With an inaugural invite to Bonnaroo, a newly energized line-up and yet another album under their belt, John Popper and Blues Traveler have somehow managed to weather the music business storm for close to two decades. To catch up on everything, we recently sat down for a quick “12 questions with Popper.”
With an inaugural invite to Bonnaroo, a newly energized line-up and yet another album under their belt, John Popper and Blues Traveler have somehow managed to weather the music business storm for close to two decades. To catch up on everything, we recently sat down for a quick “12 questions with Popper.”
After Bobby Sheehan’s death, you could have gone any direction with the band – but you regrouped and eventually released Bridge. Looking back at it now, it’s certainly a transitional album – how much significance is the title in retrospect?
I think Bridge was definitely trying to extend beyond ourselves, and respect the growth of the band the way it would be, but we didn’t know what the other side of the bridge was going to be. It was a natural process, but at the same time, the natural part is not knowing what the process is. Just trying to relate and being as direct and honest as you can.
With the band at full stride once again, entering the studio to begin working on Bastardos!…how familiar were you with Jay Bennett. Did you know the whole Wilco story, or for that matter, did he know the BT story?
There were times when Jay would look at us, sort of beaming up at the frontiers, and we’d say, “what’s wrong?” And he’d go, “just watching the way you guys work together is how bands should be.” This guy has gone through some things and that kind of relationship and his band and all that stuff that happened, he grew up in a divorce and it can mess you up. But for him it was very cleansing to come and work for us and he seemed very replenished.
The trademark harmonica is notably absent from this record. It’s not gone entirely, but it’s much less of a statement than your previous work.
I would say it’s “lessen.” The thing is, I already made that album with the tweaking harmonica solo. The problem sonically is, how do you keep doing that? And the answer is you try and get other instruments going. Like the keyboard is really prominent on this album and what was cool about it is that it was there, but it became more of an atmosphere thing. For live gigs there will always be a harmonica solo, but for a record, you want it to be about songwriting.
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When you first formed the initial H.O.R.D.E. tour, obviously at the time you couldn’t imagine the significance that would ultimately serve in rock, but did you get the small sense something was building larger than itself?
Of course there was. We were trying to sell the tour as an idea of a kind of music, but we also kept it vague because the connection between the bands was a good live show. Lilith [Fair] seemed pretty cool, but that came later. It just seemed like [most promoters] got bands based on their popularity on the radio or something. And the thing we were always worrying about was that our audience always wanted the show to be good live. That really was the strength that we felt was the common denominator for all the bands, was their ability to perform live well. I think that Lollapalooza had that, [and] Europe mastered the festival package.
At the time we felt like we were breaking ground, because for us we were and it was more than we had ever done. It was appreciation of a scene and reaching out to other musicians and stuff like that. But now people give us so much credit as well that we were masterminding some type of movement. I think the evolution of a festival tour is going to be like Bonnaroo, where it’s not a tour all summer where you have to commit to two months of doing one thing over and over again.
What about resurrecting H.O.R.D.E. in a two day fashion similar to Lollapalooza?
They are actually talking about it. Capital Sports is our management now and they own Lollapalooza and ACL (Austin City Limits) and by making these huge destinations, they find out that it really works. By using the Bonnaroo model kind of and they are talking about bring the H.O.R.D.E. back.
Other than that cameo with moe. in 2003, how come we haven’t seen Blues Traveler at Bonnaroo till now?
I believe it was an old feud of some sort. I believe someone was mad at us. We were actually told we couldn’t be on Bonnaroo, and I had to sneak on to sit in with moe.. What was interesting was that, I literally did have to sneak in because they didn’t want us there, and moe. said, “come on and sit in.” And that ended up being picked up by the AP Press as the picked picture of Bonnaroo, which I thought was ironic.
After all that the band has been through, and the fellow H.O.R.D.E. era bands that have dropped by the wayside, how have you managed to keep the ship afloat – it seems pretty battle worn.
Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t believe we got to make nine albums. Crazy.
Have you discussed with Trey [Anastasio] his decision to end Phish?
Actually, I haven’t talked to Trey about him not doing Phish anymore because it’s a very different thing. Each band is unique and has its own situation, so it would be really impossible to make a comparison. It’s always a different beginning, a different time, a different relationship, a different dynamic, different material, different goals, different objectives tour wise. The thing you have to remember about the music business is that there is no story. There is no cookie cutter single way of succeeding, there are 50 million different ways, it’s almost like fingerprints. I feel like the H.O.R.D.E. tour was one attempt, or part of an evolution of trying to get one show to the most people in an effective way that’s fun. So, it’s a growth process. H.O.R.D.E. was a distant, distant ancestor to Bonnaroo or whatever the festivals are now and it’s not the source, it’s a cousin. I think it’s great to give us all this credit or assume that we have the same pre-eminence of Phish but the truth is that our pre-eminence will be unique to us and we will always be the first Blues Traveler, not the second Grateful Dead or whatever. People always used to say, “are you going to be the next Grateful Dead?” and I used to say,” I hope we will be the first Blues Traveler.”
You have a stronger connection than most artists with Howard Stern – how did that relationship come about?
I was listening to him forever, and he was talking on the radio about our video. He’s a cool guy and we always listened to him, so I found him an influence. Especially when I go on radio and talk to people, his sensibility I think really is what people are used to hearing now – that type of monologue. I think a lot of people try to parody it and do an impression and it’s a hard thing to do. That man is really gifted. He’s gifted in the dynamic of people’s conversations, it’s a really hard thing to do.
Coming from Bridge to now – is this Blues Traveler still standing, you know, Rocky at the top of the stairs?
I’ll just settle for Rocky not getting his ass kicked.
So when are we going to get the Blues Traveler tell-all book?
I’m still accumulating some really juicy stories. Right now this time in my life, I’m just focusing on women more than ever. There is an age where it’s about sex and it’s done. When you get older, it’s a lot more interesting. [And] it’s a lot more fascinating because of my work. There’s a time when I’m just performing, and performing for me when I’m doing it right, it involves very little of my thought and should be more of an instinctual process. So there is very little for me to dwell on as far as my job goes, it’s a warm and intuitive job. So I really love learning about women. I’m not starting to understand women, but I’m starting to respond to them a little more honestly.
Well you’ve always been big on self-disclosure
Well, I’ve also used that as an intimacy to hide. It’s easier to talk about beating off to a crowd of radio audience because you’re not really demonstrating or discussing it. You’re sort of putting them on the defensive by always talking about masturbating. But that’s something Howard taught me by listening to him on the radio. If you discuss masturbating, everyone tends to start agreeing with you because they don’t really want to talk about it. They just start laughing like, “yeah that’s right.” And what they are really afraid of is that you will ask them about masturbating and they will have to comment about masturbating. By seeming to be open, you’re avoiding intimacy. The definition of intimacy is – it’s a crazy thing, and I think it’s because I just got out of a relationship that was four years long – you start realizing, “wow, sex with one person gets a lot deeper.” The sex gets better because you are with someone you trust. Monogamy is that you are sort of sexually experimenting over the course of your life and that’s kind of a neat thing and the sex starts to get bogglingly awesome. It depends on how much of your emotion you want to put into it or how vulnerable you’re willing to be and believe me, the price you pay for that vulnerability is getting clobbered when it doesn’t work. Because you miss it more, it’s scarier than people think, but worth the risk.
