Suck and Blow (28 page)

My attitude is that I'd have to make friends with people who know how to chop wood and catch rabbits because all I can bring is a lot of firearms and a fast car. What else am I offering other than a unique psychological perspective? I could play songs, but the most valuable person in our society is still a plumber because everybody shits. You need a plumber, and then when the apocalypse hits, you don't even need that guy—you need a hunter or maybe an electrician. Sometimes people sing, sometimes people listen to other people singing, but you can't guarantee a meal if you're going to live by performance.

So by and large my guns end up collecting dust in my attic because I'm on the road so much. I used to bring all of my gun-hating friends to my house to shoot because they all secretly love to shoot guns, even if they don't want to have one—“I still want them illegal, but that was fun.” And then I had ten guns I had to clean, they'd spent all this ammo, and it was annoying.

At this point I'm not just indiscriminately buying guns. It's a treat to buy a gun. I think at one point my accountant made me sell a gun before I bought a new one, but eventually that got swept under the rug. I sold the accountant and got a new accountant.

One of my biggest challenges is keeping all of my gun licenses up to date. When I got into carrying, people told me, “You don't want to do that; it's a lot of paperwork.” And my answer was “If that's what it is, if it's a matter of paperwork, I'll take that challenge. I'll jump though the hoops.” I'd rather have a gun permit and not need it than need a gun permit and not have it.

I just need to be reminded when it's time to renew and what that requires. The states won't send you notification if a permit is up—that's your obligation. So I have somebody in management whose job is to keep me legal. If I didn't have management doing it, I'd hire a lawyer to babysit all of my permits and see where I'm at.

That's the thing: they want you to think it's too hard so you'll give up. And that's what will get a curmudgeon like me to fly all night to get to Rhode Island to make it to the permit office in the hours they require, just to keep that permit active in a state tinier than most people's backyard. And really, how often will I be in Rhode Island during the four years before it expires again? But if I'm in a state that requires a permit from that state and I don't have that permit, then I'm an idiot.

They approve you before you take a photo, so I always like to have a look on my face that would make a rational person ask, “Would you give this guy a gun?” All my permits look like that. I try to look confused or extra happy. The USO once refused to accept a photo where I had hammed it up a bit too much. We were on the way to Bosnia, and they wouldn't allow it, so they had to use a picture off an album.

In the early days we worked some dicey places, and just knowing I was packing helped. In Chicago we worked a couple of scary spots, and I'd be hanging with the Chicago PD. They'd show me theirs and I'd show them mine—that was allowed. Back then I didn't always know where I was legal, but I don't let that happen today.

You have to be a jailhouse lawyer and go state by state to weave this web of reciprocity. Texas and Florida permits are respected by
most everyone, but there a few states that need their own permits. For instance, all of New England has its own laws.

Hawaii has an islander tradition where they don't like guns and that's marrow deep, so the rule is if you own a gun, you have seventy-two hours to register your weapon at the police department and fill out a form. Usually I'm not on Hawaii for three days, so it's not such a big deal, and more often than not, I don't bring a gun to Hawaii.

The one that got away from me was California. I actually got residency in Santa Barbara; it was in this little shithole. My bass player's old girlfriend would sit for my dog, and she was a beach bum or ski boarding bum, depending on the season, and she also wanted to live in California. So she lived in this shack and I kicked in some rent so it was my place too, but the police thought it was too shabby for a gun permit. It was all discretionary.

I find they're often looking for some little thing: “You didn't fill in your application right. Even though it's been expunged, you said you've never been arrested, so you lied in your application.”

“But because it has been expunged, I'm allowed to say I wasn't arrested.”

“No, you had to tell us that you were arrested and that it was expunged.”

Then they explain that if I withdraw my application, they won't deny it. If they deny it, then that would get into the system and they would have to explain that I lied on my application, which could lead to a revocation of all my permits. It's like the DMV for guns.

Every time someone starts talking about the Second Amendment, they start sounding like an asshole. It's an absolute right, but I get little squeamish about celebrating it because it's a right to defend yourself with deadly force. So it's not something to high five about.

I see that right as similar to the right to have an abortion (which technically isn't but should be a right). It's not a moment for happiness; it's a right to deal with something tragic. And I believe people are adult enough in adult situations in an adult society to deal with the consequences of their actions. I hope that I never, ever have to use a gun to protect myself. So far I've never had to shoot anyone and I've never had to threaten anybody with a loaded gun.

My brother, who's a lawyer, says, “You've got to admit—it's just a lark.” And that is sort of what it is for me, a hobby gone awry. But I also believe that I can't run; I've been in some dangerous situations; and I've felt better being armed.

But to espouse the Second Amendment like it's something everyone needs education about is a little presumptuous of me. If you respect the right to have guns and the right to love guns, you have to respect the right to hate guns. The only reason to use deadly force is if you don't want to die—I look at it as my I-don't-want-to-die spray—and you have to be prepared to live with the consequences.

If we're going to vote and pay taxes, then on some level we're trusting each other to be adults. I think it's an adult thing. I have to be able to trust that my fellow man is able to deal with deadly force. That's what you're doing, being trusted by your society.

Most permits prohibit you from showing your guns to people, because that creates terrorism. You're not supposed to be wielding them. If you have a gun and start brandishing it for no reason or to win an argument, that's just dumb. You have to look at it with responsibility. There's something to be said for the discipline of a samurai who never pulls out his sword.

29

TROUBADOURS AND MOON SHOTS

In 1991 I wrote in my tour journal, “Life is short if you go by albums.” I find that oddly wise, considering I was only twenty-four years old and we'd put out exactly two albums.

I think what I meant was that we'd devote a year or eighteen months to each new album cycle. First we'd gear up and develop material, then we'd record it, and finally we'd support it with a tour. That album would become our focus for so much longer than the actual time we spent in the studio.

Now I view albums in terms of eras within the larger trip we have taken as a band. Looking back on them, even those that didn't work as well, still have something to say in the conversation about that journey. And that to me is what making albums is all about.

Bridge
really reflected a new formative era for the band, and I respect its sincerity. On
Truth Be Told
(2003) I felt that the new version of the band had found its stride. It was our current incarnation's early high point and an accurate reflection of what we were doing.

This was the time of true optimism because
Bridge
had carried with it such a heavy burden of the transition of the band into this new era. With
Bridge
there was a question of who is this band going to be,
and that question wasn't fully answered. With
Truth Be Told
we had enough touring under our belt—we had done so on our own terms and we'd done well at it—that we felt confident enough to stay who we were and we were enjoying it. It was a very happy time. We were excited about what was coming, and I felt that this new version of the band had found its stride.

The songs on
Truth Be Told
remained fearless and innocent. I think after that point we started to wander and search for some new ways to make albums, although we weren't even aware of it at the time. But in 2003 our system that had worked since the beginning of Blues Traveler was still effectively functioning as far as satisfying us artistically.

Working with Don Gehman was a huge treat because he had done so many albums I didn't even know I liked. There's one song on there, “Unable to Get Free,” that was actually inspired in some melodic ways with its minor chord progression by an old Barbra Streisand tune, “Woman in Love,” that, it turned out, Don Gehman had recorded and engineered. I discovered this while we were talking about it. I referred to this Barbra tune as far as the emotional pang I wanted my voice to hit, and he said, “Oh yeah, I did that song,” which in itself blew me away.

What Don Gehman came up with was us sitting a room, ready to record, and working out the little details of the song as we were rolling, and I don't think that any other producer had allowed us to do that before. Usually we would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and get some sort of a sketch of the song down to a very accurate place, but what Don Gehman was offering us was the respect that the tape would wait for us, that we would work in a timely fashion and that the ideas were valid. That was a very important thing for us to take away, and it really added a fun and loose feel to a lot of these songs.

I think we got a little lost on
¡Bastardos!
(2005). I was really smitten by these cheerleaders in my social carousing and writing some especially sappy stuff. I was also trying to be like Picasso—I'd just come in and scribble. I wanted Ben to take over and find his voice, as he was the newest guy in the band (we'd had a longstanding relationship with Tad, as he was Chan's brother after all), so there was a lot of pressure on Ben.

Meanwhile our management couldn't find a record deal for us, and we couldn't even find a producer. We were going on faith because we wanted this album to come out in 2005. We eventually decided to part ways with manager Scott McGhee. In the midst of this we lucked into Jay Bennett, who was still recovering after getting fired from Wilco following their record
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(you can see some of what went down with Jay and Jeff Tweedy in the documentary
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco
). Jay, rest his soul, was in a very shaky place. I left it to him to produce the shit out of the album, and I liked that approach because we hadn't done it yet; it seemed very new to us. So
¡Bastardos!,
which some have found to be an overproduced album, was the product of us shifting the sound a little more onto the keyboards, at least in my mind, and also trying to make what we could out of a slightly injured producer and an uncertain course.

We soon landed new management with Charles Attal, and the good people at C3, and a new record deal with Vanguard. Still,
¡Bastardos!
did take on the feeling of a stop-gap album. For the first time we were feeling a little unfulfilled.

I wanted to do something different on
North Hollywood Shootout.
Three years had passed since
¡Bastardos!,
and part of the reason for that is because I thought we'd gone as far as we could making albums the way we made them, where somebody would bring in a riff and I would write words and shape the song to that riff while the other guys were working on the next song. This became an endless assembly line of songcraft that started to blur into one thing. The results started to seem as though we were writing the same song over and over again. I think once you get settled into an artistic process that becomes efficient, it also comes with the danger of being unoriginal, at least to your mind.

There were still a lot of strong songs on
North Hollywood Shootout,
but the premise I'd adopted in order to make this album different wasn't working. Instead of our assembly line, what if I were the absolute slave driver going back to the nineties, only with a sane approach in which I didn't have to bully my way into being the lord and master of the music? We would mutually agree as rational adults that I would be overseeing the music. What I was hoping to do was wield the whole
band like a pen. The problem was that the pen began asking, “Why are we doing this?”

I wanted to be czar of the record, but instantly our producer Dave Bianco put himself between me and the rest of the band. He seemed to get my premise when I talked with him alone at the beginning, but right away he tried to insert himself into the process. I don't blame him for this because he's an artistic mind as well. I had intended to be there the whole time, but he talked me out of it. Instead, I would show up at night, and they would show up during the day, so there were two camps going. The reason is I sing better at night, and he wanted me to be there to perform, but it was at that moment that my idea started to fall apart. I also found that before I became czar, I could write whatever lyrics I wanted, but after I became czar every lyric was scrutinized by every band member. This drove me crazy. It led to a watering down of the lyrics. “You Me and Everything” is the American cheese Kraft Single of our writing career.

I became disheartened. I felt that I had failed the guys in the direction I was trying to take us. The producer definitely didn't get what I was trying to do, and as much as the band tried, they couldn't turn off their brains or their creative ears, nor should they have to. If I were working with dependent mindless robots, it might have worked. But I wouldn't wish that on anyone. When you have autonomy over thinking people, it's never autonomy unless you want to stifle their creativity, and why would I want to do that?

So it was a frustrating experience, but it did lead me to the Duskray Troubadours, which has affected the way I am doing things to this day.

Duskray was actually my second solo project of the decade. In 2005 our old crew guy Bob Mahoney had an idea for a jam session out west with DJ Logic, who I'd played with before and is a cool guy and a dear friend, and Rob Wasserman. Who doesn't love Rob Wasserman? Something about the bass, harmonica, and DJ really worked. As I mentioned earlier when I was I talking about Oteil Burbridge, I think it's because the harmonica is so shrill and the bass is so low, and it was just this no-brainer that sounded new and interesting.

When we were back in New York where Jason (DJ Logic) lived, I talked to him about keeping it going. I knew we couldn't get Rob, but
I figured that when Blues Traveler was off, we could hire Tad to do the bass part. I also had an old friend from high school, Marcus Bleecker, a drummer, who had also been in Mr. B's band, the
Whiplash
band (he was the first drummer I saw who received the type of abuse depicted in the film), and I had always wanted to do something with him, a theme of mine, apparently, of going to people I've known ever since I was a kid.

This new band borrowed from the Wasabi, the band with Arnie Lawrence, Blues Traveler, and Spin Doctors, and the Authority in that we never rehearsed. One advantage is this requires very little work for the band as long as everyone keeps their minds open. Marcus was a jazz drummer, and with Logic's precision there was a wonderful breathing effect, while Tad and I knew how to work together melodically.

We were essentially playing together for beer money when we were approached by Jonathan Schwartz from Relix Records about putting out a record as the John Popper Project Featuring DJ Logic. We didn't want songs per se, but we knew we would need some for the album. So we created jams, and our producer, Craig Street, really made something out of them. To his credit, he was dealing with a bunch of coked-out, drunken fools, and he somehow took a bunch of jam sketches and created real song structures. He was not just a brilliant producer but he also put up with so much shit from me because at that time I thought you were supposed to have tension with your producer. He was an unsung hero.

When we toured in support of it, before each gig we had a few shots of Patron Silver, chilled. We'd only do ten dates at a time because if we did any more, we would have died. It was absolutely madcap. I remember some of it. The jams were good—we'd get into some really good zones of noodle.

It was that collaborative nature I remembered fondly as I thought about my next project, which followed
North Hollywood Shootout.

I had remained in touch with Jono Manson ever since the Nightingale days. He moved to Italy for a few years in the mid-2000s because his music was doing fairly well there. Occasionally I would join him, and we would busk around the country. By the end of the decade he was back in Santa Fe, where he had settled after he left New York City in the nineties. We'd been talking forever about doing something
together, but there had always been a Blues Traveler thing I had to deal with.

We began talking very earnestly in 2009 because
North Hollywood Shootout
had drained me so much. That year we started collecting songs and discussing our approach, and in 2010 we made the album. It felt rejuvenating to write some Americana songs and not be pinned to the expectations of being in Blues Traveler.

Jono has a little studio in the Chupadero Mountains, and I got into my car and drove down there on New Year's Day. It was a beautiful ride from Washington. If you take the right roads, it really clears your head. I'd known some of the players since the Nightingale's days, and it was a fun album to make, just perfectly framed in that American sound that is the Southwest.

Every player, by his style, reminded me of a dime novel cowboy, and we were holed up in Santa Fe, so it really took on that vibe. We made the album we wanted to make, and it had a real soul to it. But what I especially enjoyed was sharing the writing, which brought things out of me that I wasn't used to getting out of me.

I came to appreciate the process of taking my vision and making it coincide with the vision of other people I respect. That's how you create true vision. Nobody knew what the color blue was until two or three people discussed it. Before that, someone said, “This fire engine is blue,” and someone else said, “The sun is blue.” Then they got together and decided, “No, the sky is blue. We're all calling that blue.” And that was the beginning of the color blue.

It also felt really satisfying because, as this project came together, I had put my own money into it, hoping I might get a record deal. I had that much confidence in it, and this allowed me to cut through all the bullshit of having to sell it to somebody. As it happened, our new management, Charles Attal and C3, had just hired Dave Geller and Mat Whittington to come on board, and they were excited about finding a label to release it. We agreed to meet and talk about it at SXSW in 2010.

When I was at SXSW I saw Bill Murray, and he gave me the biggest pep talk about Duskray. I was nearly in tears. I was looking for blow and mentioned that to him. He said, “You could do that,
or
you could
appreciate what's around you. Have you ever been here before?” And that kind of stopped me in my tracks because he was right.

From there I told him what I had hoped to accomplish with the Duskray Troubadours album and what I had on the line, and he really got it. I started to explain how I wanted to bring this new approach to Blues Traveler, but he got there ahead of me and told me, in essence, that I was fighting the good fight. Then he spoke about a time he had seen Blues Traveler in Cape Cod on the spinning stage and kept going on about my drummer—that really made me happy because Brendan doesn't get enough credit.

Bill told me what I needed to hear and in such a way that I didn't get distracted thinking that everything he said would end in a punch line. It was all really deep and meaningful. It gave me a renewed confidence that I was on the right path.

When I first saw him, he was sitting with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. I walked up to them and asked, “Are you guys here to whore yourselves too?” At first Matthew seemed to take offense, saying, “I'm not whoring myself.” Then Bill interrupted, “Hey, can you play ‘Red River Valley' on the harmonica?” I did, and that's when McConaughey recognized me.

Eventually we went back to Woody Harrelson's room at the Four Seasons. I was with DJ Logic, and Bill dropped us off at the hotel. Logic had this cast on because he had broken his ankle or something. So Bill sat in the trunk of the SUV—it was just so awesome. I took a picture of it and told people that we'd kidnapped him, locked the car, and gone skinny dipping, but when we came back, there was broken glass and the car was gone, so I just went to my hotel, packed, and got the hell out of there. But all that really happened was that he gave us this cool ride.