Courtesy of Derek Trucks

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH DEREK TRUCKS


First thing that came to my mind when I saw the cover of Derek Trucks' new Columbia release, Joyful Noise, was not another Jonny Lang. Once the CD was turning in my car, I was rudely awakened. The band burns. Really. The tracks are all uniquely their own and throughout, the playing is above par. Solomon Burke's stuff is great and Trucks can play a guitar. On the road, Trucks and I sat down for a one on one. Just driving in from God knows where to some town in Virginia, Trucks spoke earnestly about his music, his record, and his baby boy, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

DEREK TRUCKS: It was pretty random for me. I got a guitar and started playing away at it. It's just been kind of nature taking its course.


FJ: Influences?

DEREK TRUCKS: My earliest influences were people like Elmore James and Duane Allman, the electric slide players. From there it was Howlin' Wolf, Bobby Bland, and then Coltrane, Miles, Sun Ra and then after that it gets pretty vast.


FJ: Sun Ra and Trane are outside the mainstream of what is conventional jazz.

DEREK TRUCKS: Yeah, it was just the intensity of their playing and the dedication they had to the music itself and nothing more. It wasn't about careers or selling an image or anything like that. They lived the lifestyle and they meant it. It was twenty-four, seven with those guys. Sun Ra had his whole thing, his whole Arkestra was almost a cult like thing, but they believed it a hundred percent and gave everything they had to it. I think it was just that dedication and that musical search that they placed a lot of weight into the music itself and really thought that it could change things.


FJ: Favorite Trane or Sun Ra?

DEREK TRUCKS: There's a few. Live at Birdland and A Love Supreme are the Coltrane records. Those two are amazing. Sun Ra, there is one called Nuclear War (reissued on Atavistic) and another one called Interstellar Low Ways (coupled with Visits Planet Earth reissued on Evidence) that are pretty awesome.


FJ: Critics will try and pigeonhole your Columbia debut, Joyful Noise. Let's do them one better. You describe it.

DEREK TRUCKS: It's tough, but I guess it is world/soul music. I would guess because it's blues and jazz and Latin music, but it's all roots. World roots music or world/soul music. We did the basic tracks in about ten days, maybe eight to ten days. We did a few extra tracks, the ones with Solomon and Ruben Blades singing in LA in an extra two days. It was really only a few weeks all together.


FJ: You have soul master Solomon Burke on the record. He's been having a cool resurgence of late.

DEREK TRUCKS: Yeah, man. I had met him briefly, but we had never worked together. The engineer that did our record had just finished Solomon's record and he had been playing us some tracks in the studio and the light bulb went off and I said to call Solomon and see if he'll come in. He came in the studio a few days later and he was so amazing to work with and obviously, his talents speak for itself. He is one of the remaining soul legends. He's like Otis Redding or one of those guys. There's only a few left. Out of all the soul singers left from that period, I don't think anyone is doing it better than Solomon is. I'm definitely happy that he is starting to get his name back out there and people are starting to realize who he is and that he's still around. He's definitely a treasure that way. I consider myself to have pretty open ears and kind of know a lot about music history and I wasn't that familiar with him until maybe two years ago when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's a pretty underground figure that way, which is strange to me. Usually singers aren't the ones that get swept under the carpet. It is instrumentalists that go unnoticed. Somehow he made it under the radar as far as the masses go.


FJ: He isn't dating Pamela Anderson or J Lo.

DEREK TRUCKS: I think the record he just released (Don't Give Up on Me) will change that a lot because there's some amazing tunes on that. I would imagine that they would at least nominate him for a Grammy for that.


FJ: With pop music and Total Request Live having such an influence on the culture or lack there of, does music still have soul?

DEREK TRUCKS: It depends on who's playing it (laughing). The mainstream, I would say very little, if any. Most pop acts and most things that you hear on the radio, I would say has very little soul. If anything I think it's the anti-soul because it really to me destroys the masses, their musical minds. A lot of people that could go either way, they're kind of on the fence, if they hear enough pop music, that is what they're going to be listening to. I think it really destroys music in general because there is much less of a market for musicians that are really trying to do something. There is just not enough listeners out there because they've been tainted and the standards have been lowered so much that anything outside of that small pop realm is shunned. I think it is very dangerous and very detrimental, the lack of musicianship out there and the lack of musical intelligence. I think once music and art goes in society, I don't think the rest is too much far behind.


FJ: Damn, hell in a hand basket.

DEREK TRUCKS: Yeah, it's a pretty scary time that way.


FJ: The word musician notes that they play some sort of musical instrument. "Musicians" today can't play "Chopsticks" on the piano with both hands and feet and the sheet music.

DEREK TRUCKS: And even the ones that can, they really don't have anything to say anyways. I think it is definitely a scary time that way when the people that society holds up as being musicians and the people that are grabbing Grammys and things are completely tools for a record company to sell records with.


FJ: Then it's upstream for you.

DEREK TRUCKS: I think it is, but I don't know if it is harder than it's ever been, Fred. I think in a sense, it has always been that way. When you listen to some of the Coltrane live records, it sounds like there is twenty-five people in the room. It's always been uphill for the real serious music. I don't think it's that much different now. I think maybe the percentage of real music to B.S. music is a lot lower now than it has ever been. I think back in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, it was a lot easier for real music to break through. I think it may be a little harder that way now, but I think it's always been an uphill battle. In a capitalistic society, music doesn't come first, second, or third. It's just a form of entertainment to get people through the day. I think it has a much heavier role in life than we give it credit for.


FJ: You've been in the company of musicians: Phil Lesh, the Allman Brothers, and Dylan, what impressions are imparted?

DEREK TRUCKS: I think I have learned more from the people that I've played with through kind of watching, watching them and knowing their history and realizing that longevity has a lot to do with how much you put into it and how realistic you are about what you're doing. None of those guys that you mentioned did it on image or on hype. It was all sincere musicianship or writing or whatever it was. Whatever they did, they really honed their craft. That's what carried them thirty, forty years in the music business, realizing that you have to focus in on your craft first and then the career and all of that stuff should be way down on the list. It can't even be second or third.


FJ: How did you and Susan (Susan Tedeschi) meet?

DEREK TRUCKS: On the road, she was opening for the Allman Brothers I believe. When you met someone that does what you do and they kind of understand the lifestyle, for me, meeting a woman that was listening to Mahalia Jackson and Howlin' Wolf was kind of a revelation (laughing).


FJ: Who's the better guitarist?

DEREK TRUCKS: (Laughing) I'm not touching that one.


FJ: Congrats on the baby. Boy or girl?

DEREK TRUCKS: We had a little boy. His name is Charlie, Charles after Charlie Christian. He'll be six months. It is awesome. There's nothing like it. It is pretty overwhelming.


FJ: Does the family join the tour?

DEREK TRUCKS: Oh, yeah, quite often. She's actually out right now with B.B. King. He's out with her. I'll be flying out to see them tomorrow. It is difficult, but I think relationships in general have all of those obstacles. We just happen to have to deal with plane flights and seeing each other and making time for it. It all depends on what you're willing to put into it. If you're willing to sacrifice and make it happen, then you do and if that's not what you want, it kind of falls by the wayside. With any marriage and any family, it is just a constant effort that way. It is obviously, the most rewarding thing if you can actually keep a family strong and everyone into each other. There is nothing like it. Whatever amount of work it takes, it is just what you have to do for it. That's another thing, being on the road for a long time, you see a lot of, I've just noticed a lot of broken families that way. It just seemed like the reason that they were broken was that they weren't willing to do what it took. Their careers were more important than their families and you just can't balance things that way.


FJ: Baby walking yet?

DEREK TRUCKS: He's getting close. He's wobbling (laughing). Yeah, Fred, it is awesome. I am jonesing to see him. It's been a little over a week and so I am flying out tomorrow to see her which is definitely exciting.


FJ: What's the tour schedule like?

DEREK TRUCKS: We're on the road all the time. With our band, you've got to keep moving and keep a float, so the album just happens to be coming out on this tour really (laughing). We're not really doing a tour behind the record. We're just always on tour. We'll be out pretty full time. Between the time off that the Allman Brothers have, we fill up all of those holes. We're in Virginia tonight. We're heading on to California in a few days to do a few festivals out there. We're running (laughing). There are definitely time where you are running for a month or so and it would be nice to get home and hang with the family. All my family live in Jacksonville where me and Susan are living. You definitely miss home, but I've been on the road since I was nine years old. In a way, it is home. Sometimes I get home in Jacksonville for a week and I jones to get back on the bus and hit the road (laughing). At this point, if it wasn't for a wife and baby, I could stay out almost year round. It's the psychological freedom, you feel like you're really doing something, especially our band. We feel like we're still very much underground and we're still playing small clubs and small theaters occasionally. So it is still pretty much setting the fire from the ground. We feel like we're on a musical mission that way. You look around and you see all these other acts that rise and fall and this band has been hitting the road as a band for nine years now. We've seen many bands that we've played with make it and then fall. You just feel like you're doing some important work musically. I think that really carries us and just the freedom to be able to play anything you want on any given night is really nice too. We're not tied to having to play any type of music or certain songs. Our crowds don't expect anything yet. It is still fresh and it is still on it's way up. There is a lot of energy in that and a lot of gratification that way. It is better not to get too big too quick because I haven't personally witnessed anyone who has handled that correctly (laughing). Usually once that happens, it is pretty close to being over with. I plan on doing this for the rest of my life and I hope this band is doing it for thirty, forty years.


FJ: People still give you shit about Jonny Lang?

DEREK TRUCKS: Not on this record, but in the past there's been, especially when those guys were really starting to take off five years ago, him and Kenny Wayne. Every interview, that would be the first question. I'm glad that that is starting to fade.


FJ: Pretty cool to be on the label of Miles Davis.

DEREK TRUCKS: Fred, man, that had a lot to do with it. We were meeting with a lot of people and we went to the Columbia office and I was looking at the wall and it was, they had these framed pictures of Monk and Miles and Dylan and it is just a great history that it was kind of nice to be part of that in a small way and hopefully someday this band will be part of that history.

Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is fighting on. Comments? Email Him