G Love

0:03All right sitting here at the house of blues sunset Boulevard, Nellie So I love this city I just got here about a week and a half ago And I'm digging there's just this vibe to this city when you when you're just driving around the sun's out Yeah, do you feel the same way when you come here? Yeah, I do I love it here and there's a lot of pretty things to look at and A lot of fun places to go and you know, it's exciting It's an exciting as for sure. It's a very exciting town comes here Cool, I start the show up with song blues music and this song blues music we kind of actually kind of name drop a lot of my influences You know Albrecans and book away and Bob Marley Rita Franklin Bob Dylan Lead belly so I kind of talk up this this song's kind of like about why we play music and

0:53and From like the musical influence aside to just like the vibe that we're trying to get across so if you kind of broke down a lot of the lyrics a lot of it's like Kind of code, I guess but a lot of it just has to do it little Snapshots in my life, you know a lot of influence from hip-hop and the way you sing your vocals I mean, there's there's a slick rig trip. What's on slick rig track the track you Friday night Friday night you got that slick rig thing going down Stay to hip-hop right now Bling in this money crap Well, you know I mean for one thing like I do like a lot of the

1:39Hip-hop out there But I mean, you know to me, it's not as like it's not as special as like You know the low-end theory or daylight souls three feet high and rising or like Cypress Hills first record Yeah, all that stuff like from the late 80s and early 90s was kind of what I thought hip-hop was, you know, just really like so Happening and and now it's like definitely really happening too, but it's just in a different way and as far as like songs like Yeah, Eminem's pretty interesting because he he really like Gets away with talking about some really really personal stuff Which I think is really cool that he can talk about his family and just and all the real personal stuff He's going through and I admire that and it's also really heavy stuff to talk about and then you know a lot of the air stuff is just I

2:32Don't know I guess They guess subject-wise. It's not there's not a lot of originality even on the big hits, you know whether it's like even if it's people like big E and 50 cent and JZ and stuff like that like yeah, they're their lyrics are dope and they're They're they're they're the most insane MCs, but like You know like to me like KRS one was just Will really was such a poet and the way? That he phrased his sentences and in a way that he the subject matter of what he was talking about And same thing with Q-tip and everybody and and and it was just more I don't know man It just somehow is like more creative and Snoop Dogg is the same way. I feel like he's really creative as well and

3:18They're not afraid of like Kind of having fun with it and saying kind of like silly stuff, but it still comes off really hard and real but whereas a lot of MCs yeah, they're definitely clever and they got mad skills, but and I like it, but I'm saying it doesn't like it doesn't I can't really I Just don't feel like they're they're saying as much as the people I was talking about really Staying some Snoop Dogg over blues music. What's my name? Where's really well? Oh, yeah, that's cool Talked with the hip-hop want to play a song back at the bus. You're talking about cool kids on it When I just saw the title earlier today, I was just thinking black people in the 60s in the back of the bus Yeah, I think about that sometimes there was that when you wrote the song now

4:05But I think about that sometimes when I'm singing that track the same thing like how right in the back of the day it was You didn't want us to sit in the back of the bus or that's where they made black people sitting back at the bus So yes, so that was like that was I Mean that didn't enter my thoughts at all when I was making this song and that songs is kind of like Just a straight up, you know, you love track just you know kind of You know bumps bumping bumping a little groove about some Funny stuff that I know everybody can relate to because you know just like most kids probably did ride a bus to school. Yeah, you know so You know it's just like you think about all the crazy stuff that happened on your bus when you were a kid

4:55That's why I wrote the song because I just have a lot of like crazy bus memories from grammar school, you know and it was and then you know you go on like the sixth grade trip or whatever and you get in the back of the Bus and try to make out with the girl you want on the clash heard and play spin the bottle and then like nowadays The back of the buses where you know on the tour bus the back of the bus like the back lounge, you know I mean so, you know, you can only imagine what goes on in the back Yeah, man You got extra special sauce on this tour second drum kit and keys. Yeah, why don't you usually to that way? Well, I don't know. I mean well for us. We've always stuck with the trio kind of through thick and thin Jim Jeff and I and

5:42That's just how we started and certainly like easiest for us to just maintain that because we have a pretty huge repertoire and Can go so many different directions, but you know basically, you know lately I've been You know honestly the week after we toured on the hustle for about a year and a half You know we just you know sometimes you're getting a little creative rot and we were getting into a little creative stagnation on stage and it just felt like you know what? We're not having fun like we should be having and so let's bring some more and some more musicians out here that are That we can enjoy their music and they can enjoy what we do and and that and that will be a creative

6:28Boost and and it's it's work that we've been having great shows and a great time in it and it's great because I get to because there's keyboard in and I get to I get to like MC a little bit more and Have a real thick rhythm section behind me and not worry about playing guitar You know I love playing my guitar myself, but like it's it's a lot of work for me playing harmonica and guitar and vocals on that long this way I get to You know work it in a different way and work the crowd in a different way and I get to just express myself a little differently because I have that That little extra thing in the back and plus a lot of our records You know we overdub and they have percussion on them and more background vocals and keyboards So in a way, it's like it's great for the fans to hear a lot of those tracks

7:15like they hear him on the record with the keyboard and We got a great group of musicians out and it's just been a lot of fun. You having more fun. Oh, yeah, it's tour's been We've had five. Oh, we've done five six shows so far and we had we've had great shows and You know it's been a lot fun. So I'm really looking forward to tonight at the house of blue should be There's one a bigger like, you know Not size wise necessarily, but just you know playing in Hollywood's always a You know, but the funny thing is like, you know for us It's like a lot of times you come to house blues and it'll be like a real industry attended show, you know, but yeah Tonight man, you see like the our shows at the house blues are like, you know for one thing. It's Friday night Isn't no, it's Thursday. Okay, so whatever is this Thursday night, but it's just like

8:05Yeah, it's not an instrument these people come out here and they just like to have a good time. So that's what we'll be that's what we'll be giving them cool Love video got a video for love coming out. Yeah, well, we'll shot yet. Yeah. No, it's done. It's been done for a while. We've kind of been I'm Holding off To try and get some kind of iTunes Thing launched with it, but I don't know the status of all that but uh Yeah, it's a great video. We we if you saw our Coca-Cola commercial in the lunch break of the second day of Coca-Cola shoot we Emma Malloy who's the director we um We had some extra film that we weren't using and we shot this video Like an hour and it's great I'm basically riding around on a bike that had a camera mounted to the front of it with these headphones on

8:53I'm listening to the track. So that's what the video most is just me You see me singing along to myself with the headphones while I'm riding the bike through like this neighborhood in Philadelphia called south Philadelphia and then there's like some cool like footage of just the city and the people and shit And it was a lot of fun. It was it's one of those things that it's like I think it's one of my best videos ever and it was It's just one of those things that it just we just guerilla rated it and it came out great So it's me hard to top booty call for me. I know videos sick I think this is way cooler than video call that was cool, but this one's like way cooler than that. I think Working on a new record. I heard you were just recording something here in the dressing room Yeah, I was just recording for Donovan franking rotters record. I just plan on a monica track Oh really? There's new tunes. Yeah, so what do you do to send you like a

9:40The basic the backing track of it. You're just going up and stuff. Yeah. Yeah these days. It's you know For better or for worse, you know, you know, you can just Get a lot worked on without being with the people that are you're doing all it so I mean it really works That good for a lot of musicians. I eat like on our record They're working on right now. I did a track with Jack Johnson and So i'm called rainbow. We we recut it from my record and you know jack so in hawai. I'm in Philly. It's like it's kind of It's kind of crazy to fly like That far when you can just send the tracks to somebody because you know, you're gonna get the vibe on it and Especially if it's an overdub any half, you know, which it was You know, I got no problem doing it like that. Um You know, basically just as a musician to be just kind of jammed by yourself as opposed to with the group

10:29Well, yeah, but I mean you have to understand like that track they already cut I wasn't at the live cutting session So it's not like I would have done the same thing On it whether they were all here or not like it's already cut. I would just be in the vocal booth playing harmonica in the studio so Is that where you do harmonica stuff in the vocal booth? Not like the big band room. Oh, well you can do where I mean I do wherever but I'm just I mean I just did it in the dressing room to have some blues right now, but you know like, you know, we got great Equipment so we can basically do anything anywhere and Yeah, I think it's cool. I I don't I don't see any problem with it and it's just it's It just shows you like one of the advantages of uh modern are they ready down there? Said you're working on a new record. Yeah, I'm assuming all the brush fire people are on it

11:15I heard Amos Liebens said they don't like yeah a lot of cool people are on it. Um, the list is right Yeah, the list is pretty amazing. Amos Lee Jack Johnson, Tristan Prettyman, Leo Nocintelli from the meters David Hidalgo and Steve Berlin, Ben Harper, Mark Bursard, the fact that black elicious that's pending Yes, Steve, Steve Molytes from Particle plays keyboard on a bunch of stuff and There's a lot of great players, so it's really been cool when we can expect to hear it Well, I think we're playing on finishing it by March. So you know Which in my August September you gonna be doing another big brush fire tour this summer? No, I don't think Jack's touring this summer

12:01But I don't see that happening. Oh, let's do that. Okay. How'd you hook up with Jack? Originally In LA we met when I was recording my philadelphia onick record a mutual friend introduced us and We jammed out after we went for a surf and uh And then uh I said, uh, yeah, it does a good song about rodeo clowns and could I cut it and He said, okay, well, we do it together. So we did together For my philadelphia onick record and then after that, um, you know the rest is kind of history You played woodstock. Yeah, the vibe wasn't that cool there as compared to the first one I mean obviously it wasn't gonna be there, but I heard you didn't enjoy this much as Yeah, no, I mean it was just this is a weird Place to play for us because one thing like you know, we we we kind of like do best in

12:48A club atmosphere or at least like a festival atmosphere where? Where it's a festival that's kind of in our realm of music whereas, um You know woodstock was definitely like a real pop Kind of almost hard rock festival here like with limpisk it Is that a break stuff and I'm destroying everything. Yeah, so that was like That was uh Yeah, it was telling you know, we played good But it was just like it was 150,000 people back on this field and the vibe was just not that happening like on the Crowd and people were just like rambunctious and it was just kind of about everything but the music Which obviously it was because it ended up in flames. So yeah, obviously there was like Some some vibes there that weren't that happening so it was

13:37Even though it was like really I'm really proud to have been a part of it I got my gold record from you know being on the live CD and everything that's pretty cool But it's just like you know, honestly the experience itself was not one of Although it was a important career Um, you know A career a career point for me. It wasn't a musical highlight at all, you know, but it was Yeah, you would have been better at the first one Right. Well, you mean in the 60s. Yeah, yeah, you're probably It's too bad. You think we're gonna have another one another festival at least a festival like the one in the 60s like a cool just Relax festival. Well, we there are now. I mean well the thing is that like

14:24You know for one thing in Europe they do huge festivals like that every summer all over the European continent like the last umbary and park pop and stuff like that and put um you know like uh Now we do have that with bomb rue and the Austin city limous festival and there's a bunch of very There's a bunch of other festivals that are coming up as well like the line line of the era of uh, Langarada festival in Florida and you know, there's a a bunch of cool festivals like that that are You know, bonner is 80,000 people so as uh The pacl might be even bigger than me. So there's there are some big big festivals that are happening there They do go off pretty much without a hitch, you know, well-known

15:10With the fans and their artists are taking care of when it's a great experience I remember I was talking to Richie Haven's a couple months back And he was telling me about how at the festival bands used to jam together And you just used to be like a big full circle between all the bands And you know, there was no difference between crowd and bands and the audience and everything was all just a big jam session kind of Is it like that for you? I mean, I kind of think it is it is still like that for me. I mean, I'm very accessible Person, you know like um We do We do have a lot of musician friends and Actually, you know now this one I'm a career really I'm friends with a lot of Musicians, you know that um that like, you know, it's it's not just I mean, we're yeah Everyone's so busy, but

15:56It's pretty cool like, you know, my now my peer group has gotten pretty big in the Music industry like of course jacks one of my buddies and he's one of the biggest in the industry Yeah, I mean and I know everybody you know like I know Dave Matthews and I wouldn't I mean, he were friends But we're not like clothes like he's not really But I'm saying like it's they're all my peers So there's a lot of like mutual respect and And um musical camaraderie and there's a big family of us, you know like in the list is huge of Of people and and I was just thinking about their day. Just like when I was I was listening to a tribe called class here I was remembering how cool Q-tip was like we opened up from the first time to this college. We did a bunch of shows with them and no way There's a matter like knocking on their dressing room door

16:44And we kind of had a tough night because the crowd was not Like a lot of the hip-hop people Just didn't really want to hear three white dudes up there doing the thing But cute. I went backstage to Q2 was like yo I'm over here. I said he's like young fan fan and and he was like one of my idol He's like I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I was like are you serious? He was like you guys did you? You want to do your thing cool cool It was cool and like same thing with like a lot of rappers like KRS one and A lot of blues people like dr. John and john hammond and then a lot of my peers like jack and benn and Donovan and a lot of us are coming up and I think robert rando is going to come out to the show tonight and oh yeah And there's a rumor that billy gibbons from zeezy top might come down. So it's pretty cool to like

17:31Think that You know we get respect from a lot of people that we respect and that feels good Yeah, definitely if you see them on the crowd you come up on stage placement guitar Want me to probably I mean if those people were here, they'll probably backstage and he has so yeah Yeah, I mean I told robert to bring us guitar around. I mean the funny like me and robert are pretty tight Like we like to party together But uh, we haven't actually ever jammed together like every time we go we hang we're just like at partying and uh So tonight I was like dude, you gotta bring your axe down. You got it sit in You haven't even ever made music That's great You got the whole thing right? Yeah, I know I yeah Right, you know I'm saying um, yeah, I should get robert on just it hasn't like the timing Let's pick another song. What do you want?

18:17Let's play um Another track from the hustle Don't drop it questions five quick questions one more answer. I pod or cds iPod lennander mccerny or records I prefer vinyl too, but everyone's like Yeah, yeah, I pause with the bomb. Um, my name is mccerny. Um Man, I don't know man You know pardon me wants to say lennon, but but then again, maybe It's almost my carding for me like Equal Both

19:02Song you've written your most proud of Um That's that's loaded. I don't know maybe um Shut that's tough I'm trying to think I saw him that I've recently put out that I was really proud of What's your daughter's favorite? I like I mean that's one that that love is out right now. I'm pretty proud of that track because I wrote that someone I was 16 and Just came out and now it's like the current signal for us. Uh, it's just pretty cool because it's it's an old song like that and It's still around and it's the singles. It's like that's crazy. I wrote it in high school and That means it's a good song if it keeps coming back around but yeah

19:52You know cold beverage is my biggest like Hit probably I'm pretty proud of fucking having stumbled upon that shit Because that just was like I was waiting for my car To give my breaks to get fixed in my 63 Dodge Dart and I just wrote down his lyrics on the side of a newspaper and then like I'm still singing those lyrics like, you know 10 years later. That's crazy man. And one word G love Um Lues cool. Thank you so much. Cool once on close out. What do you want here? Um, how about uh How about um This ain't living