Swampland.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, as a child, you know, hearing Elvis Presley play. And my Dad was a big music fan. He didn’t play or anything, but he was a big music fan. It was kind of weird, he was a truck driver, but he was into the blues. There’s a great radio station here (Nashville), and Gregg (Allman) and I talk about it a lot, it’s WLAC. It’s still on the air now, but it’s not the same as it was. It was a clear channel blues station, and man they played Lightnin’ Hopkins, Blind Willie Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy, B.B., Freddie, Albert, they played all the blues stuff. And my Dad got interested in it when he was in the service and he was out in Wisconsin. It was a clear channel, so it would reach all over the country. He was into that, and Hank Williams, Sr., country music, real roots music, and Elvis Presley and stuff. I was steeped in that when I was a kid, and then The Beatles came along, and that overloaded my circuit, you know. I was already primed for it, so when I saw them, I said, this is what I want to do. It seemed pretty glamorous at the time.

 

 

 

Yeah, I think anybody in our generation, from their mid-thirties to about fifty, that fifteen year span there, The Beatles and that whole British Invasion would have to have some impact on you.

 

 

 

No, I played guitar. I still play guitar. But I’m not a frustrated guitar player. I’m okay with my guitar playing, it’s my bass playing that frustrates me. It doesn’t surprise me that Matt would say that, because I was used to seeing the instruments that you would see on TV. Like when I was a kid, there was a wealth of country music on TV, like Buck Owens with those glittery Telecasters and Jazz basses and stuff. And Flatt & Scruggs with their Martin guitars and Gibson mandolins and banjos. As a kid, you’re not really sure about the names, so you scramble to read what’s on the head stock. You’re familiar with names like Gibson and Martin and Fender, and Gretch, and to a lesser degree Guild, and things like that. But The Beatles came over, and Lennon had that little short scale Rickenbaker, and of course George was playing a Gretch, and McCartney had that little weird shaped Hofner- nobody knew what in the hell that was. To me, in a strange kind of way, McCartney and that little violin shaped bass somehow really grabbed my attention. The tone that he had, and the way he went about playing it with a pick, more like a guitar player. It really got my attention. Then I found out what the bass was. I had a little Japanese bass, which I unfortunately no longer have. My first good bass I got in 1970 or ‘71 was a Hofner Beatle bass which I still own, it’s in mint condition. It’s like a ‘64 or ‘65. And the first rock concert I ever saw was The Dave Clark Five. My Dad took me. That whole stigma got me.

 

 

 

My Mother played violin in the Junior Symphony or something before I was born, but that was many years ago and she didn’t really keep up with it. I was an only child, so I was kind of like a pioneer.

 

 

 

I don’t want to be tongue in cheek about this, but when FM radio came along, they began playing album cuts and stuff, and I was influenced, obviously largely by The Beatles and by The Stones, I loved them, The Who, I loved John Enstwhistles bass playing. I was a huge Cream fanatic. I was really influenced by Jack Bruce. Of course, Mountain, and Felix Pappilardi, and Jack Casady certainly caught my ear. And not to sound tongue in cheek again, but when The Allman Brothers came out, me and a friend were driving around out by a lake near Nashville, and there was an FM station at the time that would just put an album on and let the whole damned thing play. So me and this friend were out driving around the lake, we were under age but we had us some beer, and they played that first Allman Brothers record. It just knocked me in the floor. That was a major influence. I’d never heard anything like it. I found myself playing in some horn bands when I was young too, so I was influenced by Jim Felder, who was the bass player for Blood, Sweat & Tears. Peter Cetera, before he went to Vegas. (Laughs) The bass player in Chicago. The next big milestone for me was Mahavishnu Orchestra. I was a music major at MTSU, which is a little college in Murfreesboro, which is thirty miles from Nashville. This friend of mine, who was a classical guitar major, came in one day and said, “I got a record I want you to hear.” It was Birds of Fire, which was the second Mahavishnu record. Behind The Beatles, hearing the Mahavishnu Orchestra really got my attention. It was The Beatles, and then hearing The Allman Brothers thing, and then Mahavishnu. Of course, I felt a connection to The Allman Brothers because Gregg and Duane were from Nashville. I was really proud that they were actually from this area, especially those two. They seemed like the real pioneering thing behind The Brothers. And Berry Oakley as well, he wasn’t from around here, but the way he played bass really got my attention. But when I heard this Mahavishnu record, it was like, wow, this is a whole new level, something I haven’t checked out. It’s very much like the English bands, I mean, thank God for people like Clapton, and Keith Richards, and George Harrison, folks like that who were dropping names about all of these blues guys who were in my own back yard. I had some exposure to it as a child because my Dad was into it, but when you start hearing things like that London Howling Wolf session that Clapton was on, and being a fan of The Beatles and Cream, you start saying well, if these guys are into it, then I need to listen to them and see what’s going on. It’s a similar thing with John McLaughlin. You say, who has he played with, who has his drummer played with, well, they both played with Miles, and Jerry Goodman had played with The Flock, and you start looking into who Miles was influenced by, this guy or that guy, and suddenly you find yourself listening to John Coltrane, and Charlie Bird and Charles Mingus. It’s like going to music school.

 

 

 

That’s a whole nother level. You start hearing Robert Johnson, he and Willie Dixon and Muddy all influenced Led Zeppelin. You hear Page and people talk about all of these artists, and you get hit by Robert Johnson and it just blind sides you, because it’s so raw. It’s such emotional, from the gut music. You know, they weren’t making any money back then playing that music, they never made a dime. What a terrible irony it is that when they became famous, they’d been dead for thirty years. We’re especially bad about that in America. You go to other counties, like Japan and Switzerland, and you see what reverence they have for musicians. Let’s face it man, if you grew up in the South, that’s where all of the classic American music forms were started. I mean country, blues, jazz, rock and roll. It all came from like three states, a tri-state area, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, right there in that area. That was pretty much the hot bed for what would become all of these classic music forms. So you have a plethora of this stuff, and some of these guys couldn’t get arrested here, but in other countries they were highly respected and revered. What we choose to embrace musically never ceases to amaze and sicken me.

 

 

 

Like MTV. Warren and I were looking at a Rolling Stone magazine on the bus the other week, and they had an interview with Tom Petty, who I think is just a marvelous artist. He was calling it like he saw it. MTV did do some good things, and helped to call attention to some people it needed to, but, he said something in there about not being into game shows. Now if you turn on MTV, they have all these trite game shows.

 

 

 

Once again, they’ve shanghaied us. They slipped one by us. Now, VH1, which I guess is a part of MTV, has some great stuff, like the Legends series, and Behind the Music. In Canada, they have a TV show called Much Music. Man, they are worlds ahead of us as far as showing some of the cooler, neater music. They had live music on there before MTV. They had live performances by people who really had musical calibre. Unfortunately, we are still in the wake, in the backwash of this giant ocean liner called MTV, where you can get a record deal if you’re young and thin, which we are not...

 

 

 

Yeah, you look at some of the beast bands in the world were some of the ugliest fuckers on the planet.

 

 

 

Toy Caldwell is a personality and a musical presence that we all sadly miss, he and his brother both, for that matter. I thought Tommy had a real Berry Oakley type thing going in his playing. He was obviously influenced by Berry, and then he took it to a whole different place. People like that, like the original Marshall Tucker Band, Paul Riddle is a dear friend of mine, he’s a good friend of Warren’s and Matt’s. That guy is a slammin’ player. The whole thing that they had going on with that band was great. The songwriting was great, Toy’s guitar playing, with the Wes Montgomery thumb-picking was great. That was a deep, cool thing.

 

 

 

About the jamming, I never was a really huge fan of The Grateful Dead. I saw the guys a couple of times, but I always liked things to rock a little harder. I think that bands like Cream and Hot Tuna were overlooked a lot as jam bands, but they had a harder edge.

 

 

 

Oteil and Derek are dear friends of ours, always have been. We really love Derek, and are proud of what he’s doing too. Jaimoe and Gregg Allman are very dear friends of mine, and will remain so until one of us drops and is planted in the ground. Jaimoe is a wonderful drummer, a wonderful musician that taught me about playing music, a lot about listening to music. It’s the same with Gregg. Thank God he’s straightened up. The real Gregg Allman, when he’s not screwed up, which these days is all the time, he’s a wonderful guy, man. He’s a singer’s singer. He’s best blues singer that’s ever been poured into a white body. He’s extremely knowledgeable about people like Little Milton. I knew who little Milton was, but I’d never been into him. Gregg got me into him, and now we are on his new record. (Welcome to Little Milton, Malaco 7500) It was a joy. Once again, I learned tons about music from Gregg and Jaimoe. I learned about writing music with Gregg. And Warren too. Warren is a great writer.

 

 

 

Artimus Pyle introduced me to Butch Trucks. Talk about it being a small world. I’ve been to Jerusalem with Artimus, we have been down some highways together. We were working on an APB record down at Butch’s studio which never got released. Warren, Matt, Johnny Neel and Marty Prevatt had just finished recording The Dickey Betts Band album there, and then we came in. We were working there when Butch heard me playing and said that they were reforming The Allman Brothers, and he thought I’d be the one for the bass position. Artimus had told him, “Man, he was born to do this gig.” So I went down and auditioned, and got the gig the same day.

 

Warren and I were casual friends. We had met just prior to that. And you know who introduced me to Warren? Artimus Pyle, once again. But we were in the Brothers, and one night on the bus, we were listening to Cream, and I turned to Warren and said, “You know man, with the right drummer, we could have a power trio like there hasn’t been in thirty years.” And he said, “Yeah, with me and you and Matt Abts.” So we went out , we were playing The Greek Theatre, and we went out to The Captain’s Cabin to hear Matt play. We did a little jam, and it got reviewed in the paper. Like we were a regular band. They raved about the interplay between people, and everything. With that in mind, we formed, if you will, Gov’t Mule, and it turned out so cool, and was so rocking, we started going out on the road in between Allman Brothers gigs. It was like, wow, this is our band. And you know, you don’t want to work for somebody else your whole life, you want your own thing. The Brothers had reached a point where the creativity had died way down, and we were feeling like we had a lot of creativity we needed to get out. So we were on the road with The Black Crowes. We were backstage with Chris Robinson and some of the others, and Chris said, “I hope you guys know that you’re poised to happen and you really need to get out and do your own thing.” So we had pretty much already decided, and gave our notice after The Beacon run in 1997. So we’ve been together, a little family in a tube, going down the highway for five years now. We just finished our fifth year. But I couldn’t ask for two more creative and special musicians to play with.

 

 

 

It is by far the most eclectic, best performed, best written, best produced album that we’ve ever done. Once again, Michael Barbiero was in the pilot’s seat producing. We are very blessed that we had Ben Harper come in on it. Johnny Neel is on it. We were very lucky that a lot of our friends came in to play on it. What we are trying to do is not dissimilar from what the Beatles or Cream did, where you look in there and George Harrison was playing on a Cream record, like he played on “Badge.” But this is the best performance we ever did in the studio.

 

 

 

I do tend to collect guitars. I use several custom basses that were made for me, but as far as brand names, I tend to play Gibson and Epiphone stuff. I have a lot of the nice, older Thunderbirds, and I’ve got some of the new ones. And Epiphone, which are guitars made in Korea, that used to be made in America by Gibson. You know, a lot of Fender guitars are made in Korea. They make some really cool guitars. I find myself using the Jack Casady model Epiphone bass, the Gibson Thunderbirds, vintage Gibson EB-1’s, EB-2’s. They’re a real good working man’s guitar. As far as amps, in the studio, I use Ampeg SVT’s exclusively. We just finished a tour with The Dave Matthews Band, and I would have to travel in a lear jet, so I’d find myself taking a Steinburger bass with me. They look a little weird on a big guy like me, but they’re a good working tool.

 

 

 

Great. It’s about time they are getting their due. Dave is the quintessential pop artist. For once, pop doesn’t have to have a bad connotation, because the songs are well written, and the guys in his band are great players. Warren and I have known those guys since 1995, when we did the H.O.R.D.E. Tour together. If anything, those guys have gotten even nicer, and they were nice as hell to begin with. It’s refreshing to see a group of guys come off the stage that have just made a million-dollars, and be nice and cordial, and thankful for what they’ve got.

 

 

 

One thing I feel about the Mule is that we are there for each other. I’d do the same for them anytime. Sometimes you have to thank your maker that you’re in this position, playing great music with good friends. You don’t want to ever take for granted that God almighty has put you in the same plane with guys who are dedicated to making good music. I read one time that John McLaughlin said this, about that really fancy double-neck guitar with the design with all of those vines on it. He said the reason he had those was because he felt a musician should be like a vine growing up a tree, where you are constantly evolving upward as a musician, and as a human being too. I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand.

 

 

You can’t be a great musician and be a miserable schmuck. I guess you can for a season, but trust me, it’ll wear off. You’re on this path, and hopefully it’s always a path of increased enlightenment and God-consciousness, and you get closer and closer, then one day you leave this tent they we call a body and hopefully go to a better place. You have to, hopefully, become more descent, instead of less so, and become a better player instead of less so, and become more creative, instead of less so.