Kenny Wayne Shepherd LIVE From Germany

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is a blues/rock legend. The podcast opens with MAJOR phone problems from Germany! Then, Kenny re-tells a classic band joke. Big laughs....and SO TRUE! Plus, what was the band's reaction the first time they heard the final mix of 'Blue on Black' from the incredible 'Trouble Is...' album (25th Anniversary edition available now! KennyWayneShepherd.net) Kenny's a super-cool guy, great talk, ENJOY!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, studio. Hi, I'vegot Kenny Wayne Shephard ready for the interview.
If you are ready for him,We are ready for him. Okay,
let me get him hang on onesecond, you bet all right?
Thanks? Hi? Don, Hello, it's Don and got I'm trying to

(00:23):
merge him, but it's not seemingto work quite so well, I think
because we're in Germany and I don'tknow why my phone won't let me conference.
Bit. Yeah, but can yougive me about five minutes while I
race over to the lobby of thehotel to get for him, to just
dial directly from my phone and handit to him. Yeah, that'd be
fine. We'll go ahead, andyeah, we'll hang up and then wait

(00:43):
for your call. I'm racing backover to him right now and I will
just put him through on This soundsgood. Tell him that we're outraged.
I will get to him shortly.Okay, we'll talk to you here in
a bed. Hello studio, Hi, let me here's Kenny for you.
Okay, thank you, all right, Oh well there you go. Thank

(01:11):
you to Kenny Wayne Shepherd for dialing. Yeah. He what a great interview.
You said you can't have any funin Germany. He's over in Germany
right now, trying to make aphone call over They don't want anybody to
have any Well, you know,you know what happened, right, She
took the phone, She covered theShe covered the microphone and said, all
right, we've got stuck in gunnerhere and he went click. Oh wait

(01:33):
a minute, he's back, holdon right right, Hello studio. Hey,
it's Kenny. Hey, Kenny,how are you man? I'm good?
You know, hey, if youdon't, if you don't want to
talk to us, just say so. It's all right. Well with us
with us today, the Great KennyWayne Shepherd going to be a Brown County

(01:56):
Music Center on Tuesday, June sixth. Get your tickets. This will be
a great show. Kenny. I'mgonna open up with a joke that you
told us the last time we spoke. I'm gonna I'm gonna say the line
you say, the punchline, andyou will know what it is. You're
good with that, well, Ihope. So. I'm not really good
at remembering jokes, but we'll seehow this goes, all right. But

(02:16):
I was just telling him off theair, I was like, I can't
remember anything that happened yesterday. Kenny, Wayne Shepherd is a guitar player.
Come on, probably in the sameboat. All right, let's go.
So here it is. I'm gonnabe the straight guy. What do you
call a guy that hangs out withmusicians? Oh? Drummer? Yeah,

(02:38):
oh yeah, I remember that one. It was good. It was good
talking to you, Kenny. That'sall we wanted. Thank you, Kenny.
I was gonna I was gonna askyou, Kenny, because you know,
I've been a musician. I startedplaying out live and professionally in nineteen
seventy nine in Indiana, in theMidwest. Everybody, the guitar players,
singers, bass players, we allgot one hundred dollars a night back then

(02:58):
in nineteen seventy nine. So nowwe fast forward to twenty and twenty three,
we're all getting one hundred dollars anight, just like we used to.
But I'm thinking that the guys inyour band, singers and the bass
players, they're probably getting the bigbucks, like two fifty a night,
right to come to Indiana, right, two fifty a night. They're definitely
getting paid much better than you guys. I can tell you that I love

(03:22):
that rightfully. So all we dois argue we don't get anything done.
So oh, I love that KennyWayne Shepherd is with us. And you
know, most certainly whenever we talkto you, Kenny, and I'll bring
this up because obviously this is aman that does not have LSD, as
Eddie Van Halen used to call it, lead singer disease. How often does
Noah Hunt say, hey, howabout a raise, dude? How about

(03:45):
a raise? You know what,man? I mean at this point,
we've been doing this for so long. He's been in my band for twenty
five years. I mean, youknow, we have long term relationships with
everybody basically that we've been making musicwith and doing business with. You know,
we appreciate loyalty, so we youknow, we we spread the love
around and you know, it's likeeverybody has to be away from their families,

(04:09):
you know, to go do this, which we love playing music,
we love doing what we're doing,but you know, basically, you know,
the famous phrase for musicians nowadays isthat we get paid to travel,
because that's the most challenging part ofour job is traveling, you know,
because we're on stage, man,we're just having fun. But you know,
everybody gets taken care of we've beendoing this for a long time,

(04:30):
so we'll make sure everybody's happen,yea. And people people don't understand sometimes
how much downtime there is while you'retraveling. And so you just take the
average person, you know, theytravel around, they go on vacation or
whatever. What's the first thing theydo when they hit the airport and they've
got all day, they start drinking. But musicians have to do it every
single day. So that's a trapas well. You can really get in
trouble with all that downtime, man, Well, yeah you can historically.

(04:53):
You know, that's a lot ofwhat takes people down is the free time
to have. But frankly, ifyou we're being brutally honest in my organization,
now, everybody's married, everybody haskids and families, and none of
us drink like nobody drinks nobody that'sdrugs. It's a pretty hopesome atmosphere.
And we like it that way becauseit keeps things productive and it keeps things

(05:15):
professional. Yeah. Oh absolutely.Now we're speaking with Kenny Wayne Shepherd going
to be at the Brown County MusicCenter on Tuesday, June sixth. Kenny,
you're talking to us from Germany.How do the Germans take to the
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band. You know, they love it over here. They
love like American blues and rock androll, and so you know, we're

(05:35):
having a great tour. It's actuallyour first time being over in Europe since
before COVID, so like we didour last European tour in November twenty nineteen,
and it's taking this long to getback because of, you know,
all the challenges that everybody was facingwith the whole COVID situation. So we're
really excited to be back over here. And a lot of these shows are

(05:56):
sold out that people are fired up, so we're happy to be here.
But we're so looking forward to comingback to the state and come to Indiana
and playing for the people there forsure. So Kenny Wayne Shepherd, you're
going to be coming back to Indiana. Looks like a couple of days Paramount
Theater and Anderson that's going to beJune fourth, and then we're talking about
the June sixth date at the BrownCounty Music Center. Good stuff there.

(06:18):
So if you're playing in Germany,do you bring along a guy to play
tuba on the road with you forthe whole tour or do you pick one
up in Germany? No, no, we have no two. We have
a no Tuba rule in the bandthat actually never happens. That's right,
Tuba's no susophone. Yes, ohmy god. We are speaking with Kenny

(06:46):
Wayne Shepherd. Kenny. Last yearwas the twenty fifth anniversary of the very
great Trouble Is album. When youguys finish that record and when you create
a song like Blue on Black,there's been on the radio every day since
you released it. What did youthink of Blue on Black when you heard
that for the first time after itwas all mixed, You know, I

(07:09):
remember it very vividly. We wereall standing in the controller of the Missing
Engineer and after song was playing down, everybody in the room just started high
fiving each other and the ladies inthe room were dancing, and I mean
it was a pretty U fouric moment. We knew we had something really special,
but you know, you have toput it out there and see how
the people react to it, andreact they did. I mean, the

(07:30):
song was huge, and it wasnumber one for a really, really long
time, and it still gets played, like you said, on the radio
today, and you know, peoplestill love hearing that song. And even
twenty years after we released it,Five Finger Death Punch did a version of
it on other album that came outin twenty nineteen, and then it went
to number one on the rock chartsagain. So you know, it's a

(07:50):
really special song. I'm really proudof it, obviously, and it's one
of those songs that, honestly,we don't really get tired of playing it.
You know. Well, look,no matter what a man's doing,
if he's created a song or he'screated a widget, if it makes the
girls start dancing, that's a winwon definitely a good indicator that at least

(08:11):
you're on the right track. Yeah, man, absolutely all right. Talking
about recording, I want to getyour first of all, your reaction to
Gordon Lightfoot, the great Canadian singersongwriter who passed away. And as I
was looking through stuff this week,the rack of the Edmund Fitzgerald it was
one take in the band had heardit for the very first time that day,

(08:33):
So six and a half minutes ofmusic one take. How often does
it take one happen for the KennyWayne Shepherd Band. You know, you'd
be surprised we do that a lot. Actually I was listening to We went
into studio back in October. Wejust had some spare time, and I
thought it would be fun to goin and do like a rock and roll

(08:54):
cover album. We did a bluescover album several years ago when we had
some spare time on the road,So we just ran into the studio and
did this rock cover album. Andwe did a version of Comfortably Numb,
and then we did like a Hootsong called The Seeker. And then I
was listening down to all these differenttakes and it was like the first take

(09:15):
like Comfortably Numb. I think itwas like, I don't know, seven
minutes long, and it was afirst take like one and done. So
you know, it just depends onthe song, and it depends on the
moment. I mean, obviously doesn'thappen every time, but when it does,
that's you know, you got thereal deal on your hands there.
Yeah, I think I know theanswer to this question. Kenny Wayne Shepherd
on the phone here talking about theshow Tuesday, June sixth at the Brown

(09:37):
County Music Center. I know theanswer to the question. But you probably
feel more comfortable on stage in frontof an audience, and you do in
a studio, or it's that thecase, because I know a lot of
people that play live, but whenthey get into studio, everybody wants to
go to the studio. I hateit because usually it's on your dime.
And if you're if you're having togo take two, take three, take
four, all of a sudden,each take you roll, the cash registers

(10:01):
still ringing, and then the pressuresare even on more And how does that
work for you guys? Well,for us, I mean, it's two
different worlds. Like you know,we make records in the studios so that
we play concerts for people, solike our the endgame for us is to
be on stage because that's what wedo best, and that's what we really
thrive on. It's you know,the live performance and the interactions between the

(10:22):
fans and the artists, you know. But the studio is a different monster
all together. It's it's a differentanimal. It's like you're going there and
everything's on our microscope. But thereally cool thing about being in the studio,
at least for us, is that, you know, I still approach
making albums the old fashioned way,and it can cost more money doing this,
but we don't rehearse the stuff beforewe go in and make record.

(10:43):
It's like I have very basic demoswhen I write songs. It's an acoustic
guitar and a vocal sung into likeyou know, the cell phone, and
that's the point of reference that wehave. And all the magic happens in
the studio. Arts come together,and you know, it can take longer,
you know, be the necessary.To me, that's that's the magic

(11:03):
of being in the recording studio.And so I'd like to do the whole
fast. Yeah, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, how many how many song parts?
How many work parts do you havein your cell phone right now that could
possibly become songs? Hundreds? Imean hundreds. Um. You know.
The incredible thing about low these songsis like I remember back in the nineties
when you know, we were writingsongs and we had little tape recorders,

(11:26):
you know, but I can't tellyou how many song ideas that I had
and that never got written because Ididn't have a tape recorder. Can be
at the moment that idea struck me, Yeah, and now it's like if
that idea, I just whip outthe phone and and I record it.
There it is and it doesn't getoff. But left our principle, you're
walking down the street or in theshower and that and that riff for that

(11:48):
melody hits you and you got tohave it right now. Let me go
ahead and jump in. Sometimes though, can't it be too much? Or
can it be too much? Becauseyou got all of that? How do
you sift through that figure out whatyou're gonna take out of the phone?
Well, what I do is isI just I literally just kind of start,
you know, scrolling through, andI'll play the ideas, and then

(12:09):
I don't choose every one of them, right, so it just seems that
something jumps out of me. LikeI'll listen to you know, fifty different
ideas, and certain ones will jumpout at me and I'll be like,
you know what, that one?I like that one? Like that one
speaking to me right now? SoI start honing in on the ones that
really jump out. Yeah, allof times, are you trying to record
a new Kenny Wayne classic riff?And then some bill collector calls and ruins

(12:33):
the whole table come on? Maybenot some masters, but definitely spam yea
spam Hell yeah, good god?Would you would you like to sell your
house bills. Come on, man, come on, it's all cash,
baby, It's all cash. KennyWayne Shepherd is with us. You got
a little side project called The Rides. Are we going to hear anything new

(12:54):
from the Rides? And let meask you this as well. How good
of a guitar player is Steven Stills. You know, Stephen is consistently,
you know, listed as one ofthe top one hundred guitar players of all
time, and he's reminded me ofthat several times. And legendary, I

(13:16):
mean, obviously one of the greatestsongwriters and performers of our time. And
it's been an honor to have aband with him, make a couple of
albums together. And you know,we just played a couple of shows not
too long ago where we were bothdoing guest appearances together and stuff, and
that was a lot of fun.I mean, I think he and I

(13:37):
the last time we talked about it, you know, are both excited about
the idea of doing another record.But the scheduling is a big challenge because
you know, I've got my bandand he's got his things, So it
just depends on the plea can carveout the time to do it. We
are speaking with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.Kenny, you've done this for a while
now. Any artist on your bucketlist that you would like to share the

(13:58):
stage with that you have it yet? You know, I'm sure there's somebody,
But in all honesty, I don'thave a little notepad with a list
of names that I'm checking off.I'm just trying to like see what unfolds,
you know. And I mean,I've been really fortunate. I've played
with so many of my heroes andpeople that I've looked up to over the
years, and you know, ifthere was never another one, then I'd

(14:20):
feel more than and less with thepeople that I have gotten to beat and
play with. But you know,you never know what's what's in store.
So I'm just trying to keep thedoor open for whatever. You know,
it's coming down the pipe. We'llsee what happened. Man, this is
going to be a great time man, Brown County Music Center, Tuesday,
June sixth, with Kenny Wayne Shephard. Just a few days before that,

(14:41):
the Paramount Theater and Anderson on Junefour you got people coming to the North
Side, You've got people coming tothe Sound side. Everybody's welcome. Going
to be a great show man,Kenny. It's going to be fabulous.
I can't wait to see you here. Thanks guys, we look forward to
hopefully we'll see you the show.All right, Well, safe travels,
watch out over there in Europe.I know it's kind of dicey right now,

(15:01):
you know what. Everything seems tobe good where we're at, so
we haven't had any problems, allright, take care of Kenny later.