Detritus
Mini-Issue #467.5 - August 1, 2008
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*** CAST OF CHARACTERS ***
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Patrick Brower, Editor
patrickbrower@...

Sean P. Gahgan, Editor
lof@...
http://www.lakeoffire.net/

Tim Wadzinski, Owner
tsw512@...

Steve Shumake, Co-owner
vongoober@...
http://www.myspace.com/kdsteve

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*** LET IT BE KNOWN ***
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-Guitarists unite! Check out Neal's chat with Pat Travers below. - Tim

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*** SPECIAL REPORT ***
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by Neal Woodall (MysticX9@...)

-Interview w/ Pat Travers
July 16, 2008

During the Summer of 1979 my uncle turned me on to Pat Travers with
the excellent PUTTING IT STRAIGHT album, and I subsequently saw him
live with Sammy Hagar and Scorpions, that show being one of my
favorites from the era. Twenty-seven years later, Pat is still going
strong with a new band, a new live album, and a new studio album in
the works. I always loved Pat's music because of its originality;
sure, he was a guitar hero during the '70s and '80s but he always
wrote great songs, seemed to focus at least as much on cool rhythms as
he did solos, and his lead guitar work was always tasty without
relying on mindless technique to impress. Recently I was fortunate to
talk with Pat about his killer new live album STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW
- LIVE IN EUROPE and what he is up to now...

DETRITUS: Let me first say I've been a fan of yours since 1979 so I go
back quite awhile...

PAT TRAVERS: Wow, then you're going to like what we're workin' on now!

D: I sure do, I've got the live album right here and I've been
enjoying the heck out of it!

PT: Wonderful, that's great; at the same time, as what usually
happens, that album has just been released in the U.S. and I'm workin'
on a brand new studio album, so my head is all filled with new ideas
and stuff but I'm glad that this CD has been released in the U.S.

D: The album contains a mix of your rock classics, blues favorites,
newer things... How did you decide on the set list?

PT: Yeah, in Europe they like -- you know we recorded that album in
Holland -- and they definitely like the blues there and I was starting
to get my slide chops together and I felt it was time to start doing
that live so it was fun to do like "Red House," "Judgement Day," "Oh
Pretty Woman" and a small Albert King impersonation! (laughs)

D: (laughs) It's very good! I'm assuming you are playing more than
that at your shows. That's kind of a sample of the highlights?

PT: Yeah, I mean, things have sort of changed since then, now that was
ah, it will be two years ago we recorded that in Holland so I've
actually got some personnel changes since then -- I have a different
rhythm section now. But it's a strong enough live album where I
actually kind of looked at it like a sequel to the 1979 GO FOR WHAT
YOU KNOW album, hence the title STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW! (laughs)

D: PUTTING IT STRAIGHT is one of my favorites. Do you ever go back and
pull out anything off that album like "It Ain't What It Seems" to play
live?

PT: Oh, I'd love to do that and we've talked about it -- there's a
couple of songs. I'd love to do "It Ain't What It Seems," that's a
great tune. It's just a question now of finding the opportunity to get
together and rehearse, that's the hard part! (laughs) Geographically
we're not that far away from each other, we're all in Florida but
trying to gather everybody for a rehearsal is sometimes a little bit
of a logistical problem. So we go "Yeah we'd like to do this!" But you
also want to have proper time to rehearse it, not make a mess of it
live; but yeah, I want to do that, it's time to do that which is one
of the reasons that this set that we did for the live album we did for
quite awhile so some of those songs are retired for a little while and
we've started to do some other of the past material like "It Ain't
What It Seems" or whatever.

D: GO FOR WHAT YOU KNOW was recorded in like four different places in
Texas and Florida right?

PT: No...you know I completely forgot about the one we played in
Texas. We did record in Texas but I think there was something
technically wrong with that tape, we did a show in Gainsville, two in
Orlando and one in Miami and most of the show came from Gainsville
with the exception of "Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights)" which came from
the Orlando show. Then coincidentally a year later I ended up moving
to Orlando, which, I certainly wasn't thinking about it at the time
but that's the way things ended up.

D: The new one was recorded in one place?

PT: Yeah, I can't remember the name of the place! (laughs) It says on
the CD cover. It's a little hard with the pronunciation too, I've got
so much on my mind...

D: (reads from cover) The Bosuil -- I don't know if I'm pronouncing
that anywhere close to the way it's supposed to be! (laughs)

PT: Yeah, that's it; you know, I've been going to Holland since 1975
and I feel completely comfortable there, it's like a second home to me
but the language is just... (laughs) Fortunately everybody speaks
English because, I mean I can read it a little bit like on a menu I
know what's what but as far as trying to speak it it's a very
difficult language.

D: I've noticed recently Rush and Y&T have recorded live albums in The
Netherlands. What's the attraction over there?

PT: The Netherlands is great, the people are real music lovers and
like I said, it's like a second home to me, I feel very comfortable
there.

D: The album has a great sound, how did you record it?

PT: Just recorded it on a laptop, Pro Tools, you know, made sure the
levels were right and took it back to where I live in Florida and
mixed it at a studio there and it came out sounding really good.

D: We were talking about your band members, I know Eric [Frates,
drums] played with you on the PT=MC2 album...

PT: That's right, that was Eric and Rick Navarro on there, he played
bass on the studio album, then we had a guy named Frank McDaniel who
was in the band for a little while but ultimately things didn't work
out, it wasn't that European tour but the last one! (laughs) That
European tour was just gettin' started, but that's a whole other
subject, I could write a book just on that!

D: So who all is in the band now?

PT: I've got Randy Lane on drums, I've got Rodney O'Quinn on bass
guitar, I've got Kirk McKim on guitar and just myself...

D: Are these people you've known for awhile?

PT: Well, Kirk is on the live album, I've known him five or six years
so he's been playing with me about three now. Randy I only met about a
year and a half ago and Rodney just joined at the beginning of the
year, or actually a little bit before the beginning of the year but I
don't think we started playing before then. But yeah, it's an
interesting position to be in where I'm promoting this live album and
working on this new thing...

D: You are right in the middle, aren't you?

PT: Yeah, it's not that I want to discount the live album and we will
be out playing some shows so people can check out our Web site and
we'll be doing the majority of the tunes that are on that, we have
some other stuff too that we're doing as well.

D: Did you film any of the shows for a DVD?

PT: No, we were going to -- it was funny, I had this whole deal set up
and then it kinda fell apart in the last minute but things happen for
a reason. We will be doing a lot of live filming and stuff coming up
and we'll get something of a much, much higher quality and better
performance and so on, so I'm happy to wait until that time.

D: What are your tour plans? Pretty extensive in the U.S.?

PT: Yeah, well this month we're up in Canada recording in Ontario,
east of Toronto on this lake complex, studio cottage complex Alexis
records, and then we've got a couple of shows in Ontario and one in
Ohio comin' up next week, then London, Ontario and Van Weert. (laughs)
Then we're back up in Canada, we'll finish up a couple of days in the
studio here and go back to Florida then we go to Sturgis, then a show
in Michigan on the 16th of August, one in Ohio on the 30th. I'm doin'
a thing with some guys in Wisconsin in Madison on the 31st, then we go
back up to Canada first week of September, hopefully finish up the
recording of the album at that point and then we go to Europe for the
whole month of October...

D: Wow, you've got your work cut out for you!

PT: Yeah, I'd rather bitch about being busy though!

D: I read all the time that the CD is on the way out. What are your
thoughts about that?

PT: Ah, interesting, I would have thought so; I think the CD as the
focus, the end result and the main point of a project, I think that's
going to be done, because you can release things as downloads way
before you can put the whole CD out, then you don't have to wait to
find out the CD stinks and nobody likes it! (laughs) You find out as
you go, you know? We plan on doing some interesting things with the CD
that will be different than just downloading the audio, so you will be
able on our new CD to do different things in conjunction with a
computer, that you can only do with the CD. So we're trying to think
of ways to encourage people to also buy the CD as well as downloading
whatever they want; but yeah, I think it's a good thing. Initially,
when I first started recording it was record vinyl and you could put
eight, maybe 10 songs on a record for technical reasons, then along
came compact discs and now the record companies want 60, 70 minutes of
music, and they don't care! It was like, wow, that's another half an
album that we gotta come up with to work on, so at some point budgets
got tighter so something has got to suffer, you know? It was hard
enough to make eight or 10 songs sound really good in a period of time
but now when you've got to do 14 it's like "Oh man!" So now, instead
of what people used to do which was put all the crap on the B side now
they just put it down in the higher numbers! (laughs) So what's the
point of having it there? So I don't know, it's just not going to be
the main focus anymore, but we'll be able to use it for other things,
for marketing, merchandising reasons and stuff; because CD sales are
down, we've got to be compensated for something, we can't do this
stuff for free!

D: No, you sure can't!

PT: Studios cost money and it costs money to make CDs, an unfortunate
reality... Or it just costs money to make music whether you make
ultimately something you can hold in your hand like a CD or not, it
still takes time and everything else to come up with this stuff.

D: Do you have a title for the new one?

PT: Ah, not that I'd like to blurt out now, I'm pretty sure I'll have
one here shortly but I haven't finished writing the lyrics to all the
songs so sometimes somewhere in the lyrics there's usually a good word
or a phrase that I might use, so we'll see.

D: What is the status of Travers & Appice and The Power Trio, are you
going to continue with those projects?

PT: Funnily enough I spoke to Carmine last week; he called me and once
again, it's a time and scheduling thing. I'm so involved, wrapped up
with my own band project right now and everything is going so good I
just don't want anything to distract me away from this so I can't see
when I would have the time or the opportunity to do that but you never
know how these things work. It's usually just -- they're put together
pretty quick when they happen -- but we don't have anything in the
short term.

D: Are you you still playing PRS guitars?

PT: Oh absolutely...

D: Exclusively or do you sometimes pull out the old Gibsons?

PT: Ah, live I use them exclusively and in the studio, I've got my
favorite one with me here, Modern Eagle which is just an incredible
guitar -- it's a single cut, Red Tiger and it's a beautiful piece,
just sounds incredible. But then we're fortunate, we have some really,
really nice vintage Strats and Telecasters here and they have their
own single coil, little bright thing goin', little happy sounding
guitars you know, so while we're here we'll use those for the
recording, but they're a little different to play so they make you
come up with different stuff that is interesting...

D: Whatever works for what you are playing?

PT: Exactly! We're very fortunate, we have quite an arsenal of guitars
here, new and vintage -- we've got just about everything we could
possibly need.

D: Players such as yourself, Gary Moore and Robin Trower have kind of
shifted away from the hard rock you were known for in the '70s and
'80s and embraced the blues. What's the appeal of the blues?

PT: Probably a couple of different things. As you mature a little bit
there's a little bit more dignified behavior that goes along with
it... (laughs)

D: Yeah! (laughs)

PT: For example, we've got VH1 Classic on in our little cottage; it
seems to be running all the time. They were showing this Poison stuff
yesterday and they're just doing the same thing they did when they
were in their 20s and it's just unseemly...

D: Just depravity...

PT: Well it's not even depravity, it's like no imagination, they got
old but never grew up and it's kind of sad so if you go toward the
blues thing it's okay to do, know what I mean? You look a little more
dignified. So that's one of the reasons that I started doing it but
now with this new material I'm writing it seems like I've kind of
drawn energy from the past and I have a much fresher approach that
uses all my blues influences but definitely not blues, definitely a
lot more energy, funky and tight and dynamic but with the looseness
and the feeling of the blues guitar and all that.

D: That's great to hear, I'm looking forward to it!

PT: It's exciting, jumpin' right out of the speakers; like the live
album, the live album does that too, comes right out at you...

D: It does, that's the first thing I noticed about it, the incredible
sound...

PT: That's a little trick that has taken me years to learn.

D: You'll have to teach it to me! (laughs)

PT: Thing is you just don't think too much, if you're thinkin' your
stinkin'! (laughs)

D: Ever keep in touch with some of the old Pat Travers Band members?

PT: Yeah, I had dinner with Mars [Cowling, former bassist] two weeks
ago, over in Sarasota, Florida -- well actually in Longboat Key. And
then Pat Thrall is in Las Vegas now, he's an engineer/producer at The
Palms Studio. Tommy [Aldrich] I see every now and then, depends on
where we are; generally if he comes through to the House Of Blues or
something in Orlando, or he was playing with Nugent there for awhile
and I went to see him a couple of times, saw him with David Coverdale
a couple of times.

D: I know Hendrix was a big influence on you. Was it seeing him live
that first made you want to play?

PT: No, no, no, I had already been playing, here's the weird thing...
I got my first guitar when I was 12 and I guess I'd been bangin'
around for about a year when all of a sudden, that's when we first
heard Hendrix when I was about 13, and it was just incredible, there
was nothing like it. Everybody thought it was some kind of studio
trick; then he came to play in Ottawa, Canada where I was living as a
boy and we got to see him and it was not a trick -- well it was a
trick but it was for real! (laughs) The guitar and amps and everything
but it was all just Hendrix, so incredibly free and had such a palette
of sounds and things he did with the guitar that weren't necessarily
in any kind of instruction booklet, you know? It was all new
territory, he was using the guitar in a completely different way than
anybody prior to him, but funnily enough, in a very conventional way
too -- a lot of Albert King influence was what Jimi played and if you
go back and listen to Albert King you'll go "Oh, whoa, that's a
Hendrix note or that's Stevie Ray Vaughn," and not just a little but
like, a lot!

D: That's where it came from...

PT: So he just had a mix of everything he'd been doing up to that
point and added his own special flourish to things.

D: Last question, and I think I know the answer to this one, but is
making music still as fun for you as it was back in 1979?

PT: Oh absolutely! You know, we play music for free, we do that every
night and we play for free, because we get paid to travel, and we are
workin' cheap, because that's the hardest part, gettin' from one place
to another. You know, there's no good way to do it, it just keeps
getting more and more expensive and it's getting to the point where
sometimes you've got to turn things down because it's not worth it.
And there's uncertainty too in the travel arrangements, like sometimes
you couldn't consider flying on the day of a show, you've got to come
in the day before or whatever so yeah, that's the part that I don't
like, the traveling, but I love to play -- it's the only thing I'm any
good at.

D: I wouldn't say that!

PT: Hopefully my wife won't either! (laughs)

D: (laughs) Thanks so much Pat for taking the time to talk with me and
I look forward to seeing you on the road and hearing the new stuff.

PT: Absolutely, thank you Neal!

Relevant links:

Provogue Records
http://www.provoguerecords.com/

Pat Travers
http://www.pattravers.com/
http://www.myspace.com/officialpattravers
http://www.myspace.com/pattraversmusic

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*** OUT ***
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