So, I danced and I also studied classical piano. They had these summer school programs where you studied piano when school was out. I walked by this room and I still remember it to this day. I remember the color of the floors and the walls, the heat and the people. It`s just clear as a bell. Just like the first time I had my first Coca Cola. It`s like it was outstanding. Anyway, there were these guys in there all lined up playing these snare drums, because that`s all you got in the beginning. I looked in that room and it just hit me. “I could do that. I could do that.” That was it. I quit dancing and I quit playing piano. The school where they had that, there happened to be a janitor who used to play drums and he had this real old crappy drum set; just a snare drum, a bass drum and a high hat. Just real trashy stuff. So I talked my Grandmother into buying it. It was Fifty Dollars. It was like, (in a whisper) “Fifty Bucks!” It was a lot of bread. “Well, you quit dancing, you quit piano…” I was kind of different from them, I guess so they were like, “Well, let`s try it. He`s been good at what he has done.” So they bought this drum set when I was twelve. So that made it 1958 and by the time I was sixteen I was earning money. I was playing in little bars and back then it was a lot cooler to do stuff. People weren`t as uptight as long as you didn`t drink. The guys at the door would have flash lights and if the ABC, what`s your alcoholic beverage control people in Texas?
TABC
These people were like TABC and called ABC, Alcoholic Beverage Control. All they wanted in those small towns was, “Give us some money and we won`t bother you.” But when they`d come in they would flash the flashlight and I`d run off the stage and hide until they got paid off. That went on for quite a few years. That was 1960 when I actually started playing and getting paid and since then I`ve only done a few other things. Because sometimes I get blocked, you know just like fed up - but not really fed up. My creativity gets blocked.
The artist`s slump?
Yeah, I just get really in a funk and I can`t think of anything good to play. You just get real despondent, and that happens. It takes fourteen or fifteen years and I`ll take a real stupid day job. After a couple of months of that, it`s kind of refreshing to do something I know nothing about. Do a job and realize, you know, that pretty soon I`ll start listening to music again and I know that pretty soon I`m going to quit my little job and start playing again. It`s happened two or three times over the past forty five years of playing. Basically, I`ve just floated through life playing.
You have played with quite a few people.
I can`t hold a steady job.
I don`t know that much about Soul Hat.
Soul Hat was a very fun band for me. It was real rejuvenating. That would have been 1991, so I was in my late 40`s. I`d been touring the United States, Europe and Canada and so forth and so on since about 1968. So it`s like after you`ve seen so much of that stuff, you tend to get somewhat jaded. “Yeah, yeah. There it is again. Yeah, yeah. There`s Mt. Fuji again.” So working with these guys, they were still in college. They couldn`t tour because they were still going to school. The band became phenomenally popular in Austin. Just lines down the street to see this band play. You know it`s one of those deals where the music and the people in the band connected. The audience liked it and it was just huge. So they started touring, got record deals. The first tour for those guys was great because they had never seen any of that stuff. They had never traveled out of Texas. So going to Colorado, going to New York for the first time it was like taking a bunch of young nubiles into the jungle. You know, so everything became brand new because I was seeing it from a fresh perspective. It was really great. The music that they wrote in the very beginning on the first several albums was just great stuff. I really liked them.
Naturally as success comes along, some people don`t understand. They think that it becomes easier as you go up, but they don`t realize that it gets harder and more difficult. The air is more rarified at higher levels. It`s a lot more work, a lot more business. So some people in the group think, “Yeah, once you make it then you just relax. You don`t do anything.”
That explains the demise of a lot of bands.
Yeah, bands never explode. They always implode on themselves. You never see a band that explodes. They`re always internal and it always implodes. You`ve always got the person that has a fear of success. You`ve always got the pessimist. I mean you`ve got all these things. Then you`ve got the people that just don`t want to work. I have a lot of respect for the people (I don`t care for their music but I understand what they have done to achieve and hold on to their place) like the Madonna`s and the Prince`s. To do what they have done and to hold on to that position, it`s absolutely amazing. It`s nothing but work.
You have played and recorded with a lot of other people.
I`ve been just so fortunate. I just don`t know how it happens. I get real sets of coincidences that I end up playing with some really great bands and recording and it`s just been great.
TABC
These people were like TABC and called ABC, Alcoholic Beverage Control. All they wanted in those small towns was, “Give us some money and we won`t bother you.” But when they`d come in they would flash the flashlight and I`d run off the stage and hide until they got paid off. That went on for quite a few years. That was 1960 when I actually started playing and getting paid and since then I`ve only done a few other things. Because sometimes I get blocked, you know just like fed up -
The artist`s slump?
Yeah, I just get really in a funk and I can`t think of anything good to play. You just get real despondent, and that happens. It takes fourteen or fifteen years and I`ll take a real stupid day job. After a couple of months of that, it`s kind of refreshing to do something I know nothing about. Do a job and realize, you know, that pretty soon I`ll start listening to music again and I know that pretty soon I`m going to quit my little job and start playing again. It`s happened two or three times over the past forty five years of playing. Basically, I`ve just floated through life playing.
You have played with quite a few people.
I can`t hold a steady job.
I don`t know that much about Soul Hat.
Soul Hat was a very fun band for me. It was real rejuvenating. That would have been 1991, so I was in my late 40`s. I`d been touring the United States, Europe and Canada and so forth and so on since about 1968. So it`s like after you`ve seen so much of that stuff, you tend to get somewhat jaded. “Yeah, yeah. There it is again. Yeah, yeah. There`s Mt. Fuji again.” So working with these guys, they were still in college. They couldn`t tour because they were still going to school. The band became phenomenally popular in Austin. Just lines down the street to see this band play. You know it`s one of those deals where the music and the people in the band connected. The audience liked it and it was just huge. So they started touring, got record deals. The first tour for those guys was great because they had never seen any of that stuff. They had never traveled out of Texas. So going to Colorado, going to New York for the first time it was like taking a bunch of young nubiles into the jungle. You know, so everything became brand new because I was seeing it from a fresh perspective. It was really great. The music that they wrote in the very beginning on the first several albums was just great stuff. I really liked them.
Naturally as success comes along, some people don`t understand. They think that it becomes easier as you go up, but they don`t realize that it gets harder and more difficult. The air is more rarified at higher levels. It`s a lot more work, a lot more business. So some people in the group think, “Yeah, once you make it then you just relax. You don`t do anything.”
That explains the demise of a lot of bands.
Yeah, bands never explode. They always implode on themselves. You never see a band that explodes. They`re always internal and it always implodes. You`ve always got the person that has a fear of success. You`ve always got the pessimist. I mean you`ve got all these things. Then you`ve got the people that just don`t want to work. I have a lot of respect for the people (I don`t care for their music but I understand what they have done to achieve and hold on to their place) like the Madonna`s and the Prince`s. To do what they have done and to hold on to that position, it`s absolutely amazing. It`s nothing but work.
You have played and recorded with a lot of other people.
I`ve been just so fortunate. I just don`t know how it happens. I get real sets of coincidences that I end up playing with some really great bands and recording and it`s just been great.
