Broken blues, cathartic candidness
Muirsical Conversation With Walter Trout
Muirsical Conversation With Walter Trout
Blues-rock icon Walter Trout, who has been riding a creatively formidable wave since his arduous but eventually full recovery from a liver transplant ten years ago, has taken a slightly different lyrical approach on thirty-first album Broken, that of the schisms of modern life, with a touch of the personal and the sentimental.
That said, such real life storytelling, which everyone can relate to, defines both Walter Trout the man and Walter Trout the musician.
Additionally, his openness and candidness make him both highly respected and a great conversationalist.
Just prior to undertaking his latest European & UK tour, Walter Trout chatted to FabricationsHQ about his genuine love for UK and European audiences as well as some of the songs on Broken.
The conversation also covered his early career, including his time with Canned Heat and John Mayall, whose influence on Walter, both musically and in terms of helping him through what were some of his darkest, "insane behaviour" days, cannot truly be measured.
Ross Muir: You do, genuinely, seem to have a great time playing both the UK and Europe.
Part of that is your music, a blues with no boundaries if you will, but there is clearly a genuine affection there, which is fully reciprocated.
Walter Trout: I really do have a great time playing in the UK and I love playing in Scotland.
Ireland too, where we have been lucky enough to play a few times. I’ve done the Rory Gallagher Festival there with my band three times now, and we always have an awesome time.
But there really is something about the audiences in the UK and Europe, and that goes way back to when I was just starting out on my own. I was struggling to get gigs in the United States, but I could come over to the UK and Europe and do great for myself there.
I’m very grateful to those people and those fans, for getting behind me right at the beginning.
RM: This would be just after leaving John Mayall.
WT: That’s right. When I decided to leave to try for a solo career, that was a big gamble, because John was paying me great and like a father to me; I loved my time in his band.
When I told him I was leaving he said "Walter, I wish you well in your attempt to have a solo career but you need to know, if you quit me, don’t come back to me in a year and say 'Well, I tried, but it didn’t work out; I wanna come back.' Once you leave, you’re gone!" [laughs]
It was a huge gamble, and initially I wasn’t having much luck in even getting a record deal, but it started immediately for me in Europe and the UK, so I feel both a love and an indebtedness to the fans over where you are.
RM: Well, as I mentioned earlier, part of that is the reach of your music, which has a wider palette than just the blues, and your lyrics, which resonate on both personal and universal levels.
But part of it is also you, Walter; it’s clear you love to play live; you give everything of yourself on stage and that’s both recognised and appreciated.
WT: Thank you. In answer to your description of my music, when I quit school as a kid, they said "Why are you quitting school?" I said "Because I’m gonna be a blues guitar player. That’s all I cared about.
I went on to play with all these amazing blues acts but, along with loving guys like B.B King and Howling Wolf, I also loved Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, the artists on Stax Records and Vault Records, and Motown music. I had such a wide range of music I loved that it all influenced me.
So, when I sit down to write a song, I’m not thinking "I better keep this bluesy" you know? I just write whatever inspiration I feel at the time.
But, for a long time, that meant people were going "Well this isn’t really the blues" because it wasn't this or it didn't sound like that, but then you know what I mean! [laughs].
RM: I do indeed. All hail the blues police [laughs].
WT: Even now, on this current album, with a song like Love Of My Life – is that the blues? No!
But, everything I do is based in the blues, because when I set out to be a guitar player, I wanted to be Mike Bloomfield, or Eric Clapton when he was in Cream.
This was when I was a teenager, listening to those two guys and others like Roy Buchanan and Buddy Guy.
I was also listening to Jimi Hendrix, but even with Jimi my favourite cut of his was Red House, because he’s playing the blues, right?
So, I’ve had this thing where I want to write songs that mean something to me, or come out of my own experiences, but influenced by all the music that I love.
Now, that all said, I have done a couple of blues albums – Survivor Blues and Luther’s Blues, which was a tribute to Luther Allison – they to me are stone-cold blues albums.
RM: Agreed. Your definitive blues statements, if you will.
WT: Right, and that’s because I wanted to do those albums. I really do love the blues, but that’s just part of what I do.
RM: I’m glad you mentioned Love Of My Life earlier because that’s a track I wanted to talk about.
That’s a lovely instrumental piece written for your wife Marie, where you lyrically express yourself through your guitar.
That said, such real life storytelling, which everyone can relate to, defines both Walter Trout the man and Walter Trout the musician.
Additionally, his openness and candidness make him both highly respected and a great conversationalist.
Just prior to undertaking his latest European & UK tour, Walter Trout chatted to FabricationsHQ about his genuine love for UK and European audiences as well as some of the songs on Broken.
The conversation also covered his early career, including his time with Canned Heat and John Mayall, whose influence on Walter, both musically and in terms of helping him through what were some of his darkest, "insane behaviour" days, cannot truly be measured.
Ross Muir: You do, genuinely, seem to have a great time playing both the UK and Europe.
Part of that is your music, a blues with no boundaries if you will, but there is clearly a genuine affection there, which is fully reciprocated.
Walter Trout: I really do have a great time playing in the UK and I love playing in Scotland.
Ireland too, where we have been lucky enough to play a few times. I’ve done the Rory Gallagher Festival there with my band three times now, and we always have an awesome time.
But there really is something about the audiences in the UK and Europe, and that goes way back to when I was just starting out on my own. I was struggling to get gigs in the United States, but I could come over to the UK and Europe and do great for myself there.
I’m very grateful to those people and those fans, for getting behind me right at the beginning.
RM: This would be just after leaving John Mayall.
WT: That’s right. When I decided to leave to try for a solo career, that was a big gamble, because John was paying me great and like a father to me; I loved my time in his band.
When I told him I was leaving he said "Walter, I wish you well in your attempt to have a solo career but you need to know, if you quit me, don’t come back to me in a year and say 'Well, I tried, but it didn’t work out; I wanna come back.' Once you leave, you’re gone!" [laughs]
It was a huge gamble, and initially I wasn’t having much luck in even getting a record deal, but it started immediately for me in Europe and the UK, so I feel both a love and an indebtedness to the fans over where you are.
RM: Well, as I mentioned earlier, part of that is the reach of your music, which has a wider palette than just the blues, and your lyrics, which resonate on both personal and universal levels.
But part of it is also you, Walter; it’s clear you love to play live; you give everything of yourself on stage and that’s both recognised and appreciated.
WT: Thank you. In answer to your description of my music, when I quit school as a kid, they said "Why are you quitting school?" I said "Because I’m gonna be a blues guitar player. That’s all I cared about.
I went on to play with all these amazing blues acts but, along with loving guys like B.B King and Howling Wolf, I also loved Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, the artists on Stax Records and Vault Records, and Motown music. I had such a wide range of music I loved that it all influenced me.
So, when I sit down to write a song, I’m not thinking "I better keep this bluesy" you know? I just write whatever inspiration I feel at the time.
But, for a long time, that meant people were going "Well this isn’t really the blues" because it wasn't this or it didn't sound like that, but then you know what I mean! [laughs].
RM: I do indeed. All hail the blues police [laughs].
WT: Even now, on this current album, with a song like Love Of My Life – is that the blues? No!
But, everything I do is based in the blues, because when I set out to be a guitar player, I wanted to be Mike Bloomfield, or Eric Clapton when he was in Cream.
This was when I was a teenager, listening to those two guys and others like Roy Buchanan and Buddy Guy.
I was also listening to Jimi Hendrix, but even with Jimi my favourite cut of his was Red House, because he’s playing the blues, right?
So, I’ve had this thing where I want to write songs that mean something to me, or come out of my own experiences, but influenced by all the music that I love.
Now, that all said, I have done a couple of blues albums – Survivor Blues and Luther’s Blues, which was a tribute to Luther Allison – they to me are stone-cold blues albums.
RM: Agreed. Your definitive blues statements, if you will.
WT: Right, and that’s because I wanted to do those albums. I really do love the blues, but that’s just part of what I do.
RM: I’m glad you mentioned Love Of My Life earlier because that’s a track I wanted to talk about.
That’s a lovely instrumental piece written for your wife Marie, where you lyrically express yourself through your guitar.
WT: Thank you. I’ve written three guitar instrumentals now, and they all started off with me thinking "OK, I’m going to write a ballad."
But what happened was I would have an opening line and a melody, but couldn’t get any further with the lyrics.
So I just said "Fuck this, I’ll just play it and say it on the guitar!" [laughs]
The first one was a song called Marie’s Mood.
I had the first line and the melody, which was [sings] "Marie is feeling blue" but I didn’t know where else to go with it.
It was actually Marie who said "Well, why don’t you just play it on the guitar?"
And I thought "Wow; why don’t I just play it on the guitar?"
The second one was called Through The Eyes Of Love, which was originally [sings] Through the eyes of love, is the way that I look at you."
But, again, I didn’t know where to go lyrically, after that, because that line said it all for me. So it became an instrumental too!
It was exactly the same with Love Of My Life. I started with [sings] "She’s the love of my life" but I didn’t have anything else. But by now I was used to it [laughs]; so if I can’t get any further with the lyric, I know just to play it on guitar!
I honestly didn’t start off to write an instrumental; it became an instrumental because that one line of lyric was everything I needed to say. The line became the title.
RM: However it was conceived, it turned out to be a lovely piece.
WT: Yeah, I’m quite happy with that cut. The funny thing is, although it didn’t start off as an instrumental, I did start out to write a ballad that would only have three chords, and they would repeat over and over.
And that’s exactly what this song does; if you listen to it, it’s the same three chords, even through the A section and the B section; musically it’s actually very simple.
Both Marie’s Mood and Through The Eyes Of Love have lots of chords with lots of changes, so this time I thought "I wonder what I can do with just three chords."
RM: That’s interesting, because in terms of how emotive and melodic your guitar play is, I hadn't noticed the simplicity of the chord structure…
WT: Yeah, it really is just three blues chords, 1, 4 and 5.
The 1 and 4 chords are minor and the 5 is major; and that’s it, over and over.
But what happened was I would have an opening line and a melody, but couldn’t get any further with the lyrics.
So I just said "Fuck this, I’ll just play it and say it on the guitar!" [laughs]
The first one was a song called Marie’s Mood.
I had the first line and the melody, which was [sings] "Marie is feeling blue" but I didn’t know where else to go with it.
It was actually Marie who said "Well, why don’t you just play it on the guitar?"
And I thought "Wow; why don’t I just play it on the guitar?"
The second one was called Through The Eyes Of Love, which was originally [sings] Through the eyes of love, is the way that I look at you."
But, again, I didn’t know where to go lyrically, after that, because that line said it all for me. So it became an instrumental too!
It was exactly the same with Love Of My Life. I started with [sings] "She’s the love of my life" but I didn’t have anything else. But by now I was used to it [laughs]; so if I can’t get any further with the lyric, I know just to play it on guitar!
I honestly didn’t start off to write an instrumental; it became an instrumental because that one line of lyric was everything I needed to say. The line became the title.
RM: However it was conceived, it turned out to be a lovely piece.
WT: Yeah, I’m quite happy with that cut. The funny thing is, although it didn’t start off as an instrumental, I did start out to write a ballad that would only have three chords, and they would repeat over and over.
And that’s exactly what this song does; if you listen to it, it’s the same three chords, even through the A section and the B section; musically it’s actually very simple.
Both Marie’s Mood and Through The Eyes Of Love have lots of chords with lots of changes, so this time I thought "I wonder what I can do with just three chords."
RM: That’s interesting, because in terms of how emotive and melodic your guitar play is, I hadn't noticed the simplicity of the chord structure…
WT: Yeah, it really is just three blues chords, 1, 4 and 5.
The 1 and 4 chords are minor and the 5 is major; and that’s it, over and over.
RM: Three other songs on Broken that we must talk about are the title track, Bleed and I’ve Had Enough, not least because each features a significant contribution from, respectively, Beth Hart, harmonica player Will Wilde and Dee Snider.
Broken, which opens the album, almost sounds like it was written for Beth, or even written by Beth.
WT: It’s funny you should say that because when I began writing that song I could hear Beth singing it in my head; I actually wrote it to be a duet with her.
Now, here’s an interesting thing about that song. On the album before, which was Ride, I had a song called All Out Of Tears; that song was written by myself, a blues singer called Teeny Tucker and my wife, Marie.
And that all came about because Teeny had, sadly, lost her eldest son; we saw her when we were in Memphis one day, walking down the street and I said "Hey Teeny, how you doing?"
She replied "My son has just passed on. My heart is broken, but my eyes are dry because I’m all out of tears." I asked her if that was from a song and she said "No, I’m telling you how I feel."
I immediately said "We need to write a song using that line and we’ll dedicate it to your son."
So, the three of us wrote All Out Of Tears together, which won Song Of The Year in Memphis.
Now, that song has a line, on the last verse, which is about grief – "I know I’m Broken."
Every time I sang that on a stage, in my head I went beyond the grief to when I was a heroin addict, and even further back to my childhood, living in some pretty horrific circumstances; how I became mentally fucked up due to some of the stuff I went through.
RM: You have always been very open, honest and candid about your darker, earlier days; clearly they also shaped or influenced many of you later lyrics.
All Out Of Tears, and Broken, are clearly very poignant, and cathartic, examples.
WT: Well, if I really want to get into it with you Ross – and this is something a lot of people don’t know – before I moved to Los Angeles I worked in Philadelphia, where I was a trained therapist in a drug rehab programme.
I did that for about a year and a half, and ended up having what was pretty much a nervous breakdown.
That’s when I said "OK, I’m going to move to Los Angeles now and become a guitar player."
I was done with being in that medical community, dealing with heroin addicts who were coming to us straight out of prison. So I moved to Los Angeles, and not long after I became a heroin addict – I just did it backwards; after treating addicts, I became the addict!
And as I said earlier, when I was playing that song, I went back in my head to when I was running about Los Angeles as a messed up dude, trying to score narcotics for myself, and drinking too much.
I knew I was lost, I knew I was broken, but I didn’t want to be broken.
And that’s what led to me writing the song Broken. I started with the melody, which I dug, and started playing it as an acoustic blues. But when I started to write the lyrics, I got really stuck with them.
I called up my wife Marie, who is an award winning songwriter – we’ve also written a lot of songs together for my albums – and said "I’m stuck; I know what I need to say but I just can’t say it."
About an hour later she sent me over some incredible lyrics; eighty percent of the lyrics on Broken are actually hers. But even before then, when I just had the melody and the broken line, I knew it had to be a duet, and it had to be with Beth Hart.
Beth is a dear friend and she’s been honest about her own struggles, so she had to sing that song with me.
RM: Having Beth on Broken is the perfect dovetailing, especially from the lyrical/ shared experiences point of view.
Now, Bleed, is a great boogie down the road number that features British harmonica player Will Wilde.
How did working with Will come about?
WT: I’ve actually known Will for a few years now, since back when I did a gig on Worthing Pier in England.
The opening act was two young guys, one on acoustic guitar and the other on harmonica. I was in dressing room with my band, eating a sandwich, and I hear this harmonica.
Now I’m also a harmonica player – I played harmonica in Canned Heat for three years – but this was so good that I said to the band "Are you guys hearing that?" I went out to hear it better and watch them play, and it’s a young Will Wilde.
I was completely blown away, so much so that I invited him to come up and play with my band that night and he stopped the show!
Will is the best blues harmonica player on the planet, certainly in my opinion. There are a lot of harmonica players out there with incredible technique, but Will couples his incredible technical ability with this deep, deep emotion and passion, and heart and soul.
He’s like Paul Butterfield in that regard, but with this incredible technique, which is just off the hook.
What’s also great is he’s using that technique for self-expression; he’s not out to try and impress you; he gets into your heart and soul, and your gut.
RM: No argument; he’s a tremendous talent. Anyone unfamiliar with Will should check him out.
So like Beth with Broken, did you almost hear Will on Bleed before you had even asked him?
WT: Initially I thought I could play the harmonica on it, but my harp playing is very linted, especially as I’m older now and don’t have the breath I need – I would kinda huff and puff my way through it [laughs].
So, as soon as I decided I was going to bring in a harp player I knew it had to be Will; I thought he’s just the dude to take this to another place!
As for the song itself – and I say this every night when we do the song – it really comes to you courtesy of my great drummer, Michael Leasure, who has done about twelve albums with me now.
We’re in the studio, and we’ve just done the last tune for the album Broken. We’re all sitting around, feeling good about ourselves, happy that we know we have a really good album, and Mike says "So, Walter, this is your thirty-first album?"
"Yes, Mike, it is."
"And you played with John lee Hooker?"
"Yes I did."
"And you played with Canned Heat?"
"Yeah, that’s right."
"Well, both are known for the boogie; we should never forget the boogie – but you did, you forgot the boogie! You’ve done thirty-one albums and you’ve never done a real boogie! What’s up with that?" [laughs]
I said "You know what, you’re right." We were still all set up in the studio, so we got ourselves together and put that song together in about twenty minutes.
Then, for the lyrics, I had a sort of poem I had written about a dear friend of mine who lost not one but two wives and families over his drinking. After he lost out the second time, he said to me "I’m done with love; I’m not ever going to give my heart to anybody else, because I don’t want to be hurt."
But I thought if you want to find love you have to take the chance that you might be hurt; in that poem I had the line "To be prepared for love you’ve got to be prepared to bleed;" as it turned out some of the lines of that poem just fitted the song perfectly.
RM: It's an impacting number, in more ways than one.
Equally impacting is I’ve Had Enough, featuring Dee Snider. Beth was the perfect vocal fit and Will became the obvious harp blowing choice, but Dee is the surprise of the album – but one that paid dividends, because I’ve Had Enough is a great, hard rockin’ song.
WT: Thank you. Dee's a good friend; he gave me a call one day and said "Hey man, I hear you’re making a new record – I’d love to sing a blues song with you!"
I thought that was a pretty cool idea but I said to Dee "An even better idea would be if I come out and do a really rocking tune, because people expect me to come out and do a blues." And I knew that would be great, because it would really fuck up some of the blues police you mentioned earlier [laughter]
And, again, like with Beth, I wrote that song with him in mind. He had We’re Not Gonna Take it with Twisted Sister, so I came up with I’ve Had Enough [laughs]
In fact once I came up with that line the rest of the song came together in about ten minutes!
I sent a demo of it to him and said "I know you want to sing a blues with me, but I wanna do what you do; I wanna do something a little out of the box." Dee agreed, came in, and sang the hell out of that song.
I love that track!
Broken, which opens the album, almost sounds like it was written for Beth, or even written by Beth.
WT: It’s funny you should say that because when I began writing that song I could hear Beth singing it in my head; I actually wrote it to be a duet with her.
Now, here’s an interesting thing about that song. On the album before, which was Ride, I had a song called All Out Of Tears; that song was written by myself, a blues singer called Teeny Tucker and my wife, Marie.
And that all came about because Teeny had, sadly, lost her eldest son; we saw her when we were in Memphis one day, walking down the street and I said "Hey Teeny, how you doing?"
She replied "My son has just passed on. My heart is broken, but my eyes are dry because I’m all out of tears." I asked her if that was from a song and she said "No, I’m telling you how I feel."
I immediately said "We need to write a song using that line and we’ll dedicate it to your son."
So, the three of us wrote All Out Of Tears together, which won Song Of The Year in Memphis.
Now, that song has a line, on the last verse, which is about grief – "I know I’m Broken."
Every time I sang that on a stage, in my head I went beyond the grief to when I was a heroin addict, and even further back to my childhood, living in some pretty horrific circumstances; how I became mentally fucked up due to some of the stuff I went through.
RM: You have always been very open, honest and candid about your darker, earlier days; clearly they also shaped or influenced many of you later lyrics.
All Out Of Tears, and Broken, are clearly very poignant, and cathartic, examples.
WT: Well, if I really want to get into it with you Ross – and this is something a lot of people don’t know – before I moved to Los Angeles I worked in Philadelphia, where I was a trained therapist in a drug rehab programme.
I did that for about a year and a half, and ended up having what was pretty much a nervous breakdown.
That’s when I said "OK, I’m going to move to Los Angeles now and become a guitar player."
I was done with being in that medical community, dealing with heroin addicts who were coming to us straight out of prison. So I moved to Los Angeles, and not long after I became a heroin addict – I just did it backwards; after treating addicts, I became the addict!
And as I said earlier, when I was playing that song, I went back in my head to when I was running about Los Angeles as a messed up dude, trying to score narcotics for myself, and drinking too much.
I knew I was lost, I knew I was broken, but I didn’t want to be broken.
And that’s what led to me writing the song Broken. I started with the melody, which I dug, and started playing it as an acoustic blues. But when I started to write the lyrics, I got really stuck with them.
I called up my wife Marie, who is an award winning songwriter – we’ve also written a lot of songs together for my albums – and said "I’m stuck; I know what I need to say but I just can’t say it."
About an hour later she sent me over some incredible lyrics; eighty percent of the lyrics on Broken are actually hers. But even before then, when I just had the melody and the broken line, I knew it had to be a duet, and it had to be with Beth Hart.
Beth is a dear friend and she’s been honest about her own struggles, so she had to sing that song with me.
RM: Having Beth on Broken is the perfect dovetailing, especially from the lyrical/ shared experiences point of view.
Now, Bleed, is a great boogie down the road number that features British harmonica player Will Wilde.
How did working with Will come about?
WT: I’ve actually known Will for a few years now, since back when I did a gig on Worthing Pier in England.
The opening act was two young guys, one on acoustic guitar and the other on harmonica. I was in dressing room with my band, eating a sandwich, and I hear this harmonica.
Now I’m also a harmonica player – I played harmonica in Canned Heat for three years – but this was so good that I said to the band "Are you guys hearing that?" I went out to hear it better and watch them play, and it’s a young Will Wilde.
I was completely blown away, so much so that I invited him to come up and play with my band that night and he stopped the show!
Will is the best blues harmonica player on the planet, certainly in my opinion. There are a lot of harmonica players out there with incredible technique, but Will couples his incredible technical ability with this deep, deep emotion and passion, and heart and soul.
He’s like Paul Butterfield in that regard, but with this incredible technique, which is just off the hook.
What’s also great is he’s using that technique for self-expression; he’s not out to try and impress you; he gets into your heart and soul, and your gut.
RM: No argument; he’s a tremendous talent. Anyone unfamiliar with Will should check him out.
So like Beth with Broken, did you almost hear Will on Bleed before you had even asked him?
WT: Initially I thought I could play the harmonica on it, but my harp playing is very linted, especially as I’m older now and don’t have the breath I need – I would kinda huff and puff my way through it [laughs].
So, as soon as I decided I was going to bring in a harp player I knew it had to be Will; I thought he’s just the dude to take this to another place!
As for the song itself – and I say this every night when we do the song – it really comes to you courtesy of my great drummer, Michael Leasure, who has done about twelve albums with me now.
We’re in the studio, and we’ve just done the last tune for the album Broken. We’re all sitting around, feeling good about ourselves, happy that we know we have a really good album, and Mike says "So, Walter, this is your thirty-first album?"
"Yes, Mike, it is."
"And you played with John lee Hooker?"
"Yes I did."
"And you played with Canned Heat?"
"Yeah, that’s right."
"Well, both are known for the boogie; we should never forget the boogie – but you did, you forgot the boogie! You’ve done thirty-one albums and you’ve never done a real boogie! What’s up with that?" [laughs]
I said "You know what, you’re right." We were still all set up in the studio, so we got ourselves together and put that song together in about twenty minutes.
Then, for the lyrics, I had a sort of poem I had written about a dear friend of mine who lost not one but two wives and families over his drinking. After he lost out the second time, he said to me "I’m done with love; I’m not ever going to give my heart to anybody else, because I don’t want to be hurt."
But I thought if you want to find love you have to take the chance that you might be hurt; in that poem I had the line "To be prepared for love you’ve got to be prepared to bleed;" as it turned out some of the lines of that poem just fitted the song perfectly.
RM: It's an impacting number, in more ways than one.
Equally impacting is I’ve Had Enough, featuring Dee Snider. Beth was the perfect vocal fit and Will became the obvious harp blowing choice, but Dee is the surprise of the album – but one that paid dividends, because I’ve Had Enough is a great, hard rockin’ song.
WT: Thank you. Dee's a good friend; he gave me a call one day and said "Hey man, I hear you’re making a new record – I’d love to sing a blues song with you!"
I thought that was a pretty cool idea but I said to Dee "An even better idea would be if I come out and do a really rocking tune, because people expect me to come out and do a blues." And I knew that would be great, because it would really fuck up some of the blues police you mentioned earlier [laughter]
And, again, like with Beth, I wrote that song with him in mind. He had We’re Not Gonna Take it with Twisted Sister, so I came up with I’ve Had Enough [laughs]
In fact once I came up with that line the rest of the song came together in about ten minutes!
I sent a demo of it to him and said "I know you want to sing a blues with me, but I wanna do what you do; I wanna do something a little out of the box." Dee agreed, came in, and sang the hell out of that song.
I love that track!
RM: I've Had Enough also typifies what you spoke about earlier as regards your myriad of influences.
Love Of My Life could not be more different from I’ve Had Enough but, as part of the wider musical picture that is Broken, they both work as well as each other. That more colourful musical palette, which usually includes a ballad, serves you well.
WT: Thank you, Ross. I’ve actually done at least one ballad on every single album.
I love ballads – in fact my hit in Europe, which goes back to my second album, was a ballad called The Love That We Once Knew. I wrote that right out of High School when my first love broke up with me.
And the ballad on Broken, I Wanna Stay – that's my favourite song on this new album.
I sat down with Marie and said "Here’s what I want us to do. I want us to write a tune that could have been done by Luther Vandross, or Curtis Mayfield; I want it to be about the first night we spent together, and how it felt." I didn't mean physically, but emotionally, because I fell in love with that girl in five minutes!
RM: Lovely songs both. And, again, part of the attraction is something touched on earlier – your lyrics, which tend to be stories we can all relate to – love found, love lost, life, relationships, being broken, being stronger together.
WT: Well, you know something Ross, when I went back to my home in California after the last tour, I was there by myself for about ten days, starting to write for what became this new album.
I was listening to some of my catalogue and realised that about ninety-nine out of every hundred songs I had written had a story behind them – the lyrics either came out of something I believed in, or felt strongly about, or had experienced.
Now, there have been a couple that were just fun songs, or have comedy lyrics, like Turn Off Your TV, from a few years ago – "The newscaster lady is looking kinda weird; if she gets another facelift, she’s gonna have a beard" [laughter]. I think that’s one of my lyrical peaks! [laughs]
That was just such a fun song, but the majority of my songs do have, as you said, a story behind them.
That’s just the way I do it; it’s a therapy for me.
Love Of My Life could not be more different from I’ve Had Enough but, as part of the wider musical picture that is Broken, they both work as well as each other. That more colourful musical palette, which usually includes a ballad, serves you well.
WT: Thank you, Ross. I’ve actually done at least one ballad on every single album.
I love ballads – in fact my hit in Europe, which goes back to my second album, was a ballad called The Love That We Once Knew. I wrote that right out of High School when my first love broke up with me.
And the ballad on Broken, I Wanna Stay – that's my favourite song on this new album.
I sat down with Marie and said "Here’s what I want us to do. I want us to write a tune that could have been done by Luther Vandross, or Curtis Mayfield; I want it to be about the first night we spent together, and how it felt." I didn't mean physically, but emotionally, because I fell in love with that girl in five minutes!
RM: Lovely songs both. And, again, part of the attraction is something touched on earlier – your lyrics, which tend to be stories we can all relate to – love found, love lost, life, relationships, being broken, being stronger together.
WT: Well, you know something Ross, when I went back to my home in California after the last tour, I was there by myself for about ten days, starting to write for what became this new album.
I was listening to some of my catalogue and realised that about ninety-nine out of every hundred songs I had written had a story behind them – the lyrics either came out of something I believed in, or felt strongly about, or had experienced.
Now, there have been a couple that were just fun songs, or have comedy lyrics, like Turn Off Your TV, from a few years ago – "The newscaster lady is looking kinda weird; if she gets another facelift, she’s gonna have a beard" [laughter]. I think that’s one of my lyrical peaks! [laughs]
That was just such a fun song, but the majority of my songs do have, as you said, a story behind them.
That’s just the way I do it; it’s a therapy for me.
RM: I’d like to close out by focussing on a man you mentioned at the top of this conversation, the late and great John Mayall.
We lost John, who was still performing live up until 2022, back in July. He obviously played a major part in the formative years of your career – would you mind speaking a little on John, and what he meant to you?
WT: I’m more than happy to talk about John, but it’s hard to properly express his influence on my life, and my music, but I’ll try.
Back in 1982, when I was in Canned Heat, John put a band together called Return of the Bluesbreakers, featuring Mick Taylor, John McVie and Colin Allen.
Canned Heat did three shows in California with them; we opened for them in San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Cruz. At one point during that period John came up to me just gushing about my guitar playing and telling me how much he loved it. We became really good friends and hung out together all three nights.
At the end of those shows Canned Heat was taking some time off and John said "What are you going to do now, because I’d love to hear you play guitar with Mick. Why don’t you come out on the road with us?"
I’m thinking man, this is the Bluesbreakers! When those first albums came out – Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, Crusade featuring Mick Taylor, A Hard Road with Peter Green as guitarist – I was at High School listening to those albums and learning how to play guitar from them!
I said "Of course I’d love to come out on the road with you guys!" And I did!
When they later went off to Australia to tour, I stayed with Canned Heat, but not long after that John hired Canned Heat to go out with him on tour; we became his backing band.
We would come out and do forty-five minutes as Canned Heat, then John would join us as John Mayall and Canned Heat. We even did a television concert in 1983, which you van find on YouTube.
We toured America and Canada in that format for about a year before John put a new band together in 1984. John offered me the chance to join the new line-up, which included Coco Montoya. I joined and then stayed with him through to 1989.
I worked with John, off and on, for around seven and half years but, during the time I was playing with him I was a hopeless drug addict and alcoholic.
I was so out of my mind that the other guys in his band were saying to John "Why do you have this guy? He’s so fucked up."
Now, those same guys were also fucked up, but I was too fucked up even for them! [laughter]
RM: You invented a whole new level…
WT: [laughs] Yeah, it was a whole new level; just insane behaviour. But John always supported me and believed in me, even when the other band members were saying "Get this guy outta here!"
I’ll always be so grateful to John for nurturing me, and helping me. Carlos Santana also helped me, through three days I spent with him, but it was John that stuck with me and helped get me sober, which has been the case these last thirty-seven years. He was a father figure to me.
RM: Influential in more than just the music.
WT: He was. In later years, I asked John a couple of times how the hell he managed to put up with me back then. He had two answers, the first of which was "Well, there was a certain humour to it" [laughs].
The other time – and I’ll never forget it because he got very serious – he said "Walter, I don’t know how you did it, but no matter how wasted you were, you were always able to play the music. If you had gotten on stage one night and were not able to play my music, I’d have sent you home the very next day; but you always managed to pull it off."
Those last gigs he did in 2022, we did with him.
We did a small tour of California and he and I hung out together every night.
RM: That’s lovely. Full circle; and so fitting.
WT: I just can’t say enough about him; how he stuck by me, and what he taught me.
And I have to tell you, when he got inducted into the Blues Music Hall Of Fame in Memphis, he could have got anyone he wanted to do his induction speech. He could have asked Mick Taylor, he could have asked John McVie; he could have asked Mick Fleetwood, or Eric Clapton.
But you know who he asked? Marie Trout.
RM: Wow. That speaks volumes.
WT: And at the Classic Rock Awards at the Roundhouse in London, when he was being given a classic album award for the Blues Breakers album with Eric Clapton, he had me come up to induct him and give him the award.
That shows you the closeness that he, has family and his children had with my wife and myself.
I firmly believe if he hadn’t invited me to join his band all those decades ago there’s every chance I would still be playing down at my local bar.
It's really hard for me to truly express what he did for me, and what he meant to me; I hope I did OK.
RM: You did more than OK, Walter; thank you so much for both a lovely tribute to John and an insight into your relationship with him.
Thank you also for your time, and your candidness and openness during this chat – those traits are another reason you are so respected and loved. See you out on the UK road.
WT: It’s been so great talking to you, Ross; thank you so much. Take care and we’ll see our UK fans soon!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation With Walter Trout
October 2024
Article dedicated to the memory, and legacy, of John Brumwell Mayall OBE (1933 - 2024)
Photo credits – all live images by Rinjo Boon
Broken and other Walter Trout albums available at:
https://www.mascotlabelgroup.com/collections/walter-trout
We lost John, who was still performing live up until 2022, back in July. He obviously played a major part in the formative years of your career – would you mind speaking a little on John, and what he meant to you?
WT: I’m more than happy to talk about John, but it’s hard to properly express his influence on my life, and my music, but I’ll try.
Back in 1982, when I was in Canned Heat, John put a band together called Return of the Bluesbreakers, featuring Mick Taylor, John McVie and Colin Allen.
Canned Heat did three shows in California with them; we opened for them in San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Cruz. At one point during that period John came up to me just gushing about my guitar playing and telling me how much he loved it. We became really good friends and hung out together all three nights.
At the end of those shows Canned Heat was taking some time off and John said "What are you going to do now, because I’d love to hear you play guitar with Mick. Why don’t you come out on the road with us?"
I’m thinking man, this is the Bluesbreakers! When those first albums came out – Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, Crusade featuring Mick Taylor, A Hard Road with Peter Green as guitarist – I was at High School listening to those albums and learning how to play guitar from them!
I said "Of course I’d love to come out on the road with you guys!" And I did!
When they later went off to Australia to tour, I stayed with Canned Heat, but not long after that John hired Canned Heat to go out with him on tour; we became his backing band.
We would come out and do forty-five minutes as Canned Heat, then John would join us as John Mayall and Canned Heat. We even did a television concert in 1983, which you van find on YouTube.
We toured America and Canada in that format for about a year before John put a new band together in 1984. John offered me the chance to join the new line-up, which included Coco Montoya. I joined and then stayed with him through to 1989.
I worked with John, off and on, for around seven and half years but, during the time I was playing with him I was a hopeless drug addict and alcoholic.
I was so out of my mind that the other guys in his band were saying to John "Why do you have this guy? He’s so fucked up."
Now, those same guys were also fucked up, but I was too fucked up even for them! [laughter]
RM: You invented a whole new level…
WT: [laughs] Yeah, it was a whole new level; just insane behaviour. But John always supported me and believed in me, even when the other band members were saying "Get this guy outta here!"
I’ll always be so grateful to John for nurturing me, and helping me. Carlos Santana also helped me, through three days I spent with him, but it was John that stuck with me and helped get me sober, which has been the case these last thirty-seven years. He was a father figure to me.
RM: Influential in more than just the music.
WT: He was. In later years, I asked John a couple of times how the hell he managed to put up with me back then. He had two answers, the first of which was "Well, there was a certain humour to it" [laughs].
The other time – and I’ll never forget it because he got very serious – he said "Walter, I don’t know how you did it, but no matter how wasted you were, you were always able to play the music. If you had gotten on stage one night and were not able to play my music, I’d have sent you home the very next day; but you always managed to pull it off."
Those last gigs he did in 2022, we did with him.
We did a small tour of California and he and I hung out together every night.
RM: That’s lovely. Full circle; and so fitting.
WT: I just can’t say enough about him; how he stuck by me, and what he taught me.
And I have to tell you, when he got inducted into the Blues Music Hall Of Fame in Memphis, he could have got anyone he wanted to do his induction speech. He could have asked Mick Taylor, he could have asked John McVie; he could have asked Mick Fleetwood, or Eric Clapton.
But you know who he asked? Marie Trout.
RM: Wow. That speaks volumes.
WT: And at the Classic Rock Awards at the Roundhouse in London, when he was being given a classic album award for the Blues Breakers album with Eric Clapton, he had me come up to induct him and give him the award.
That shows you the closeness that he, has family and his children had with my wife and myself.
I firmly believe if he hadn’t invited me to join his band all those decades ago there’s every chance I would still be playing down at my local bar.
It's really hard for me to truly express what he did for me, and what he meant to me; I hope I did OK.
RM: You did more than OK, Walter; thank you so much for both a lovely tribute to John and an insight into your relationship with him.
Thank you also for your time, and your candidness and openness during this chat – those traits are another reason you are so respected and loved. See you out on the UK road.
WT: It’s been so great talking to you, Ross; thank you so much. Take care and we’ll see our UK fans soon!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation With Walter Trout
October 2024
Article dedicated to the memory, and legacy, of John Brumwell Mayall OBE (1933 - 2024)
Photo credits – all live images by Rinjo Boon
Broken and other Walter Trout albums available at:
https://www.mascotlabelgroup.com/collections/walter-trout