WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 998 - Gary Clark Jr.

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

Gary Clark Jr. tries not to put too much pressure on himself. That’s not surprising since outside forces seem to put a lot of pressure on Gary, with guys like Eric Clapton asking him to go on tour and outlets like Rolling Stone calling him The Chosen One. The truth is, Gary was just a kid who wanted to be an R&B singer and taught himself how to play guitar. He tells Marc what he learned about the guitar from watching Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, playing with Hubert Sumlin , and listening to Tito Jackson. Yes, Tito Jackson. Somewhere along the way, Gary made the shift from doing covers of the blues to tapping into it on his own. This episode is sponsored by Vice Live, Squarespace, and Care/of. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what's happening i am mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it what's happening today is I've Gary Clark Jr.

on the show today, a guitar player, and you know me and guitar players, and you know me and guitar. So we talked some guitar. That's going to happen for you shortly. And I have some new tour dates to announce. Some stateside club dates as I plow through the new hour or so of material april 18th through 20th at the american comedy company in san diego may 16th through 18th at good night's comedy club in raleigh raleigh north carolina may 23rd through 25th at the comedy club on state in madison wisconsin june 6th through 8th at Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, Vermont, and June 13th through 15th at Helium Comedy Club in Richmond Heights, Missouri, right outside St. Louis.

Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for ticket info. Also, the UK dates are there. The Colorado dates are there. So it's shaping up. It's shaping up to be a real tour with a mixture of small theaters, medium-sized theaters, and comedy clubs. I'm going to get out there. I'm going to get out there into the country. And I'm going to do the thing.

And I'm going to eat some food in different places. But not like I used to eat. Man. I think I've only been to St. Louis once. Is that possible? I rapped on GLOW. I don't know if I told you. I don't think I could have on Monday because I wrapped on Monday morning. I shot my last scene for this season of GLOW, season three. It went great and it was sad and exciting and they're all still shooting.

But maybe on Friday I'll go when everybody else wraps and hang out and eat the ice cream that I'm gonna you know contribute to for a truck for the crew I don't know if you know that about uh most uh tv shoots I don't know about film shoots so much but uh at the end of each episode usually the director uh and will throw for some sort of uh gift type of uh truck come. And the last day, I guess, me and the girls, me and the gals are going to chip in and get an ice cream truck. So if there's any people on the crew listening to this, and I just spoiled that for you Friday, don't look at it as it being spoiled. Look at it as, hey, we're going to get ice cream on Friday. Yes, that's it.

Anyway, hooli, hooli-booli. I got a guitar player coming in. He's not going to play guitar, sadly. He didn't bring one. I got some here, but sadly, I did not ask him. I don't know why. Sometimes it's a little tricky to uh to record here but uh we did get we did get off on a talk i'll make sure i have this to reference you hear that yeah i'm gonna tell you what that is in a minute, because I just had to find it on my phone.

It's interesting. You know, Gary Clark Jr., I first saw, where did I first see him? I know that I saw him open for the Rolling Stones in San Diego when I was with Dean. I believe I saw him. I know I saw him open for Derek Trucks when I went to see them at the Universal Amphitheater. And I think, if I'm not mistaken,

but I didn't remember to ask him about it, I think he was with Clapton and Jimmy Vaughn over there at the Forum when Clapton was there when I went to that when Jimmy played over here. And I didn't even ask him about that. We did talk a bit about him working with Clapton and Keith Richards and other people. But, you know, we got off on the guitar thing. He smoked a little weed before and

we kind of just drifted in it's so funny when people ask me if they can smoke weed i uh you know i'm like yeah go ahead and they're like no i'm not gonna do in here he said i'm not gonna i'll do it outside i'm like oh damn it there's a you know i had almost 20 years sober if i'm around it man i did you know i'm not doing it but sober. If I'm around it, man, I did, you know, I'm not doing it, but maybe I can get a little something, something right. Huh? Huh? Huh? Didn't work out that way. Thank God. Cause I don't need to live with that burden of a contact buzz. And how much was I part of that? How much should I encourage you? Shouldn't the answer be like, no man, you know, I'm sober. It'd be really helpful if you just do it outside as opposed

to like wherever you want, man, come on, here blow it in my face like i'm a kitten i should wrap this up pretty quickly here because i do have to go i gotta take fucking buster back to the vet for the follow-up you know he's like he's acting full-on man full-on crazy just uh you know full-on buster back to his old self but yeah i think i should go get those blood levels checked probably should get my own blood levels checked can i do that at the vet would that be weird you know you're gonna take busters can you just take a little vial of mine and run it through the machine see where i'm at see if i have feline leukemia or uh fiv or uh you know perhaps some other strange feline disease?

Or should I go to my regular doctor? I probably should. So heading into this conversation with Gary Clark Jr., like I had to like get in it, get into the Gary Clark catalog. The new album, This Land, I believe it's called. Am I right? Yes. That's out now, but he's got a few other records out, and he got pretty big for a couple big

live records, and that was the interesting thing. There's a couple interesting things about this conversation, is that there are guys that I respect that have a tremendous respect for gary so it was great to uh to sort of like enter the catalog and and know that uh that people that i i i respect are you know coming to him with a with a with a reverence and you know he can certainly fucking play guitar and and sing but this album is you know it's kind of uh you know it's a mixed bag of blues, ballads, R&B, some hip-hop element to it. And that's sort of where he's at. But what was interesting about the conversation with him was that he was being poised to be the next guitar guy. The guitar god guy.

And he had to reckon with that. And I thought that was interesting. And I also thought it was interesting that he started inin you know under the uh the tutelage to some degree of jimmy vaughn uh stevie ray's brother who i've talked to who's one of my favorite guitar players so you know what we're coming we're coming in hot with some guitar talk but uh but right out of the gate i referenced pretty quickly that that little piece of what I just played you is something that Matt Sweeney, the guitar player who's been on the show, turned me on to, and he just sent me, you know when people send you a video link, and you can find it yourself.

Even if you're not a guitar player, you'll fucking be like, what the fuck? The YouTube video is Magic Sam, Magic Sam's Bo fuck the youtube video is magic sam magic sam's boogie 1969 is magic sam he's not even playing his own guitar and he's laying out this riff and sweeney sent it to me i'm like what the fuck is that and sweeney said he was going to figure it out so for some reason that was in my head because i listened to a gary carr jr live record and i heard a song on there one of his songs songs, and it had sort of the skeleton of that riff. And then it struck me like, oh, fuck, man.

Because I tried to figure that out, but it's out of my wheelhouse unless I spent, like, maybe I could spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out. I'm sure there are guitar players who'd be like, no problem, listen. But, you know, it's a tricky groove.

But I felt like when i was listening to gary's thing i can't remember what song it was on the live um and uh i was like oh no he tried to figure that thing out and that that's the residue of it in this song so when we start talking about this thing at the beginning of this conversation that's what we're talking about i just wanted you guys to be in the loop on that because there's a giddiness to it to the moment of us both know of him knowing immediately what i was talking about as if like you know we had talked about it before it was just it was a pretty beautiful moment and he was a little buzzed so it must have been an even better moment for him i don't know oh you guys maybe someday things will be okay again but until then we do have music we do have maybe a little time to turn back or at least stop the slow frying of this planet.

But are we going to be able to stop the bugs? You know, the bugs are going to win. The little ones. The bugs without functioning bodies. Just renegade strands of DNA. The viral bugs. The bacteria bugs. The ugly bugs that eat the pretty bugs

man is this turned into a downer god damn it god damn it so now that i've laid it out and uh you know you know exactly what you know i'm referring to when me and gary get off on this it's's Magic Sam. Magic Sam's Boogie, 1969. You can watch it on YouTube. It fucking gets me off. So Gary's new album is called This Land. It's available now wherever you get your music. It's a great album.

People love it. And this is me. I got to stop it. I'm going to watch it. This is me talking to Gary Clark Jr. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. You sure with that? Are you cool? Yeah, I'm cool. Awesome. I've had people who need to smoke in the garage. Nah, man. I don't want to do that to anybody.

I don't mind it. I quit a long time ago, but, you know, it's nice to get a freebie occasionally. Get that second. Yeah. Deep breath. Yeah. Kevin Smith was in the old garage. I could barely breathe. Yeah. Deep breath. Yeah, Kevin Smith was in the old garage. I could barely breathe. Yeah.

So wait, so now when I pointed out the Gold Top with the P90s and I said that's the best guitar, your first response was, really? Like you've played that guitar. I have. And what is your feeling about it? I think it's a great guitar, but I'm tall and it comes with back problems. Oh, really? Everything's heavy.

I think like, I don't know. This is a reissue of a 56, and it don't feel as heavy. Is that a heavy one? It's not, right? No, actually. Right. Some of those West Pauls are heavy as fuck, like a custom is heavy. I got to play Hubert Sumlin's.

Oh, really? He played a, what did he play? A gold top. Oh, really? It was solid, man. Oh, my? He played a, what did he play? A gold top. Oh, really? It was solid, man. Oh, my God. It was solid. Now, do you, I think somebody, I don't know if I, you know, saw it correctly or he really

said it, that Jason Isbell said that maybe old guitars aren't necessarily all they're racked up to be, but some of them are, huh? Some of them are. I've picked up a couple old ones and they're just, you know, planks of wood. Yeah, but did someone fuck with it? mean was there did he play like was there something different about his other than it being his i don't think so i think it was just right how it was but those things those p90s they just break up like it like it's weird if you crank them up with no effects at all they just the notes just like come unglued it's weird gnarly yeah fucked up

sounding thing is i love it man a little small amp too yeah a little small fender like that like that one perfect that thing's crazy that doesn't like you saw my stereo and this is the other thing i spent money on is this fucking amp like because you can't find those for cheap unless you're lucky maybe in tex Texas, you might find one dumb old person who's got one in their basement from their kid who had it in the 60s who passed away in Nam or something. But I think they're probably running out too. Yeah, I go look.

I'm not going to lie. I was going to not tell anybody. Yeah. But, yeah, I always try and go look for something, see if somebody's oh really caught slipping you know have you found some no never no there's so many guitar players and you know in texas you know we all think we got like this secret like running around got nothing but i didn't know anything about this other than like um i don't know like

someone said the best thing, and I repeat this all the time, about that particular amp, so I think that's like a 57 Deluxe or a 58. They said, it's a one-trick pony, but it's a good trick. It's a great trick. What are you playing through? I'm playing through Fender Vibro Kings.

Old ones? No, no, I'm playing through new ones. I mean, we run around so much on tour that the old gear classic stuff, I just got to keep it at the house. Oh, really? You're afraid? Yeah, well, just recently,

shipping guitars and stuff, opening a case and headstock, and the neck is snapped. That happened? Yeah, it's happened a few times. With what? Like SGs? Yeah, I had a strat.

A strat neck broke? Yeah. How the fuck did that happen? TSA. Really? Throwing my shit. So like, when you open that case up, is it already snapped and it's just a mess? Yeah.

Strings all. So sad. I love. It's so sad, yeah. Strings all... It's so sad. I love... It's so sad, man. Yeah, it is. I was trying to think of a riff that, like, because I listened to, I think it was a... It's somebody's boogie.

And I... Sam's boogie. Yeah. Yeah. Magic Sam? Yeah. Killing on Earl King's guitar, right? Yeah, right.

Yeah, with the flowers? Yeah. What the fuck is that? Oh, man. I love showing people that video. You ever seen it before? Me too. You know.

Have you figured it out? No. Because on the live record, you do one that's a little close to that groove, right? I do one that's close, but that's because I couldn't figure out the other one. I was like, I'll just settle it. That's what I was wondering. I'm like, I was listening to it, and I'm like, you almost got it. And I know that.

You called me out. Because I'm like, it's so close, but I wasn't mad at you about it. My thought was, if he can't figure it out, I'm not even going to waste my time trying to figure it out. If that's as close as he's going to get. Yeah, I gave up. Detour to the left. But I can't.

I'm not great at figuring things out. And that's the great thing about the blues. You get the idea and you run with the idea. I got the idea. And now I just own it. Right? Interpretation. So, Austin, that's where you come from?

Austin, Texas. Born and raised. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, like, what part of town, what did your dad do? What part of town? Kind of southwest. Yeah. Like, on the edge of the city what'd your dad do? What part of town? Kind of southwest. Yeah.

Like on the edge of the city in the country. Yeah. A spot called Oak Hill. Uh-huh. You got brothers and sisters? I grew up with four sisters. Four sisters? Yeah, I got four sisters.

Out on the- And I'm right in the middle. Yeah, on the edge of town. On the edge of town. What was your family's business? My mom was an accountant, so she was an accountant for like Capital Metro, which was a public transport.

Yeah. Bored milk, so we used to get like chocolate milk from time to time. She would bring it home, and it was like the best day ever. My dad sold anything and everything from shoes to cars to clothes to houses. Yeah, a housework.

Anything to keep the lights on. Yeah. Yeah. Are they still around? Yeah. Oh, that's good. They're still around. They follow me everywhere.

Do they? Yeah, man. It's cute. Do you at least fly them? Oh, no. They just come? They just come. You get in their car and come?

Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, it's pretty just come. You're getting their card coming. Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah, it's pretty good. When did you start playing? 1996. Out of nowhere? How old were you? I was 12.

Yeah. So not out of nowhere. A friend of mine down the street, she had a band. Yeah. Her name's Eve Monse. And she had a black Fender Strat and a Fender Twin with the red knobs. Seen those things? Yeah, I have.

And it was just loud as fuck. Yeah, that's a later one, it's not like a new one, right? Yeah, like an 80s or something. Did it have the pop out volume drive? Yeah, yeah. All that stuff. And so it was, she had a band, it was an was all girl band bunch of cute girls

playing the garage they had basketball yeah yeah and um and her dad would fix video games and he had a bunch of like arcades so we would just go hang out that was a place that was the coolest place to be sounds like the best place to be there's a guitars amps and video games exactly so so i just you know i started getting interested in the guitar. So about a year later, I ended up just kind of breaking my folks down, and they got me one. Yeah, but so when you were just like looking at it and getting into it and watching people play it, it just appealed to you? Did you try to pick it up before you? Yeah, I tried to pick it up. My dad had some guitars in the house, and I was always curious.

Actually, my first introduction to guitar was seeing Tito Jackson play. Really? Yeah, like seeing young kids look like me in a band. He can kind of play too, right? Yeah, he's like a blues guy. Yeah, right. I remember later when he did solo stuff, it was sort of like, shit, he played. Yeah, I got this tape. when he did solo stuff it was sort of like shit like he can yeah he played yeah they did this uh

i got this tape they did this uh cover of uh isaac hayes walk on by yeah and he's playing like the fuzz wah-wah part yeah yeah and i was like what is that sound you know and i was like i need to i need that the fuzz wah-wah sound it got me i was it was over and you were like 10? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny that one sound that makes that, that's the magic thing. Like that, you know, and it locks in when you're really young. Like how do you make that noise? And it landed. I need that voice too.

So what did you, what was the first guitar then? What were the ones hanging around the house? My dad's guitar was an old Silvertone. With amp? No, just an old Silvertone acoustic that I actually ended up breaking. I tried to take it down off the wall and play it. Were you broken? Yeah, I busted it.

I just recently went to my parents' house and it's still busted up. But I feel bad. I got to go get that thing fixed. Get the Silvertone fixed. Get him a new guitar. Does he play? Yeah, he plays a little bit. Yeah, he plays a little bit. Plays silver tone fixed? Get him a new guitar. Does he play? Yeah, he plays a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, he plays a little bit. Plays keys, you know, too. Soul guy. So always. Fogadelic. Yeah. Bernie Worrell. Oh, really?

Yeah. Makes the noises? Eddie Hazel. He had fuzz all over. Yeah, exactly. He's surrounded by fuzz. Surrounded by the fuzz. Can't get away from it.

But my first guitar was an RX, an Ibanez RX-20. I can't get away from it. But my first guitar was an Ibanez RX-20. I can't picture it. It's kind of got the body of a Strat. Oh, yeah. You know, but two humbuckers. Oh, humbuckers on the body of a Strat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was it.

What about you? My first guitar was actually a Deluxe Copycat. There was a brand of guitar called Copycat uh that made copies that were like 100 bucks like it was a fine start out to electric i think my first acoustic was an old harmony that my old man had a harmony f-hole acoustic and then the first guitar i bought was a blonde uh telly that was heavy as fuck not that one so that the one i had ended up it's i think it's in some uh uh i think some punk rock girl has it now because i i i you know before i really knew how to play i hung around a guitar store and you know they had a guy that painted guitars and you know

i would order parts for guitars and i made really cool guitars but i couldn't really play them right but i i enjoyed the i had this monster guitar but all I could really play was like Johnny B. Goode, you know, maybe. Man, that's still pretty cool. The guy who plays bass, my man, Johnny Bradley, he's the same way, man.

He'll take parts and put them all together. Between him and you and my guy Dave, I could probably open up a shop and do something pretty cool. It's fun because I don't know if it really makes a difference,

especially, it didn't make a difference to me because I didn't know about tone or nothing. I could barely play, but I knew it was cool that you could buy this shit. Yeah, yeah. I could have a guy paint it, but the telly got painted cherry red, and I put brass equipment on it, and then I traded it to a roommate for Coke back in the day, and then he had it for years.

He became a professor at UC Davis, and he's a poet, and he gave it to his buddy's daughter who was in the punk band so i'm like as long as it has a life damn it's funny that i was able to track it wow that's pretty good so who started teaching you um i started teaching myself really just listening to stuff on the radio. My friend Eve would show me something. Chords. Chords, power chords, really. Yeah.

You know, show me the Jimmy Reed. Yeah. Straight up blues stuff. Keeps that weird five open on the turnaround, like when he. Yeah. Someone just showed me that. I'm just learning this shit. I learned that from Jimmy Vaughn, who we both.

Right. I learned it from Jimmy Vivino, who probably learned it from Jimmy Vaughn. Nice. Yeah. Right. I learned it from Jimmy Vivino, who probably learned it from Jimmy Vaughn. Nice. Yeah. That's a good group of guys to be learning stuff from. Well, yeah, so that's Austin. But like, so you're just teaching yourself?

You never took lessons? I never really took a formal lesson. We would do stuff in school sometimes. We had this kind of guitar class. Yeah. A bunch of kids would get together and share, you know, guitar magazines and figure out tabs and stuff like that. I still don't know how to do tabs.

I got to figure it out. It's pretty easy, right? It's been so long, but yeah. In terms of, it just shows you where the lead is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know. Self-taught through tabs. Self-taught through tabs

and just listening to records, trying to figure stuff out, watching. As soon as I got my guitar, Stevie Ray Vaughan, a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan was playing, where it was Jimmy, his brother. In town? Yeah, it was Austin City Limits. Okay, okay.

Jimmy, his brother. Yeah, his brother. Who else? And the original Double Trouble band? Original Double Trouble, Robert Double Trouble Robert Cray Eric Clapton Bonnie Raitt oh yeah

Buddy Guy B.B. King I think there might be somebody else that I'm missing but it was like everybody

yeah and so I got my guitar and I don't know what to do with it and like it seemed like the next week or whatever I'm sitting there

on a Saturday you were watching it live no it seemed like the next week or whatever, I'm sitting there on a Saturday. You were watching it live? No, it wasn't live. It was a rerun or whatever. But it was that. And then he played Stevie Ray Vaughan's performances from 1983 and like the 1989. Yeah.

Blew my mind, man. Yeah. Blew my mind. So I just recorded that tape and learned that pausing and rewinding and figuring out where people's hands were. Yeah. Just, that's how it was. That was it.

That was it. From Stevie. Mm-hmm. Right, the thing about Stevie is you listen to him and, you know, you're like, and it happens very quickly in your mind, it's like, that must be the end of this lick. Oh, no, it's not. Oh, it's going to keep going. You know what I mean?

I do. Does that bother you? No, no. I love it. I mean, that's the thing that I like about it. It's just sort of like, how did he just get all that in? How did he play over the turnaround and end up in the right place? With all those notes and all that style.

It's a lot. It is, man but like it's weird because i love jimmy like jimmy was my guy more than stevie really yeah those first three fabulous thunderbirds records the way he played so clean and so decisively it was like great to me yeah he he knows exactly what he's gonna do this is what it is and if i don't i'm gonna back up and if you're uncomfortable i'm gonna let you deal with it but so okay so you're watching that and you're trying to work out jimmy yeah uh jimmy ray vaughn or stevie ray and you were able to what about hendrix i mean because that that was always actually for me the the liability of of stevie ray was how much he you know listened to hendrix like i like hendrix but i kind of put hendrix in

his own place and when i hear people like you know kind of really kind of pulling from him i'm like that's hendrix it's weird i mean i mean maybe i'm an asshole but that's undeniable yeah you can't but he but he had all that tex-mex shit you know that texan you know kind of i don't even know where that comes from with the von boys jump blues stuff i don't know where it comes but it's uniquely because i can hear it on your first record too there's a rhythm to it that comes directly from those guys and whatever they're following do you ever track it um yeah a. Tracking it back to, you know, Lightning, Hopkins, T-Bone, Walker. Oh, yeah.

I think T-Bone Walker wrote all of the licks. Wrote all of the licks. Yes, they're all there. You know, you have to find them, but every blues lick that everyone's using is in a T-Bone Walker song somewhere. Sure. Right?

Sure, exactly, and tone as well. Yeah. Beautiful tone. So you were going back. When did you start actually doing that? When were you able to kind of hold your own and play? Yesterday. Oh, yeah.

No. It changes night for night. Hold my own and play. When I, I guess I did a talent show in eighth grade. Oh really? And we kind of won a talent show in eighth grade. What'd you play? We played Pride and Joy, Steve Ray Vaughan.

Yeah, just the two of you? Me and her, a drummer, Megan and a bass player, Jeff, young kids. Yeah? Yeah, it was awesome. And you nailed it? We didn't get booed. You won!

We won, so we did okay. Won a little bit of money. It was like, man, we made it. We were in the record business. And it was always the blues that moved you? No. No? No, no.

The blues is what was kind of my introduction to music. Yeah, got you playing. I thought I was going to be, I love music, but I thought I was going to be an R&B singer. Yeah. Like on some Boyz II Men type shit. Oh, yeah? Yeah, you know.

So you were singing a lot too? I thought I was going to be on tour with NSYNC or something. Well, it's weird. I mean, was it, because r&b like because i can hear that even on the new record that you move through a lot of different sounds and there's definitely like soul ballads on there right yeah sure and there's definitely you know art like classic r&b like you know pre-boys to men vibe to some of this stuff yeah that's right that's i grew up listening to you know all that's curtis mayfield temptations four tops that's what I grew up listening to. All that Curtis Mayfield, Temptations, Four Tops.

That's what was playing in the house? That's what my pops was listening to. You couldn't touch the record player. Oh, really? You weren't allowed to? Not really. I fucked around and tried to be a DJ on it and broke the band. Oh, no.

Yeah, that was it? Mm-mm. He broke his guitar and his fucking record player. Get away from me. You owe this guy. I do, actually. Damn. So did you do any singing with the band?

Like just R&B set up or no? Yeah, I had this R&B group with my guy Robbie, man. And we called ourselves Young Soul. What grade was that? This was like sixth, seventh grade. Oh, okay, yeah. And this guy, you know, we would pull up. The ladies loved this guy, man.

In sixth grade? Sixth grade. Yeah. And so we would, at lunchtime or whatever, we'd be hanging out, and he'd be like, yo, G, let's sing something, you know? Yeah. And so we would sing whatever As Yet or Boyz II Men song

was on the radio or whatever to these girls. We would get my other friends who were around. So we would sing. Back up, sing back up. Yeah, they would sing back up and we would sing these songs, man. And the girls would come up and scream, and oh, Robbie, and this and that. So that's what we thought we were going to do.

We called ourselves Young Soul. We had a whole trip. We're going to go out to L.A. and be and that. And so that's what we thought we were going to do. You know, we called ourselves Young Soul. We had a whole trip, you know. Yeah. We're going to go out to L.A. and be superstars. Oh, yeah? Did you have haircuts? Nah. I mean, I just had a nice fade.

Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Doing that. But we were going to be edgy. So, like, grunge was happening at that time. So we wore, like, flannel. You know what I mean? You're going to make it a broad audience. Exactly.

We're going to get the, oh, the angry white dudes are going to like us. Yeah, we're going to get everybody. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's what I thought I was going to do. I got hell, man. I was a singer in the choir. I was a choir boy. And trying to play basketball and do that, I got so much hell for it.

It's like, man. They were busting on you? They were busting on you they were busting on me it was crazy so you went to uh you so that kept you in church every sunday i guess singing in the choir it did i had to sing in church man i started playing in these clubs down on 6th street and my mom said if you can play for these drunks you can go and play for jesus really you were playing in club wait when you were in high school? Yeah, 14, 15, going out and playing.

And down in Austin. You spent some time in Austin, yeah. I go, I like going to Austin. Like, I, you know, I don't, like, I've been there, yeah, quite a few times. Weren't you just there? Yeah, yeah, I saw you there. Yeah. I saw you at the Continental.

That's right. When Jimmy was there, because I was doing a show down the street. Yeah, yeah. At the Paramount, and then Jimmy just happened to be in town because he was hanging. Yeah, Vivino was hanging out with Vaughn. And I think you came by. Weren't you there? Didn't I see you there? Yeah, I was drinking.

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah. And yeah, because he was there. Zapata was there. And Jimmy was there. And Billy. I know Billy, Jimmy's guy.

I think, was he playing with him that night? Like, I know that guy from here. He was out here for a while, Billy. The guy who plays guitar. Yeah, Billy Pittman. Yeah, know that guy from here. He was out here for a while. Billy is the guy who plays guitar. Billy Pittman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He's great. Yeah. He's a good guy. But yeah, so I've been out there, but I, that was the first time I've been in the continental though, even with all its history,

it was kind of fun to see old Jimmy trying to keep up with Jimmy. It's very funny to like, cause Vaughn is such like, he's such a grounded player. You know what I mean? He doesn't fuck around. He's not trying to be something he's not, you know? So, all right. so you're singing in the choir.

Oh, by the way, I just got a vinyl of the Soulsterers with Sam Cooke that someone reissued it. Did you ever listen to that stuff? A little, a little. Like the Soulsterers were a gospel group, but he was with them for a while. Right, right, right. And Sam Cooke was with them.

It's so wild to listen to that shit because you listen to it, and it's straight up gospel stuff, but then you hear Sam Cooke's like, where's that so wild to listen to that shit because you listen to it, and it's straight-up gospel stuff. But then you hear Sam Cooke, and you're like, where's that guy coming from? He was so identifiable so early on, just the magic of that dude's voice. Did you see that story on him? No. Was it bad?

No, it was not bad. It was just a lot of information. I didn't know. Ended badly. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know Ended badly. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even know.

It just seemed like weird. He got shot by some crazy or, I don't know, maybe he wasn't crazy. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened either, but it was interesting to see his story. Oh, yeah. What he was about. There's a lot of levels to that guy. There was, yeah.

It was a good biography that I started. I start a lot of books. What do you mean? Oh, like reading? Yeah. I start a lot of books what do you mean oh like reading yeah start them start them and i get get a few pages in yeah okay i'm kind of the same way yeah i'm kind of the same way so okay so you're playing basketball you're doing your boys to men thing you're singing in the choir so when you know what's the transition when do you start like doing rock and blues rock and blues uh i started doing rock and blues i got a jimmy hendrix steedy which one the ultimate experience is like a compilation oh wow yeah and it starts

off uh purple haze or whatever right um and then steve ray vaughn's texas flood yeah then i have friends you know who were wearing airwalks and vans and jean coats and had long hair. Yeah. They were playing Nirvana. Right. So I heard Kurt Cobain, you know, hit a stompbox. That was the first time I heard about pedals. Yeah.

Like a distortion pedal. Right. Yeah, yeah. So I just kind of got into it that way. A buddy of mine, Troy, we would all kind of hang out and just play music this guy aaron was a drummer and he would bring all this kind of music you know he's listening like corn and limp biscuit and all kinds of stuff like that so yeah it was just kids getting together you know sharing their stuff some of it i liked some of it i didn't but i heard it it. Yeah, and then that's when you started playing out, though, around town?

No, 20 years ago. 20 years ago, sorry. 20 years ago, me and Eve, for her 15th birthday, she decided that she wanted to go out and play at a blues bar. Eve is the one from the punk band? Eve is the one from the garage. With the video games? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, okay. Right, right, right. So she wanted to go down with the talent show band and play some blues, and we ended up putting our names down on the list, and we ended up playing T-Bone Shuffle and Pride and Joy. And from there, we just kind of started. We just kept going back,, you know, these guys,

To which club? It's a club called, it was called Babes at the time. It was like a sports bar, a baseball sports bar and stuff like that. And, so we would,

we just kept going back and these guys would introduce us to all these artists like T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, Freddie King, B.B. King, Which guys?

The guys who were running the blues jam. Yeah. Walter Higgs, he had a band called the Shuffle Pigs. So it was Walter Higgs and the Shuffle Pigs would host the blues channel. Right. So they had babes. Yeah.

And they would have other people come sit in, like Keller Brothers, Moeller Brothers, Derek O'Brien. I'm not sure if you know him. I don't know him alan haynes all these people would just come and so they would just educate us bring his cds bring his tapes yeah and say check this out kid yeah yeah i see that you're interested in this thing check it out oh by the way there's this radio show on saturday and there's this radio show on monday right check it out and you can hear all blues and you can you know figure so they saw it

in you they saw it in us you They saw it in us, you know. Yeah, Clifford Antone came and picked us up. Who's that guy? He opened up a club in 1975 in July called Antone's, and he brought all the great blues guys, muddy. 1975 he opened it? Yeah, he opened it down in Austin, and brought all these great blues musicians

and kind of opened up the culture down there to these great artists and got people up on stage and he introduced me to that world. So wait, so in 75, so he was the one that turned, like there was a, who, oh, Johnny Winner.

Johnny Winner. Yeah. Texan. Mm-hmm. But they, so that's where the Vaughn brothers started going, Johnny Winter. Yeah. Texan. Mm-hmm. So that's where the Vaughn brothers started going. They must have been pretty younger anyways. Yeah.

To Antone's, it's called? I wasn't around for all that. No, no, but in the 75s. So you think that he brought the blues to Austin in a way that made it international kind of thing. There was a blues thing in Texas, but he brought all those other cats back. I think there was a boost. I mean, we had our own kind of situation there,

our own clubs, you know, like Andrew Grill or Bobby Bluebland and people would come like that, but he kind of brought these young white folks and hippies out,

I think, and introduced them to these blues guys. And so it started this kind of scene. Anyway, I got some crazy cotton mouth. Yeah, yeah. You need some water?

I need some water. Yeah, cool. I'll go grab one. Thank you. I was struggling. So that guy, he managed you, Antone? No, he didn't manage me. He was just kind of a mentor.

Introduced me to people like Hubert Sumlin, Pintop Perkins. And how old were you? I was 15. So you met Hubert when you were 15? I met him when I was 15 years old and got up on stage with him. Really? At 15? At 15 years old. Did he show you some shit?

He didn't show me anything really, but he told me stories about playing with Howlin' Wolf and what that was like and being out on the road with him and when he left howland wolf's band to go play with muddy waters and all this you know his blues history that if you're into this stuff you know you kind of hear about from the old dude yeah yeah yeah you know to for him to invite us back and you know these young kids and he's telling us all these stories it's it's incredible it was incredible and pine top was still alive who else did you meet when you were a kid oh man that had an impact on you i would have to say you know jimmy vaughn yeah you know really had an impact doyle bramhall the second yeah i just played with him where were y'all at

we i played on a thing that we put together for a movie that I was a part of. Like we did a song together, but then I saw him over at that Roots Music Festival, or that benefit that Jimmy hosted. He's sort of an amazing player, Doyle. Yeah, he's great. Like, you know, he can just sort of, like he can get anything. Yeah. Right?

And what's that other dude, like I don't's the one of the brothers uh who's the guy that plays with dylan i i suppose charlie sexton yeah the sexton there's two a couple of them aren't there charlie will yeah but he's like a kind of a monster on the guitar too huh he's incredible yeah he's yeah he's a beast man and so you're there you're 15 now you're now did you know when you play with somebody like hubert someone and and you're 15, that's heavy. Like, I just played with those guys and I'm 55. And I've been playing my whole life, but I don't ever play with people. It was like a little, it's a little much to step up.

You know, I played with Slash and Jimmy on stepping out. And like, I'd been practicing. But like, you know, you start when you get nervous and you start to freak out. My fingers were stiff. I always mess it up somehow. But if you got a good band there, you don't notice it, right? You'll notice it, but they're taking care of you, right? They got you covered.

But were you learning someone riffs? I mean, by the time you played with Hubert, were you able to do any of those fucking wolf riffs? Yeah. Yeah, I was really getting into it. I was... Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff.

He's a weird player, too, huh? Very unique. Just dumb. He's a weird player too, huh? Very unique. Just thumb. It's all thumb? Do you play with your thumb? I kind of mix it all up. Yeah, a lot of dudes are playing with their thumbs now. Was that always the case?

Because I never even thought about playing with my fucking thumb until everybody, all these goddamn hipsters now, like Sweeney's like, yeah, I'm doing mostly my thumb now. It's like, what the fuck is that about? I didn't know that was a thing. He sounded upset about it. Well, I'm upset about it because I just figured out how to use a pick. I'm barely able to use a fucking pick.

They switch up on you now. Yeah, I use these fat picks. Look at that. That's an Ed King pick from V-Picks. I don't know how you use these things. That's what I use. I don't know. Like, I had a guitar teacher when I was a kid named Vaughn McMillan,

who we used to play with a sanded quarter. Like, literally a quarter that he had taken the edge off. And then I just always thought that hard picks were the way. Lou Reed told me I should use a medium. But then, like, for some reason, I saw Albert King's pick. He uses a big old thing like that, and maybe not as thick,

and that's just what I got to using. This feels like a rock to me. I know this, but all right. What do you use? Little mediums. Oh.

Little mediums, nothing special. But, like, the thumb thing, I guess it was because, like, those cats, like, probably

Lightning, R.L. Burnside burnside you know i think probably even magic sam i mean they're doing a thumb thing kind of like folk picking yeah but like i don't know how you get the speed how do you get the speed with your thumb and a lot of those dudes played with two fingers i quit doing that so much after i gave up on the sam's boogie slash Looking Good. So it's more about the pig. It broke you. It broke me, man. I diverged.

You canceled route. I love watching that video, man. The snare with the wallet on it. Yeah, and it's not even his guitar. That's the other thing. It's like, this wasn't even his guitar. Yeah. And he laid that out.

So you have no excuses you know yeah how did you get into all that stuff for blues yeah just music in general i don't know man it was just always like i i think like the more i think about it it was probably my uh my old man like uh he listened he really liked all these shit you know so i was always i always gravitated towards uh i was sort of obsessed with johnny be good and with chuck berry and then from there i got you know back to the blues and uh you know i i've been listening to it a long time but i i don't know why it moves me so much because i like playing it um and i and i'm constantly learning about it but i listen to all kinds of music but when i play i play that stuff it's just the most satisfying yeah so so how does it go from there so you're 15 when do you when do

you start getting like big attention did you when did you like so you played with someone there who else did you play with when you were a kid um i went out on tour with jimmy vaughn okay so and the thunderbirds no it was jimmy Vaughn and the Tilt-A-Whirl band. Was that with Billy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was Billy Pittman. Yeah.

He had Luann Barton singing with him. Oh, wow. And so I was 19, right out of high school. Yeah. And went out on tour with him, went all over the U.S. Did you have a band or were you playing with them? I did have a band. We opened up.

I had a band. Jay Moeller on drums, James Bullard on bass, Matt Farrell on keys, and we followed him around. Drove myself. Mostly Texas or all over the country? All over the country. All over the country. I followed him around. And that's when people started kind of...

Playing clubs? Playing clubs. I was too young to be in the club. So I would play and then I'd have to sit outside really while he was on yeah so and maybe sometimes they let me like hang out did you come on for to play with him for a couple tunes uh i would sometimes yeah but um no they wouldn't let me in. Yeah, were you playing originals? I was playing a couple of originals, which were basically like the same idea of what my Don't Owe You a Thing is to Sam's Boogie. Right, yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like they were... Yeah, right, right. They were like... Shitty blues songs. Homage, okay, shitty blues songs. Shitty wannabes.

Yeah, bar blues songs. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah you know 19 what do i know somebody said you don't know anything about the blues you wait till you get your heart broken so i was doing that and just doing covers do you think is that true do you think like like like because that's the weird thing about it what is the difference between shitty bar blues and the real thing you know because like it's one of those weird things i think it sort of broke the music in that you know any you know any half-asses could play it and play it good enough to get people's feet moving but you know what is the defining factor is it just a stylistic thing

do you know do you know when you changed from that do you know when you shifted could you feel the shift from i'm just doing a cover to like now I'm in it. Yeah. When you could, when the lyrics that you're singing, you can visualize what, where the actual emotion comes from. Right. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Because like I've always wondered about that, that the blues just became this, you know,'s like everybody could do it and then you start listening even

start listening to some of the sort of like white boogie bands you know i can't heat even but you know but then if you really listen to can't heat they're like they were real students of the shit those guys some of those dudes were like studying the shit and then they kind of like they get they find their own thing i think that must be it is when you make it your own yeah they gotta be your your stories you gotta be in your own shoes so when you start touring with uh jimmy like did did that change things when did how far how far along before you did the record the first record um i was making records all throughout. You were? Just kind of funding myself, doing the broke, starving artist thing by choice. Yeah.

So that was, I didn't really get into serious music business type stuff, I guess you could say. Yeah. Were you making singles, EPs? I was making singles. I was making EPs. I was drinking. I was hanging out. I was partyingPs. I was drinking. I was hanging out. I was partying.

Living the life. Living the life. I was just taking my time, not wanting to rush anything, not wanting to be sure about who I was as an artist and just as a man. I'm seeing young people who became famous and you know you also see young people who become dead right exactly so i just i was just trying to figure it out and and uh live without being in public right the whole idea that kind of

freaked me out so i was i was scared to jump i was scared to take that leap you know i was just kind of figuring it out and you i think you sort of reckon with that on the in the that song on black and uh uh was it black and blue the life we're like right yeah so you like this is what is it is? Yeah. Or is this, you know, like, do I got to not be this? Yeah, exactly. You know, and it was cool. You know, having a reputation around town and being able to move around and things. What was the reputation?

Just being a talented musician, you know. But not being a fuck up. Yeah, not being a fuck up. I mean, I was hanging out, having a good time, but, you know. Disaster. Nah. Yeah. But, well, I don't think so.

Some people might say different. That's your point of view. Yeah, I think I was all right. Fuck those people. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, just, I think, who was it? Alejandro Escovedo maybe said that Austin is like a velvet rut or something. A velvet rut.

Something like that, where it's like a comfortable place that you can make it, but it's so comfortable to stay there that you don't really need to go anywhere. Well, also. You don't want to. Right. No, I did a joke when I was there. I said, if you're a... I don't remember how I framed it, but the idea was, you know, if you're a musician in this town,

you've probably said this once or twice. Hey, I'm back. Yeah. Oh. Yo. Perfect. Oh, man. Oh, God.

So good. I'm just seeing faces. Walking back into the club like, oh, man, how was it? I'm just seeing faces walking back into the club like oh man how was it I'm back here now right you know yeah yeah couldn't you know just things didn't really work and then eventually you hear the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From a couple of different sides. That is perfect. Yeah, well, that is the thing about Austin.

So you could have done that. So how did it change for you? I mean, like, you know, you knew that. You were in the groove. I was in the groove but i was also uh out of money yeah and i didn't want to do anything else and i'm sitting in my house and i've got all this gear that i've collected and all these songs that are sitting on the shelf and I'm kind of scared to put out

because it's not blues and I'm thinking that the blues police are going to come shut me down. Oh, interesting. So that was a thing. It was kind of a thing. You were dug in with that community. Oh, yeah.

It's like comedy. You don't want to be a hack. Right. You want to be true to the shit. Right. I'm struggling. So that was like a dark night of the soul. Like, I got to do an R&B song.

I might start to, you know, got to get to dancing or something. You know what I mean? And that was a struggle. It was a struggle. And thinking back on it, it was like a was stupid how in my head i was about it well what you don't realize is that like whoever you think that the blues police are or whoever that audience is is still pretty small at that point right right but it's everything of course it's your whole life it's your world you know because you got to walk into that club and you know if you got a hit song

that you know it's got a little too much hip-hop in it or it's a little too uh too uh you know weak look at this yeah what do you think you want to try to get your manhood back can you still play your guitar exactly this fool don't even know what a shuffle is anymore right it's the shuffle that is the texas thing Yeah. Okay, so you're having that moment. So, yeah, I'm sitting in the dark. I'm lighting these candles and, you know, scraping my last little bit of herb off the table. Yeah. Going, what the fuck, man?

And Doyle Bramhall calls me and says, yo, man, Clapton is thinking about having you for this Crossroads Festival 2010 in Chicago. I was like, do not fuck with me right now. I'm fragile. I've got very little herb left. Yeah, it's fragile, man. I got one packet of ramen left.

Don't fuck with me. And so sure enough, I get the call, man. I get flown out there. Changed my life. Put me in front of 27,000 people. Did Eric call you? He did not call me. I got a letter in the mail.

A letter? I got a nice letter in the mail. Wow, that's old school. Very old school. That's great. And you had never met him? I never met him. I never met him.

I still don't really talk to him. I went up to him at the festival, and I was like, thanks for having me. He goes, thanks for coming. Yeah. I kind of walked away. I was like, all right, cool. I see how this is going to be. I respect.

I feel like he's not a big talker. Nah. Okay, so you do that and then you tour with that? You do the Crossroads thing? Yeah, I do the Crossroads thing and then some label guys come up and they say, hey, kid. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. I think we can work with you. And sure enough, just from there i got out on tour and it's been cool you know so the label guys like that what record they put out for you they put out black and blue for me black and blue that was the first big record that was the first yeah big record um andy elephant you know i gotta give up to him he believed in me and uh you know took me up to that company.

Which company? Warner Brothers. Yeah. And said, hey man, this kid's got something. And so I was able to do Black and Blue, which was cool. And then toured the fuck out of it? Toured the fuck out of it. And that was then, when did you take on Zapata?

When did he become part of the lineup? Because I think, he's a great guitar player. Yeah, Zapata became part of the lineup? Because I think he's a great guitar player. Yeah, Zapata became part of the lineup. We went to school together. We were in high school together. He was a year older than me. Did he always wear the poncho? Nah, he was a clean cut dude.

Nice polo shirts, button down, boots. Cool dude. Drove a Camaro. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was that dude. you know what I mean? But always a player? Always a player.

Yeah. Yeah, from Dallas. So, yeah, he came down, and we started kind of hanging. At first, his friends would come up to me and be like, my boy Zapata can smoke you on guitar. Like, you ain't shit. And I'm like, what? You know?

Who is this guy? Who is this guy? So I kind of stayed away from him, and he would just kind of like, you ain't shit. And I'm like, what? Who is this guy? So I kind of stayed away from him and he would just kind of like, go through the halls or whatever. And so we ended up hanging out at a party, ended up becoming close, kicking it every day. Then he's staying at my house one time

and I'm working on these demos and I got this CD that's like tucked into my CD shelf. It's like an unmarked thing that I know where it is and it's my shit that I'm not, you know, I'm still working on it. Right. He finds it somehow while I'm asleep.

I wake up in the morning. He's like, Hey man, I found your music. Your band would sound better if I was in it. That was it. And that was it? That was it. Had you played with them at all?

We played a little bit. We'd go down to these blues jams and this stuff, and we'd get up on stage together. Was there a competitive nature to it? Was there sort of like a dozens version of playing guitar? You know, like in the sense of like, you know, were you trying to show each other up? See, that always intimidated me.

Like, and also knowing that with blues, like it's not about speed, man. But, you know, what? It is? No, no, no. It's, I don't know what it is, but there is a, there is a, this competitive thing. You know, it's like, you know, if you play super fast,

I'm going to play one fucking note and it's going to mean everything. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's the challenge of the guy who can't play fast.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's a phrasing, man. It ain't the speed. Exactly. There's all this conversation.

You know, I hate guitar players, man. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it's fun. It's a competitive thing because you don't want to get left behind. Right. You know what I mean?

Sure, yeah. Even to this day, Zapato, he'll be on stage and we'll be at sound check and he'll play some new lick that he's learned. I'll be like, what was that? He'll be like, don't worry about it. And then he'd bring it out? Yeah. And then he's got something, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. Still, to this day. It's like, man, Zapata's solo was badass. Yeah. All right. That motherfucker. You got to give him something. He got to, I guess.

Poncho, man. He's got the poncho. Yeah, poncho's got to. He needs something for poncho. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but he plays, what the hell is that guitar he plays, though, right? He plays a weird guitar, right? I don't know.

He won't tell me. He won't tell me what gear he's playing. All his pedals are taped up. Oh, really? And you're playing with him every night? I have no idea what he's doing over there. Yeah. But you're happy he's there?

I'm happy he's there. I'm happy. But he was with you on that first tour? He's been with you all that time? Yeah, the whole time. The whole time. Yeah. I saw you play.

I saw you open for the Stones in San Diego. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. And then I saw you with Derek here, I think, with Tedesco. Did you open for Trucks? At the Greek, yeah. Yeah, at the Greek.

I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. I love that crew. Yeah. What a tight band. Trucks is like, he's like an orchestra leader. Yeah.

He's such a kind of a heads down, kind of doing kind of guy. But when you watch him, you're like, oh, he's running all of it. Yeah. Right? He just looks over and that's it. You know, turn around. Here's where we're stopping. I'm done now.

Yeah, exactly. He's so subtle, man. He makes me reevaluate my life. He does? Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, just he's so subtle, man. He makes me reevaluate my life. He does? Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, just, he's so cool with it. And it's like, man, I make the craziest looking faces and I'm on my, and he can just get these beautiful sounds.

And not make faces? Powerful. And he just, just standing there. He's like, he's like one of those, he's a savant. You know, like it was, you know, He's one of those guys where somehow or another, he was just born with all the licks in his head. He just had to find them. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Other people have to learn them. They were already in his wiring. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It was interesting. I talked to him.

That whole struggle to not be, to be able to play like he played when he was like 10, and then be you know brought on stage and shown to the world at that age with what he could do like he had to fight the freak thing like he didn't want to just be this weird little like watch the little guy do this like he had to after all that he had to actually make it real right and not be some sort of dog and pony show wow i didn't think about that yeah man it's like they're like we're gonna bring out this kid that's gonna blow you away and like a lot

of times i think those kids that are they just end up like no yeah that was me when i was seven i work on cars now i don't really do it you know what i mean like right right people who you know forced to take piano lessons and don't want to get near a piano type of thing? Well, more so like they just have this natural ability and they get blown out early because everyone thinks it's some sort of freak show. And then like, you know, they can't live up to it. How do you make that real? How do you follow up being able to do, you know,

Dwayne Allman solos when you're 10 to become your own dude? How is it not a gimmick? That's the real, you know what I mean? Yeah, I got you. Yeah. I got you. But he certainly took it way out there. Yeah.

He seems to be doing all right. Oh, he's great. Yeah. When you play with guys like that, you played with Clapton, right? Yeah. You opened for them? Yes.

But you didn't talk much to him? No, I'd stay out the way. Yeah. But when you share a stage with those guys and you trade licks with them like you know does that make you a better player do you are you more aware of it or do you just are you can you can you just relax into that no there's i'm not relaxed at all i'm not relaxed at all i walk pat i think i felt that about you i think that was one of the reasons where i'm like he seems pretty intense a little hard on himself, this guy.

He's not quite having fun up there, but luckily he's playing blues. That's a great observation. It's embarrassing, but it's the truth. Jimmy Vaughn, he'll come up on stage, we'll play together, and he'll look at my pedal board and he'll be like, what the fuck is all that? Right. You know? Play on stage with Clapton, done with the finale.

Yeah. And he'll be like, oh, you like reverb, don't you? Oh, no. Fuck. You know? It messes with me. So the next gig, I'm like, no reverb. No pedals.

No pedals. No pedals. I'm going to play clean like Robert Cray for the rest of the time. Exactly. Right into the amp. So no, there's no settling into that.

I'm like, man, I'm just, I'm ready to do my own shit. Oh, the slight dig. Yeah, exactly.

You like reverb, don't you? Yeah, exactly. You know, I broke my hand last year doing some dumb shit, and I went up, the first gig I played was Love Rocks in New York,

and I'm playing with Keith Richards and Robert Gray, and I've got my hand in a cast, and I'm trying to figure it out, and I come straight from the doctor in this new thing. You probably sounded exactly like Keith. Just clomping around on the rhythm. Yeah, but he goes, he says to me, he goes, after the first take, he goes, you're just here for the pictures, aren't you? I was like, fuck. So these experiences, people are like, oh, how are they?

They come with these jabs and make me reevaluate my whole thing. Oh, man. Just here for the pictures. It's rough out here. I mean, is it the same way with you guys in the comedy stuff? Sure. I mean, I don't know that we, yeah, it's definitely the same way. You know, but in terms of, like, jokes and stuff, we're not, yeah.

The problem is that compliments are rare. And when they do happen, they always come with, they always take a little. They give, but they take a little. Hey, I was working on a bit like that. Yours is funny. You know? I got a bit that's kind of like that, it's not the same i like yours i'm like what the fuck yeah but you just got to know when you hit it like as you get older i think you know

but if you're hard on yourself it's you always there's always gonna be one dude where you're sort of like yeah why can't i just make it as easy as that but you don't know what the hell they're going through but these these old guys, I mean, that's the weird thing about old guys is that they're just, they're not going to get out of the way. You know,

they're just not going to, you know what I mean? And with that world, because that guitar world, certainly how music has changed, the blues guitar world is a smaller world. It was always

sort of a small world. So you got this handful of old guys that are still hanging on. And then there's only a few young guys that even want to fucking do it anyways right like you're it you're the guy now right so there's a lot of pressure on you but these old guys are going to be they don't they don't think in terms of like yeah you think like when you think about the real tradition of it that there's a tradition of this thing that should be carried on you know like somewhere along the line i don't, that there's a tradition of this thing that should be carried on.

You know, like, somewhere along the line, I don't know if it's with the white dudes, but somewhere that stopped and became like, what the fuck does this guy think he is? You know? Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, you know, it's like whatever the tradition was, you know, it's not, you know, it kind of, because you can really see it with certain dudes and you can definitely see it in you but like it i it should be a completely supportive place because like this music is barely alive you fuckers you know like why don't you just why don't we all get on board and keep trying to we're trying to make a living here right yeah fan the flame yeah why not do you find that like how like how do your records how'd that record sell how black and blue do um it did all right you know i

honestly i don't really pay that much attention to really the numbers and stuff like that as long as they make you make i don't know specifics but just as long as they let you make another one yeah yeah as long as they call me back and go, hey, it's time for another one. But it seems to me that this record is very honest and you take on some shit. A little bit. Race, love, things.

And there's a lot of textures to the songs. You do some R&B stuff. You do some old school R&B. You do some straight up blues. And then you do, you know, even moving towards R&B hip hop a little, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so like it's a well-versed record.

But it seems like, you know, that really put you on the map were those live records, right? Yeah, the live records really did that for me. Because it still seems that like, you you know there's enough people out there looking for a guitar hero you know of a certain type yeah that you know they want you know what i mean and you gotta you must feel the pressure like well i gotta do that like that's the extension of that blues thing it's like i gotta i gotta go out there and lay this shit yeah but you know what i i've been

in my comments like lately on social media yeah you know and uh i saw something i said i thought this guy was supposed to say rock blues guess not oh and it didn't hurt my feelings as bad as i thought it was oh good so i'm cool you know what i I mean? Like, I don't feel any. What if there had been three? Maybe a little bit more. You know what I mean? I might have started to tear up. But, I mean, pressure to do what, man? Like, fuck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that serious. Right, right. It's really not that serious. And who are those fucking dudes? The worst thing about those dudes and those kind of comments is that it plays into uh that the same feeling you know when you're with just a little bit of herb like like i can't i can't let these fucking old angry bitter motherfuckers who are back

you know dictate you, but there's still you know, there's still something that wants to please those dudes, right? Because somehow or another we get it twisted in our head that those are the guys with integrity. It's like, what else have they got? They're fucking, you know, bitter. They do one thing. You know, is that integrity?

Did they even try to do the other thing? I don't think so. But those are the guys whose approval we need so desperately. Right? Right. So right. Thanks for breaking that down. I'm here to help you, pal.

I appreciate it. I didn't know I needed this like that. But like, so, okay, so this record just came out. Yeah. And you're touring with, it's what, This Land it's called, right? This Land is what it's called, yeah. And now, did you picture this as a whole piece? I mean, like, when you say something, when you call something This Land and you're dealing

with the stuff you're dealing on there, when these songs came together, do you think in terms of an album, or do you think in terms of a song, really? I think it's in terms of a song. I'm just making a song to make a song. Yeah. I don't think about it that much. I just do it, man. It's when the people who are trying to make this thing move come in with their thoughts

and opinions. Maybe not this one. How about this one? Yeah. This one's got a hook. This'll be the single. Whatever, man. You know, yeah, you know, it's like I didn't pick

the single, I didn't pick, you know, the title of the, you know, I was trying to figure this out. You didn't? No, it was, you know, there was like deadlines, you know. Right. I'm busy, I got stuff to do and, you know, family and stuff. It's like, hey, we got to put this out now.

We got to do this, we got to do this. Yeah, yeah. I'm dealing with you. Call it what you want, man. I don't give a fuck. Really? Yeah, for this one, you know, at that particular time where I was,

you know, it was like, you know, we've got these deadlines and what are you going to call it?'s like we need an answer tomorrow they're trying to it's like i don't know i just got out of the studio i'm trying to sit back and figure out what i did you know let me breathe and and understand what it is yeah yeah it's like when you're writing or creating yeah before you come in and tell me how to move like yeah back the fuck up yeah let me see how it all fits together I just I just did the thing yeah, but we gotta move this. I didn't call it. What'd you want?

You know were you mad? No, no, I was I wasn't mad. It was you know, I wasn't mad at all It was just like I Can't think yeah, yeah, yeah, and the pressure is making me a little bit crazy. Right. So you guys can do it. Yeah, that's how it worked for this one. But, like, there's, like, I mean, you seem to cover, you know, you took on a lot of shit here. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on. I mean, it's just, like, people go through shit in their life.

You know what I mean? How long did it take you to write all this stuff? It took me a couple years, I think. Yeah? In between, you know, life happened

and touring. We toured so much. And you got married and shit. Got married and shit. Is that at the same time? Babies and stuff. Yeah,

I make babies and children. You made two? How many? I got two. I got two little ones. But yeah, so it just seems like it works out

that I make a record and then a child is coming. Yeah. It's a lot. Same time? Everything hits at once. Both born at the same time? The kid and the record? Yeah, exactly.

Pretty much. So where are you playing next? Where does it go from here? Where does it go from here? We start up on tour. We're hitting Miami. We go all over the US, we're going to Australia. We're doing Europe, we're doing Fuji Rock.

What's that? Oh yeah. Yeah. And how you drawing, pretty good? How we what? You selling tickets? We're doing all right. For the most part, I think we're selling out.

That's great. It's crazy. That's great. And people are liking the new record they're loving it that's great yeah they're loving it's it's been good and when you look out the audience who are you seeing my primarily just is it pretty eclectic pretty uh diverse or is it yeah it's it's becoming more diverse yeah you know in the beginning it was you know because it was supposed to i was supposed to be this rock blue savior guitar hero man there's a lot yeah you know in the beginning it was you know because it was supposed to be this rock

blues savior guitar hero man there's a lot of you know Hendrix t-shirts and ponytails

and you know yeah standing there with their arms crossed like I can do it better than this asshole you know

so it's kind of changed up and I see a lot of everybody it's cool man that music stuff can do that yeah you know like well you do um it's i see a lot of everybody it's cool man that the music stuff can do that yeah you know like well you do too it's like well we're limited but yeah but no music's magic you know comedy yeah you can be the clown's good for a few years oh man i don't think so i think it's

it's heavier than that and and much more of a we need that shit oh yeah yeah we need both yeah certainly we got to hold the line you know it's up to the musicians the comics and the fucking journalists at this point because everything else is falling apart yeah we got to team up yeah you got to team up and make sure humanity is represented exactly yeah push back exactly all right buddy we'll have a great tour, man. Thank you. What are you doing? Are you touring?

What do you got? I am. I'm going to go. Well, I'm finishing up shooting this show I'm on, and then, like, yeah, I'm going to do some clubs. I'll be out in Texas at some point. I'll do Dallas, Houston, and I'll do Austin. And, yeah, I'm going to do some clubs, and I'm going to do some theaters, and I'm going

to go to the UK for a few dates, and I'm going to shoot a special in the fall. That's the plan. Awesome. Right now, I'm going to do some clubs, and I'm going to do some theaters, and I'm going to go to the UK for a few dates, and I'm going to shoot a special in the fall. That's the plan. Awesome. Right now I'm building the hour. Got you. Yeah, building the thing. I'm doing that Sunday.

Like tomorrow night, Sunday night, so the last few Sundays I've been doing this little theater. Like, see, it's 200, and I just fucking try to figure it out. You got you. Yeah, that's how I jam. I understand that. All right. I feel you. Good talking to you. Yeah, that's how I jam. I understand that. All right. I feel you. Good talking to you.

Likewise. That's it. That's me and Gary Clark Jr. I like talking to guitar players. I was pretty excited, apparently. I had a lot, you know, I felt like I did a lot of talking on that one. And also, as I mentioned before, Gary's new album is This Land. That's available wherever you want to get your records or your sounds or your things that you put in your

ears uh go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all those new tour dates i brought up you can still send emails you know uh asking questions or saying things about our thousandth episode or about the entire arc of our show and uh yeah i'll play a little guitar now i will play a little guitar gary didn't but i willラララ・・・ Boomer lives! of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know, we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

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