Kenny Wayne Shepherd is back with a brand new album ‘The Traveler’, which could very well be his best work to date and is set to be released on 31st May through Concord Records. ‘The Traveler’ boasts eight new studio tracks, as well as two fantastic covers in the shape of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Mr Soul’ & wonderful version of Joe Walsh’s ‘Turn to Stone’ and it is an album full of variety, as Kenny Wayne pushes his boundaries as a songwriter once again with singing sidekick Noah Hunt returning to join Kenny on the album. It’s been a busy 2019 so far and there seems to be no letting up for an artist who amazingly finds time to juggle recording, touring & his love for fast cars fitting in alongside vital family time with his wife & children. The Rockpit’s Sean Bennett managed to grab some talk time with Kenny once again, having spoken to him around back in August last year, just two months before his whirlwind three-show in three-days mini Australian tour in October here. As well as talking about ‘The Traveler’, Kenny discusses how & why he selected the cover songs he did, his passion for cars, as well as answering some guitar-based reader’s questions…
Sean: Hey Kenny, great to talk to you again.
KWS: Hey man, how ya been?
Sean: Great thanks. I’ve been one of the lucky ones to get to listen to your new album ‘The Traveler’. When we spoke last year you said that you felt ‘Lay It On Down’ was possibly your best album to date. Well, I have to say I think ‘The Traveler’ has taken things up another notch or two… it’s fantastic.
KSW: Thank you Sean. Much appreciated, man. My approach to making records is to always try and test myself and to do better or to take it to a different place or the next level… however you want to put it. But always strive to do better and not repeat myself and to make a different record than the previous one. It’s important that when people hear it they are hearing something new and it not predictable.
Sean: There is plenty of diversity throughout the ten tracks. Even though your long-time friend & vocal colleague Noah (Hunt) is with you once again, you’ve taken on more vocal responsibilities in a similar way to ‘Lay it on Down’, which is great.
KWS: Yeah I think I did four out of ten on ‘Lay It’ and I do four out of ten again on ‘The Traveler’ but on this album, for the first time ever I wrote a song specifically so that we could share the lead vocals and that’s on ‘We All Alright’, so I’m singing on five in all. Noah sings the verses and I sing the choruses so that’s kind of a new dimension and approach to us both being lead singers in the band now.
Sean: Because of the variety of songs it’s hard to pick a favourite at the moment but the cover you’ve recorded of Joe Walsh’s ‘Turn to Stone’ that closes the album is fantastic.
KWS: Yeah, thank you. Joe Walsh is a good friend of mine and I’m a fan not only of Joe as a person but as much of his music. We were asked to perform some Joe Walsh songs at an event where they were honouring him and that was one of the songs that I chose to do and it just went over so well and it sounded so good that I thought we should try it in the studio. So we did – we went into the studio and cut it… that’s actually a ‘live’ take right there. There is no overdubbing on that track so from beginning to end that is exactly how we played it in the studio.
Sean: When I get to talk to artists like you, I find that while researching questions I get side tracked and end up listening to music I haven’t heard much of in the past, such as Buffalo Springfield. You’ve also recorded a great version of ‘Mr Soul’.
KWS: For me that’s the goal. Even if its someone you have listened to before like Joe Walsh for example, if I am to cover someone else’s music then I like to dig deep into their catalogue and not do the obvious stuff and try find something that makes us go, “wow this is an amazing song and I think we can do a great job”… you know sometimes even fans of their music may not have even heard this song before because people don’t always dig so deep, they just go for the obvious ones. So it’s my way of paying tribute to an artist and their entire catalogue and then hopefully inspiring fans of music to go and dig a little themselves and discover new things.
Sean: I’ll certainly be going back to listen more to them…
KSW: You’ve heard Buffalo Springfield before because that was Steven Stills band when he recorded ‘For What It’s Worth’… everybody knows that song. So at least you’ve heard that but there are so many other songs these guys did.
Sean: I love the way you’ve brought that guitar sound forward in the intro… It’s got that wonderful Rolling Stones ‘Satisfaction’ riff…
KWS: Yeah, well that’s Neil Young right there. Neil wrote the song and we did that song because Stephen & I… Stephen Stills and I have a band together called The Rides which is a side project, well we did a benefit concert a couple of years back and Neil came out to the concert and performed and the three of us got up and did a bunch of songs together and that was one of them. Ever since I had heard that song I had dug it and always hoped I could do that song one day, so when I knew Neil was coming out and I knew we were going to play together I got the chance to play it with them and it was just electric man. It was on fire and just so cool man. So I was like “ok, let’s take this into the studio” and did our own version of it and paid tribute to that experience.
Sean: So, the last time we got to see you here in Australia would probably been a bit of a blur for you all last October after flying in, playing three shows in three nights and then early flights back to the US the morning after. With all due respect, when I caught up with you & Noah in the afternoon after your sound check, you both looked dead on your feet but on stage that night the energy was incredible.
KWS: That’s the power of music, Sean. You know man it’s not just the tight scheduling – it’s the time (zone) change too. Jetlag is a real thing to have to contend with and when you haven’t been to a country in a little while they keep the schedule pretty full between the shows & interviews and things like that. You know, my goal is to try not letting too much time pass before we come back… I would really like it if we could come back next year and bring this new music over there. But the power of music is so incredible – you can be worn out, you can be sick, you can be feeling bad in a number of different ways but once you step out on that stage, those lights go up and you hit that first chord and that adrenaline gets going… well, it’s time to put the show on and the energy is just there.
Sean: It was that short a trip you didn’t even get time to get another Australian tattoo [laugh]
KWS: [laughs] I know man. Actually I think that was the last place… no, I did get another one since. I haven’t become the guy where tattoos become my identity but if I did get another one I’d probably get one in Australia.
Sean: Tattooists all around the country are sitting up and taking note now… You seem to be out on the road for large parts of the year and I see you had some more shows with the incredible Beth Hart, who we got to see here in Perth on Valentine’s Day – that must be such a wonderful show with the two of you.
KWS: Yeah, she came back out here to the States and we did about three weeks in April. We are actually going out doing a co-headline with Buddy Guy in June then we go over to Europe and do a bunch of festivals but then we are catching up with Beth again and doing more shows over there in Europe with her – I think it’s about four or five shows in Europe, so that’s going to be really cool.
Sean: You’ve also been on the Keeping the Blues Alive At Sea Cruise with Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout and a host of others back in February and will be back out in the Mediterranean later in the year on another one with JB, Peter Frampton, Bernie Marsden and so many more. How much fun are they to do?
KWS: We do another one called the ‘Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise’ which has been going on for nearly thirty five years and that’s the one we normally do but this was the first time we had done ‘Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea’ one and that was fun. So we are doing the other one which starts in Barcelona in Spain but we aren’t doing the whole trip. We’re doing like one show and then jumping off the boat because we have some other things we have to do but we are still looking forward to it and these things are always so much fun. There are always lots of great bands & artists to be seen and good times to be had by all.
Sean: Another side of you that we’ve been able to see a bit more of is your love for cars. The YouTube episodes of ‘Cars & Guitars’ has been awesome – I’ve really enjoyed the few episodes I’ve managed to catch online.
KWS: Ever since I was a kid my love for cars probably even came before my love for the guitar, but they really go hand in hand and thankfully because of my music I’ve been able to explore my passion with the cars. So we decided to start running our own little web episodes of ‘Cars & Guitars’ where we talk about the instruments I’m using and the cars that I’ve built and also the ones that we are currently building. It’s cool because it’s just another aspect of my life that I love to do.
Sean: Certainly one of the episodes showcased a car that was a huge part of my youth and that is your wonderful ‘Xtreme Lee’. That General Lee car from The Dukes of Hazard was just exceptional.
KWS: Yeah, that was like totally fulfilling a childhood fantasy for me. I always wanted to be Bo Duke driving the General Lee and I had the opportunity to make that dream come true.
Sean: I need to watch the other episodes now because the couple I saw were really cool. I’ve reached out to a few of our readers who had some questions to ask you – I’m guessing they are guitar players themselves as well as fans because they are all guitar based questions…
KWS: OK, fire away…
Sean: The first question is from Sam Michael who lives here in Perth, WA and Sam asks “Putting aside your ’61 Strat ‘The One’ (Martha), which of the guitars in your collection would be your next favourite?”
KWS: Well Sam, that’s kind of like asking me which one of my children is my favourite [laughs]. Each of my guitars has its own personality & its own characteristics and each has a story behind them too. I think probably one of the big crowd favourites is the one called ‘Copperboy’, which is my orange-sparkled Strat with the upside down headstock. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top gave the guitar that name and people always look forward to seeing that guitar on stage. I really like the way that guitar sounds and I’ve used it on a few of the new songs on this record and I was really pleased with the way the guitar records, so ‘Copperboy’ is definitely up there as one of my favourites.
Sean: Great stuff. Anth Nekich from the band Warbirds over in Melbourne asks, “You seem to have a love for Fender guitars, especially Strats but do you have any telecasters in your collection?”
KWS: I do. I only have one though. And it’s a really amazing custom shop telecaster that is made out of Korina wood, which in not the usual wood for telecasters – it’s normally alder or ash or whatever. Korina was made famous mostly by Gibson using it for the ‘Flying Vs’ back in the late 50s so it’s an exotic kind of wood and not one that’s typically found in a lot of guitars but they built this telecaster entirely out of Korina and it sounds very unique and it’s a really beautiful sounding instrument.
Sean: I looked through your ‘Gear’ section on your website and didn’t see that one on there, so that’s pretty interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Final question is from a good friend of mine, Clive Wisbey who live in Alba in the Piedmont region in Italy. Now Clive has a nice collection of guitars himself and wants to know “Do you often play Gibson’s and if you do, does it change your style of playing?”
KWS: Yeah, Clive I do play Gibson’s and I have probably like five different Les Pauls that I use from time to time and I just got an ES-335 that Gibson sent to me to use in the studio on this record so I used it on three different songs for various parts and I really like the sound of that guitar as well. My favourite year for the Les Pauls is 1960 – everybody goes for 1959 but I prefer the 1960s because they have a thinner neck so to me it feels like it plays faster. So that’s probably going to be my next big guitar purchase. As far as changing my style… maybe a little bit, but ultimately I’m the player that I am no matter what the instrument I’m playing.
Sean: Well, thank you for those answers but also thanks to Sam, Anth & Clive for those great questions.
KWS: All good man.
Sean: Sadly we have run out of time so I’d just like to wish you all the very best with ‘The Traveler’ and safe travels wherever you & the band may go. Once again Kenny, it’s been wonderful to talk to you and we hope to see you back down in Australia again soon.
KWS: Thank you and it was great to talk to you again, man.
The Traveler is out May 31st
