I'm fourteen and fifteen and really digging
him more, I realized how beyond the scope of everything
else he was, how he was tapped into the universe,
and the other guys were just they did they did
They weren't even at the doorstep of the universe. He

(22:07):
he created a language, uh that even classical players had
to stand up. I mean, he he he did something.
I mean, he was like bar talk or some shit.
You know, man, I mean you try to sing his
uh Star Spangled banner to somebody. I mean that that
does something that that that'll take your place. You know.

(22:30):
You listen to a machine gun, you know, turn the
lights off, listen machine gun, and you're there. You're there
in the fucking jungle. Man. I don't know if Page
could do that, you know, Uh, maybe Rush and rolland
Kirk could or something like that, you know, I don't know,

(22:50):
I don't know. It's all I think of this ship
every day. I can't put one somebody up against another.
I mean, these guys created a line which we're still
talking and it's fifty years on, and actually people take
it for granted now because it's like free bird, you know.
They they they they compress it to just free bird.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Well, I think you very much have your own sound.
But I one thing that I admire about you as
a as a guitar player myself is that I see
it Jeff Beck like quality, not so much in what
you're trying to sound like, but in that you are
committed to a life long pursuit of exploring the guitar.
Like Jeff Beck was still like, what what do you think?

(23:35):
Why are there some artists like you, Jeff Beck, that
that that keep that fire in the belly alive through
their entire life, you know what I mean? Like like
Jimmy Paige. Yeah he did all that amazing stuff, but
he seems like he's chilled out a little bit, and he's.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Because he made it. Yeah he made it. Jeff Beck
never made it. He never felt like he made it.
And now you could talk to me, he says. You know,
you know, the big Claptain could put on a festival
with like nine thousand guitar players. I don't know. Jeff
just didn't have the juice in the industry, and I
figure I figured he was just felt he had he

(24:10):
was he had to try harder.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, he had to try harder.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, because in a way, I'm still trying to uh
make it somehow. You know.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Well, tell us about your latest release on Area Records,
Live at the Saint Volume one. Well, let me tell
you about it, because it's blistering.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, that's guitar talk. You talk about music. It just
fucks me up.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Sorry, And we're not we're not smoking anything, we're not drinking.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
This small mess just steep and wide, ladies and gentlemen's
deep and wide. All right, let's get So what happened is, uh,
my man Rough, my man Tom Ruff came his so
us and say hey, let's do a thing. And his
idea was to have a TV show, running TV show

(25:06):
in Asbery Park like every week, doing another band. So
we were his the first band he was going to do.
So we went into the Saints and we got all
our players together and rehearsed down all our original stuff
and we pulled it together and now we have it
out on Autmost that we had remixed to to come

(25:31):
out like that because we hadn't released setting of this
stuff at all. It's just, you know, what happened is
Tom had a health issue and so things the wheels
sort of grinded to a stop. And that thing that
was ten years ago. So now, as fate would have it,
here we are.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, we had a very brilliant young engineer, James Sleeman,
who really has embraced the immersive sound technology and it
really is a distinct listening experience. That's another question for you.
So you started off I presume listening to music on
I AM Radio with one speaker, and now it's twenty
twenty five and you're doing Dolby at Most with you know,

(26:09):
seven channels and amazing. It's got to be what is
your favorite consumer media format over the years.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Oh jeez, I'm always a day late. As you realize.
I'm a musicians. So when when people had CDs, I
had a cassette. When people had serious radio, I got
a CD. And now you know, it's what I could

(26:37):
afford is really what it is. It's terrible. I have
my I have my turntable running through the PA. You know.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
You still anyway.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
I like Vinyl, I do. I was listening to it
before you came in, Little Walter doing it man.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
So what are you up to you now? What are
some of your next gigs that you'd like to promote?
What are I notice that you play at the Bitter
End a lot.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
I do. I play up there once a month. I've
been playing there for years and years.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
What's a historic venue? I mean it is you must
do you do you feel the patina of all the
things that have happened?

Speaker 2 (27:18):
I do? I do. Actually, the guy that booked me there,
he used to race. He used to race Hendrix with
his uh, his corvette. He used to race around New York. Yeah,
there's a lot of and now it's it's after the pandemic.
Now it's getting a lot of the jazz players that
were playing Club fifty five are playing there, you know.

(27:42):
So it's uh, it's always doing It's a it's an
honor to play there, you know. It's all the sixties
or all the guys from the sixties that played there,
you know, shape their culture. Basically we're there, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I guess gentrification has kind of pushed away some of that.
So it's extra special that it's still there.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
It is. It is because the banks are just buying
up everything. You spe a diner across the street, and
that if dinner can't function anymore in New York. So
now it's a bank, a bank, and a pot store,
you know. But that's that's the way it is. But
they're still there doing it. And that strip on Bleaker

(28:24):
Street is I equated to like the board walk. It's
just a tourist place. People come from all over the
world to walk down that street and see the Bitterer
End and you know the Red Line rock and Roll
Cafe or whatever it is now. I oh yeah, and
Terror Blues is upstairs there on Bleaker Street along with

(28:45):
the Bitter End. Of course, my buddy's at the Binner
d I love that place.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
What are some of your favorite local Jersey Shore based
gigs places you like to play? What rooms feel comfortable
to you?

Speaker 2 (28:57):
I like the Idol Hours, very comfy.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
What what about it?

Speaker 2 (29:02):
It's just a bar, you know. I like being on
the same footing as the I like the people dancing
me so close they could actually hit the mic and
break my teeth. Kind of you want a communal experience Yeah,
I want the whole thing because it really creates energy.
And that's when you see the white light. That's when
you don't even know you're playing. I mean, I like
playing big shows at the Pony and when time flies

(29:25):
and you you know, you get off the stage and
you don't know that two hours or hour and a
half just played. That's all cool, you know. I like
to I like to see the people, and sometimes on
the foe on the stage is you're so far away
from the folks you don't really don't know if they're there,
you know.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Tell me more about the white light. That sounds very interesting.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, when you're playing and and and everything, all your
practice and your troubles go away and you're in the
white light, just in the moment. You're in the moment,
and we wake up. You you gotta you gotta reset.
You got to reset to reality because you were so
far in it. You were beyond all your training, You

(30:09):
were beyond all your training, and you were just swimming
in it.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Transcendental moment.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, all the music I see as meditation, and I
think that's why me and the guys I play music with.
You share a moment, spiritual moment between each other, you know, so.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
You get past like the the jitters and the ego
energy and you get into more of like a spiritual mindset.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah. I mean you're trying to make the music work.
You realize you say, okay, I'm pushing it and pulling back,
and then all of a sudden somewhere you just fall
off the cliff and through you. Yeah, the rem takes over.
You know that. That says something like that, where you
lose consciousness, you sort of know what's going on, and

(30:58):
you're there doing.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
It still get that buzz.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Hell, yeah, that's all I want to fucking do. It's
a sin. It's a fucking sin.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, well it is meditation. So what's happening is I
should get into meditation probably chill myself out, because I
had meditation for my work. So for three hours, you know,
five nights a week, I was visiting songs and see
if I can, if I can achieve any Nirvana type

(31:31):
state in these songs, and if not, you know, to
just make the folks dance or whatever. You know, A
lot of things come with playing. You know, there's a
lot of people going to knock you out of your groove.
When you're playing, I just try to stay in it
even if somebody's trying to knock you out.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
You have to have tough skin in this business.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, you got to be able to let
things flow a little bit. I'm still learning, you know,
it's only notes, you know, when the groove's not going
right and you want to tell somebody to do something else.
And sometimes it's like, well, this is what's happening when
I was coming up, a lot of times we'll see

(32:12):
the thing is as I'm a bluesman in New Jersey,
So there's most musicians would just visit me because it
wasn't an economically happening for them. There's other there's other
opportunities for most musicians than just playing a blues band,
which is not going to give them the things they want,
you know, financially. So I'd have a lot of guys

(32:35):
coming through.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know, you haven't always had the same band, so
you've always had a constant flow of different like a
kaleidoscope of permutations.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, I have to start in five, which is like
ten guys.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Now, do you find your approach changing depending upon the
ensemble you're with them?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yes, definitely. I try to play to their strengths. Like
Monks said, make the drummer sound good. See that thing
of his seventh I have. Yeah, well, you know, Monk
had told a student like these seventeen things, you know,
don't sound somebody just beyond the scene. It's that that

(33:12):
kind of thing. But you know, make the drummer sound good,
or you know, and the other thing, don't play piano.
I'm playing piano, you know. If something's in his in
his way, in Monk's way, So I go with their
groove most of the time. You know. Sometimes I try
to drive something in there with a crowbar, but as

(33:33):
you know, that doesn't work. It's much easier to go
with the flow of the river than to fight it.
And occasionally I do because I don't know. I want
something or right, and then that's that's more bad bandleading.
You should let everybody know what's happening before you do too.
You know this is going to be like this, you know.

(33:56):
But sometimes I count fast and I just have to
go with it, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
There seems to be I've traveled a little bit, and
I lived in California for a while and live in
Maine for a while. There seems to be a disproportionate
amount of kick ass rock musicians in New Jersey. What's
in the air in the water here? You think that, well,
there's so many great players.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Probably competition, probably the whole thing of just being a
state of immigrants. I think you're just there and got
to do it. That's what I think. I mean, if
you're you're asking something like that, does that sound crazy?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
No, you've been playing for years. I'm sure. When you're
the top dog as a as a guitarist, there's always
if you're the if you're the alpha wolf, there's always
a puppy wants to bite you in there. Oh yeah.
Guitar players tell me if this is true or not.
But they hug and kiss each other and say, hey,
how you doing. I love you, man, I love you,
and then they but they're intensely competitive creatures.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, yeah they are. But you no, we're just waiting
to solo right right now. That's seeming sitting here, I'm
just waiting to solo. But the thing I try to
tell my students that really, the groove is the best part,
because the groove is the three minutes of song. You're
getting forty seconds to do your thing. But the rest

(35:18):
of the time. If you're not, if you're bored at
your own fucking fault, you should be in it, you know.
Like I heard somebody say, if you're playing in the band,
even a big band, and somebody's bored, there's a problem,
you know, because it just fucks up the whole vibe.
And of course that is what you're putting out to
the people, a vibe, you know, in reality. So if

(35:42):
you don't want to do you got your head up
the ask.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Get the fuck guy here, like somebody does.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
And so and sometimes I am that man. I mean,
you know, I'm just human, like like drummers and bass players,
piano players. I just human. And they all want to
see the white light? Do you want to get the
audience to see the white light? And then you can
name it whatever you want. You can pick a deity
and name it after after the show's done.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
So the white lights your higher power.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, that's what a physicist is trying to find. They're
trying to find it. Yeah, it's it's it's the white light.
It's it's the god, the god particle. Yeah, right, that's
what it is. Basically, I feel music, very popular can
take you there.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
In all the years you've been doing this, what would
you say are some of the highlights that come to mind?

Speaker 2 (36:42):
The highlights. Opening for Buddy Guy at the Pony was
a big one, highlights for you know, career highlights. You know,
we played the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Had to feel pretty validating.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, it was, you know, I think about it like that.
I don't know how the hell I thought about it.
I don't even think I was gonna mention it now,
but it was validating. I was there with Uh, it
was Stevie Ray's drummer and and uh the bass player
you know that played with Johnny Winter was also played

(37:22):
with Stevie Ragg dou Yeah, Double Trouble, played with Double Trouble,
Jimmy Vaughan and uh, Charlie Musselwhite. Wow. And then I
took the plane home and played played Moby Dixon in
Point Pleasant. So there's no use getting too far up there.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, A life as a musician is a bit like
Gulliver's travels, right like this.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, that's what happens is is you hit the ultimate
high and then you're then you're on, then you're down
there and some woman screaming in your face to play, uh,
you know whatever, and you say late last night, I
was you know, I was hanging with Prince. We were bed,
you know, and it's like that don't mean nothing, because
now you need a dime to get a cup of coffee, Jack,

(38:08):
So cut the fuck up, you know that kind of thing, like.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
One day you're part of the King's court and the
next day in court jester exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
So that's what happens. Actually with a lot of players
I play, they go through that, they'll play like the garden,
and then the next night they're with me wherever I am.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Oh, so you got to deal with their diiper rash.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, but that doesn't that doesn't happen to you. Yeah,
that's just sort of true. But it doesn't happen that often.
I mean, I understand it when it happens, and I
really don't get upset because it's I I I understand
and I understand.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Well, conversely, it must be a lot of fun for
these guys to come off a high pressure gig and
just bust up some blues.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
In a way it is. I play with a guy
once who did it, just came back from Red Rocks,
and uh, you know he came back and played with me.
He just let it all out. There must have been
it must have been like really uptight and that gig
or something happened, because you could tell he just he
blew the room apart and I rode with him. It

(39:08):
was great.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
So there's I would imagine there's been struggles and challenges
along the way as well. What what keeps you going?

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I just want to play. That's all I've done my life,
you know, in the last forty years, That's what I've done.
So we were going full blast of the pandemic. That
was five years ago. So I took what two and
a half years off, and then I've been coming back
and it's never gotten to where it was before, to
the five days a week thing.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
So what motivates you now? Like, what what do you
want to do next?

Speaker 2 (39:43):
I don't know. Well, let me ask the other question.
I still got some gigs to go through.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Oh okay, yeah, so where were we? Well, we talked
about some New Jersey. We talked about your New York gigs,
your New Jersey gigs.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Oh yeah, we opened for a buddy guy. That was
a big one because I was playing these Tuesdays and
no one can come to see us. We're playing blue
and no one gives a shit. You know, we put
out a vinyl thing like, uh, you know, ten years before,
and so we're just out there schlogging it out, grinding
as they call it. And there I am on my Tuesdays,

(40:14):
nobody's coming out and I'm at this Blue show with
a buddy guy at the pony and then people just
applare like crazy. I also brought tears in my eyes. Wow,
like you really like me? Where the fuck are you Tuesday?
Right now? They I think I even said that on
the mic. I said, we're I's been.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
That.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
That was a good night. And then we played the
one that was most spiritual satisfying to me is I
played the Seaside Hides Bored Walk about six years ago
and a lot of my grammar school friends were there.
That was very fulfilling for me. That was a lifetime
to play the Seaside Heights Bored Walk. And then playing

(40:57):
my hometown uh uh, the Hot City Kitchen when I
was fifty five. That was a big one because everybody
came in from all around. It just felt validating.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Would you say, there's the truth like that initial audience.
When you're a kid, those those peers and your friends
and the first girls you've had crushes on, when they
see you on that stage, are they kind of like
a theater in your mind the rest of your life
where where they like there's this kind of youthful.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Maybe it's just that you know, I'm done, Okay, I
don't know, it's just just something about it. I liked. Yeah,
because basically I've been living as a in exile. Now
I'm playing the Blues. No one fucking kiss the shit.
I'm just out there in this car driving bar to bar.
There's nobody I know seeing me. Nobody I grew up

(41:51):
with to see me. I'm not. I played in Orange
maybe you know. I used to play it every week,
but nobody I knew was there. This was a new
new friends that I would make, fans that became friends, right,
So that would happen. And then then we played you know,

(42:14):
you know, we played the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
We played the Kennedy Center. We did a thing for
led Belly. Led Belly turned one hundred and twenty five
years old, so we played that. So that was deep.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
You know, well, that's an incredible honor that he he's
like the spiritual godfather of the whole thing, and you.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Were a part of that. Unbelievable. I didn't even think
of it like that. I couldn't think of it like that,
or else I wouldn't be able to play. You know,
I just make the cake.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
But there were some heavy hitters at that.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
It was Robert Plant was there. That was the heaviest.
And he was there with you know, Alison Krauss and
Alison's brother. They were great. They did this is kind
of a big deal.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Billy. Wow.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, didn't I tell you? Did you tell you? I
am somebody? I played the Seaside High Sport Walk. Motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Well that's some classic Jersey though. That's it, that's its
own thing.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, exactly. No, that was that was big and I
am very grateful for that call and to make that.
I got a poster on. And who else is there
was some great guy, you know, Josh White Jr. Was there,
who actually you know met led Belly His father was

(43:36):
Oh wow, so that was deep. Who else was there?
There was a few a lot of folks there, but
you know, to be on bill with them was great.
So I got, you know, my name's on the poster.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
It was a sold out thing, so yeah, so that
was great. I I didn't realize what was going on
at the time because I don't do I can't think.
I would think myself into you're.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Busy working, Yeah, I'm busy working. Think into the gig.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
After that, Yeah, I didn't even want to see anybody.
So a lot of friends came down and stuff, and
I just stayed in the room by myself. I don't
want to you know, it's either me and the musicians
or just me, because I guess you know, it's really
a scary thing if you're going to put all your
mind to it, like, oh my god, it's a big
what the fuck are gonna do? Right? What are you
gonna do? O? God? So I can't do that. I

(44:24):
gotta like watch TV wait for this thing and just
be cool. I mean it is good, but like I say,
I still have to go out and get the gigs,
you know, and nothing. There's nothing.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
You never get to rest on your laurel.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, you never want to rest. This is nothing I
can show up as a bad to say. Okay, look
I played I played the Kennedy Center, right that doesn't
work like that, And I don't even think like that.
I just think of as in a moment. But you know,
I I guess it's a play. See here now would
be great, Yeah, that that'd be a short term goal

(45:07):
if I could get.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
It'd be cool if they had like a local stage
too where they they do.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
But I think, you know, I'm over the hill.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Well, Asbury Park's an interesting place. I mean, you know,
you must have seen it gone through a dozen iterations
by now. Yeah, what was your favorite era of Asbury Park?
When was it really like? Right now, I see people
like buying like old beach badges off of eBay so
they can decorate their loft loft apartments. They're trying to

(45:36):
buy authenticity. What was it really like when it really was.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
It was a little low life city. You know, a
lot of street guys, a lot of guys that had
a lot of.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Characters.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Character. Yeah, yeah, a lot of character. Everybody had it
and it was like one of the eighteen year olds
could drink and it was just flooded with kids. And
Springsteen just made it. Springsteen was just on the front
of Time and Newsweek. That's when it was, and nobody

(46:09):
was we were excited, but it wasn't like like it
is now now everybody. It was just a little different.
It was more like a inside thing. And the jukes
are playing there, what three days a week and just
packing that place out and to be, you know, in
a crowd like that, five hours of music for a
dollar forty on twenty off. They did five sets. It

(46:34):
was great. People danced. This is one thing in North
Jersey people didn't dance like to rock like that. But
down you know, down in Pony people filled the dance
for all the time. So that was that was like
a culture shock too. Plus that the musicians down here
knew more, knew more than Zeppelin, you know what I mean,

(46:58):
everything stopped at the Stones and Zeppelin guys they knew,
they knew who the you know in the mid seventies,
who the the you know, meters were KGB band Like
all this like obscure rock that nobody at least from
my neighborhood was dealing with. You know, because if you

(47:18):
weren't playing the Stones or Zeppelin, you weren't playing in
North Jersey.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
You know, you made reference to Springsteen. And this might
be a little controversial because I mean, first of all, disclaimer.
I love Bruce. I when I was born in Point
Pleasant Hospital, I signed a contract for life that I'd
be a Bruce fan. But one frustration I have is
that I feel like New Jersey has such a wealth
and diversity of great musicians and I and I don't

(47:44):
understand why more people don't check out a wider variety
of the homegrown artists here, Like, I don't understand why
you know, one or two guys sell out Giants Stadium
ten times in a row and then a guy like
yourself was like, where are you Tuesday night? Like like,
I I don't, like, how do we get people to like, well, you.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Know, you know what I mean? They had to hit
Factor the seventies, you know, and in a great business sense.
And Bruce is really driven, I mean really driven. I
mean I'm driven, but he has driven. I saw an
interview and it's so much like you could see the
ship coming off of him. He's just sitting there talking,
he said, and I'm going to tell you how. You know,

(48:24):
it's just intense. He was bound to do it, you know,
one way or another, or die trying.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, and then it's always good to have the head
of the pack. But it just seems like it's like
some guys get all of it, and then there's like
who you've been? What were some of your favorite other
other musicians from the shore that well you think deserved
a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
When I was having with Tony Pollack GROSSI used to
go see Wolf's Garage and then Wolf's Garages. Yeah. Ed
mckabe played in that, and he's a great guitar player.
He's teaching like one hundred students down there in Atlantic City.
But Cliff and Iveson was a great guitar player. He
played in the rock and Roll the New York, New

(49:07):
York Rock and Roll Ensemble. I got it right, and
they actually wrote them changes, like they wrote the bassline
of them changes and Buddy Buddy robbed it. Oh wow, amazing.
Check it out. So Cliff was a great guitar player.
He was playing Zeppelin Zeppelin too. I remember seeing him
in a place called good Time Charlie's in Seaside Seaside Heights,

(49:32):
Seaside Park, and the drummer had a see through drum
head and he had popcorn in there. So every time
he hit the drum, the pop clmber pop. It was great.
It was great. I had to memorize Tony's license to
get into the club because eighteen year olds could drink
and I was not eighteen yet. I think I was
sixteen at that point. But you know, anything music, we

(49:55):
were going to see bands everywhere. You know, there's great
rockabilly player. It's all you know, it's how you sell it.
And you know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
The thing is Bruce makes people happy. He got a
happy vibe, you know, and a lot of other musics
in Jersey ain't that happy. You know, it's more and
he just knows how to put its presentation. He knows,
he knows how to put on a show. And even

(50:29):
when there's even when there's no music, there's a there's
a set list of his vibe. You know, his banter
with the band, the way they shake hands or you know,
you know, they do stick. They do vaudeville in between
in between their things, and they're so good at it.
You know, you have the nerds and they sound great.

(50:52):
So they're just selling what's on pop rated, but they
do it well. You know, they dress up like nerdy
guys and do it and they're impeccable. Uh, there's things
coming up that that girl Gabby's gonna be good, you know,
the heavy metal singer that's around, She's I think she
sounds good. There's a whole lot of the stuff, you know,

(51:15):
the the street choir I played. I played with some
of the guys the other night. I can't I can't
remember the name of the band, but they were great. Yeah,
there's a lot of stuff out there. People just have
to you know, they have to, they have to care.
But you know a lot of things. You know, radio
is not something. How do how do you how do

(51:36):
you find rock music? Now? Rock music is not even
a thing. Rock music is like Dixie Land. You know,
it's not right, It's not it's not It's not the
sound of the revolution. Rap is the sound of the revolution.
Raps is the sound of the news. You're not getting
Ford Dead in OHI ho from a from a rock band.

(51:58):
These days, you're getting in Front. I'm a rap band.
Who's telling you the truth? Because people I see it
as a deep river of American music. Get into it,
you know, you know, get to the Lomax. What am
I talking about? The Lomax thing? You know what talking about? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
He did all the field recordings.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah, the Field recordings of America. You check that shit
out and you hear all the music that we are today. I,
at least I can. I think everybody can. I don't
think I'm really you know, I just it's all I do.
It's all I give a shit about. It's a sin,
like I say, it's an illness.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I have a question for you. In earlier times, people
had more of a collective, like you'd invite your friends over,
there'd be ten people listening to a record together, or
you'd listen to the radio together. Now we have so
much more diversity in music, but everyone's having an isolated
listening experience with their EarPods or whatever. Yes, what do

(52:56):
you what do you think that impact is for better
and worse on? Like when you play a gig, Now,
are there as many people that know all the songs
the way they like?

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I know?

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Sometimes I'll do a cover gig. Ten years ago, you'd
play a song everyone there knew it. Now you got
twenty somethings and there might be a motown classic that, Yeah,
they've never they've had their headphones on since they had
headphones at eleven years old, and they don't even know.
Like we used to go to cyo dances and we'd
all dance together to It was communal experience.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Yeah, I yeah, that's a little bit gone. I remember
when my a friend of mine got the Abbey Road record.
We all went over sententth graders to that house to
hear it. But that's where you could hear the music.
You know. Now you don't have to do that. You
can do it privately. But you know, it's another thing
if you know, I can turn people onto music, but

(53:50):
they got to be open for you know, but not
a group of people. You know. I think I'd rather
listen to music alone myself in the morning because then
because of somebody else is listening with me, then I'm
trying to figure out what they're doing. Then I'm sort
of like maybe because a musician, I want to I don't.
I think it's a bad word to say control the audience,

(54:11):
but you know, to uh to vibe them, to see
what their vibe is, and if they.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Don't, you're curating the audience.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sort of like that. I you know,
there's so much music I like and when I turn
the guys on when I'm playing, you know, I'll tell
them the chords and they don't know the song. And
I just played this song, and well, that song, what
is that? I says, that's a That's Wanted man by
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. That just happened the other night.

(54:41):
That's why it's fresh in my mind. So they get
to listen like that, so in a way that we're
I'm listening with the band, but I'm not the band's
back here playing. That's what I'm going back to. The Yeah,
I don't know, it's different. It's just different because we're
not getting you can get what you want. You can
get you want it. Anytime, you know, people would talk

(55:03):
to me about a band called whatever Rhinoceros, and I
would go, oh, right now, so I'm gonna have to
get it. I don't have to save up my seven
dollars and buy that EFN record and see what they
sound like. But now I just go on YouTube and
instantly find out what they sound like.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Right, It's a blessing and a curse. There was more
to it when there was a little bit of a
quest involved, or you did have to spend a little money,
or you did have to borrow it.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
There's yeah, But then you know, I made a lot
of shitty purchases, and it's okay. I was willing to
do that, you know. And basically what I'm doing is,
I'm doing it for knowledge. I'm doing it if I
buy a record, it's to read a book. I'm buying
a book, and then I want all the knowledge that's
on that record in here, you know, And there's only

(55:46):
one way to do that. It's to sit there for
f an hour. But in this, you know, even now,
I'm I'm guilty of not doing that. I want that
to happen, but I'm a product of what's happened in
these days. And I guess I'm not concentrating enough.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Well, We're all bombarded with so much distraction. It's yeah,
it's hard. I mean, I guess even when you're playing
a gig, you probably see people on phone sometimes or
all the time, and it's you know, or instead of
actually listening to enjoying it, they're stuffing a phone in
front of her face to let people know that you
were they were doing something cool, rather than actually experiencing
what was right in front of them.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Yeah. In a way, yeah, And in a way I
don't because what I want to do, I want to
go out sometimes I go out and limb and and
uh and four. I'll take chances and and somebody puts
it on tape of me taking a chance, and I'm really,
it's not a would if I knew they were going
to record that, I wouldn't have called a song like
I'll just do something like I don't know, let's do

(56:46):
locomotive breaths for the hell of it, you know, and
I'll just start it. Because most of the guys are
in my age groups that they know to tune or
some Neil Young song, I wouldn't do. I mean, I'm
just you know, just for because I want to entertain myself.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I wanted the magic the rabbit out of the magic
had or it could be a train wreck, that's part
of the We.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Could find a light, we could find a white light
in that tune, but we won't know until we opened
the door. But I didn't want to open the door
to somebody filming me experimenting. And then you could say
take it further and say, well, you know, you shouldn't
do that in front of the audience, But it says,
isn't that what's going on?

Speaker 1 (57:22):
I mean, right, that's where the magic is when you
take that change, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Exactly, And now do you know. And that's the thing.
I'll sometimes I write a song. I'll have this song
on paper and give it to the bass player and
then we just play it and see if it works.
So sometimes it doesn't, you know, right, But those aren't
the tunes that all people take. People who take a
tune that something that's familiar from the sixties, or or
if I decide to do like Jeremy or something, and

(57:48):
I don't even know Jeremy. I couldn't even tell you
the first score to Jeremy. I just know the title.
But something like that, something a left field that you
wouldn't put with me, you know, expecting me to do
because I you know, I don't want to be bored,
because that would bore you. That would bore you the audience.
Like I said, if the musicians bored, you'll fucking know it.

(58:12):
You'll know it in the vibe that bass player is
bored to dance for won't be what it should be.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
So to maintain the vitality and the authenticity, you have
to push it on the edge.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
That's sort of what I feel. That's sort of what
I feel. I mean, there's also a thing of being
comfortable and then putting your whole spirit through it. You know,
but even then you know it's hard. It is, it's hard,
But there's nothing I'd rather to do than to try
to make that happen, to.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Be truly present in the moment.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
And yeah, connect, Yeah, And then if you see you
don't have it, you go back to the drawing board
and said, man, I really I didn't have that like
I should. And you know, mostly now I can laugh
it off because it's because I realize it doesn't matter
all that much. I mean, it matters to me, and
it matters to make that that moment happen. But if

(59:06):
it doesn't matter, I am not going to break a
window of my car like I would when I was younger. Right,
you have a bet break you got a car?

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Oh no, not that. Well, listen, I've taken an hour
of your time, and I think we've given the listener
a lot to kind of think about. Maybe we'll do
this again sometime. Sure, i'd love to pick your brain again,
but I feel like we've gotten so much for people
to think about. I thank you so much for your time.
I'm a great admirer of your talent and your journey

(59:37):
as an artist, and what is the best way for
people to stay abreast of your activities. Your website, I
would assume.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yes, a website is always updated. You know our Facebook page.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
And that's Billy Hector dot com of coursely Hector dot com.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Ladies and gentlemen, Yeah, we're on there. We have our
you know, we have merchants, all the all the good
stuff you're supposed to have.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
And all the new gig coming, all the new gigs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Yeah, we're just young Americans trying to get over and
in these hard times, young Americans trying to get over
in these hard times. You know, any other closing remarks,
do the right thing, treat people kindly, please, that's all.