Black Stone Cherry, long one of The Rockpit’s favourite bands have just released a new EP entitled ‘Black to Blues’. Selecting 6 of their favorite tunes by Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Albert King, and re-imagining them with the meaty moxie of classic BSC. It’s a sight for sore ears and a great bonus for fans even before ‘Kentucky’ hit a year old. We caught up with our favourite drummer John Fred Young to find out the backstory to not just the album but also the band itself, and also asked him how the new album is coming along…
Mark: Hey John Fred!
John Fred: Hey this is me, what’s up dude?
Mark: Thank you so much for taking our call, how are you today?
John Fred: Dude, I’m great, I’m doing great. I’m trying to get our neighbors dog off my wife so she can get the groceries in the house and rounding my three year old up and trying so survive (laughs) so I’m good! How are you?
Mark: I’m good thank you Sir, I think it must have been about a year to the day since we last spoke and then ‘Kentucky’ was just about to be born
John Fred: Didn’t we speak the last time we were down opening for the Steel Panther guys?
Mark: Yeah we did yes, we caught up just before you came over.
John Fred: Man that was a cool you know, first time down and getting to play with those guys was really cool for us, we’re big fans of theirs and getting to meet new people all over the world. Trust me it was the best possible way to ever go to Australia for the first time (laughs) we had a good time over there. Great country, great people.
Mark: We had a great time too when you came back on your own, that was a pretty special tour for us. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that too.
John Fred: Well yeah, obviously we were doing the big arenas with Panther but obviously it’s great to do the headline stuff as you have more time and it’s your own show, but you know that. Yeah that was col too and hopefully we’re gonna get back again maybe before summer at least before the end of summer but it’s been four months since we were down there so, wow time just flies man!
Mark: And you guys have been pretty busy since then as well, the new EP is out, I think you surprised a few people how fast that came out?
John Fred: Yeah man, Black to Blues, we went down tour local studio here and the guy we worked with David Barrick he’s been a great friend and an amazing engineer for us over so many years, he’s one of that cats who could have gone to L.A. or New York or London but he’s a Kentucky boy and he’s decided to stay here so we decided to do the first album back in 2006 with him and then ‘Kentucky’. Now he’s got a new place and it’s an old car garage in town and it’s just incredible man, its concrete floors and it just smells like 1930’s motor oil everywhere! It’s not a posh studio if you will, it’s a little gritty Rock and Roll place and that’s just what we are you know! So we went right in and it took us like 6 days to cut that stuff and a lot of the drum takes were just one take and a lot of the guitar work was too so we went back and did the solos and went back and did vocals, but that whole EP comes from a place that we grew up on and you know obviously that my Dad and my Uncle were in the Kentucky Headhunters and they we not an obviously a massive group back in the late eighties early nineties and pretty much started the Rock and Roll scene in Country music they kicked the doors off for so many cats to come into that and not just play traditional Country at the time. And the Headhunters when we were growing up they had this place on a farm that was my great-grandmother’s house and there wasn’t anything in it, but she let my Dad and my Uncle and my cousin, she let them take it over and when they were probably about 13 or 14 years old and they had just started playing music. And when they did that this place just had no insulation and so they’d put up these posters of, you know, Zeppelin and all the great classic bands, Sabbath, Cream, Mott the Hoople, but also there were so many Blues artist that my Dad and my Uncle were turned onto.
John Fred: You know we grew up with all that, when we started our band, and the Headhunters went on to win Grammys and when I was probably 13 years old and Chris and I got together I was playing at a talent contest in High School and Chris came up to me and he said man I’m getting a guitar for Christmas, I’m going to have one as soon as I get out of school and he said why don’t we go to your Dad’s practice house and we’ll start a band and I’m like “Yeah man, let’s do that” You know 13 years old, seventh grade, so we get down there and on the wall, and you know I grew up in this place, I saw my Dad jam there, and we go in there and immediately, and it must have been for the first hour Chris just sat there and looked at the walls. You know when you’re not playing music and then you start playing music then you start paying attention to what your surrounding are and those posters of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy, you know Buddy Guy, all those dudes man, just looking down on you from the wall! The you start researching that stuff and I think we were in eighth grade and we met John (Lawhon) and I have no idea how the hell he ended up in Edmonton, Kentucky but we were really glad to see him (laughs) and I just remember that he was like this Florida surf bum but we knew he played guitar and we needed a bass player so Chris’ Dad gave him a bass guitar. And we’d just sit there the three of us and my Dad and Uncle would come in and they were showing us how to play ‘Crossroads’, the Cream version and we were like 14 by then, and so Chris and John and I for the next probably two years we played nothing but jamming on Blues stuff. Wed jam for an hour and a half a song, we’d literally just sit there and that was out introduction to Blues. And then we had a party one night and our friend David who became our Guitar tech he started hanging with us and he brought Ben down who loved Aerosmith and all Classic Rock stuff and we got into researching all these Blues artists, and all those early British bands and growing up in that house man, we were just the most fortunate kids to be able to practice in this house. We could hone our craft and not worry about the cops shutting us down and we could party out there and so we owe so much in music to the Headhunters and our great grandmother giving them that house, man.
John Fred: And it’s so funny man, the Headhunters are just back from the UK, they just did a tour over there and every night I’ve been going from my house over to the old practice house to feed my Dads cat who lives there, and this is no word of a lie we feed the cat on an old Nazareth touring monitor case! (laughs). That stuff needs to be in the Hard Rock Café and we’re feeding a cat on it out there on the porch! Nd you go in that place and you just can’t help but look at the walls, and I’ve been in there maybe 30 thousand times, but every time I go in there I see something different. Some poster, some old record it just rubs off on you. When we went to do the Black to Blues record and we were in the cycle for ‘Kentucky’ but we said man we’ve got time to do this, this is the first time we’ve ever had a break and time to just go and record. Man we ran right through those songs! I think there was a day on the road probably back in April that we just got together in sound check and we just ran through ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ and ‘House of the King’ and maybe one more, and it was funny because when we went in the studio and started recording stuff it was so natural, we didn’t use a click, we didn’t use anything. Our take on the Blues is a heavy edge, and I pull hard on the stuff, and live I play it one handed with one hand on the harp and surprisingly enough, though my harp is pretty lackluster, it’s pretty fun you know, I have a fun time doing it live. But we’re seeing people, especially younger rock fans who I know are also listening to newer bands like Shinedown and stuff, and contemporary rock bands, but the funny thing is and I know because were very up on things like Instagram and Facebook but these people send us messages that say “You know I never liked the Blues till I heard you”. Or someone will say, man, I’ve heard so many bands in bars play this stuff but you guys are putting a twist on it that I love. And it would be the coolest thing to maybe turn some people on to the Blues, because some people think that the Blues is old man’s music, and I say that with much respect, but there are so many young Blues bands out there but I think if we’ve done anything it’s maybe turned the heads of some younger kids, people who might have never even heard it or given it the time. So man it’s been a trip, I’ll tell you when I was younger the Headhunters used to play this place in Helena Arkansas I believe it was at a casino and they used to play this really cool Festival that this guy would put called ‘Bubba Sullivan’ and Bubba used to put this Festival on and what he would do was book all these old Blues musicians who didn’t have healthcare and might not have had the proper manager, or someone hadn’t been looking out for them, and a lot of those older Blues guys man, they didn’t get paid to make records because they didn’t have someone looking out for them. So Bubba would get these guys, I remember one year Johnny Winter was there, Buddy Miles was there, Otis Rush, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett and that was when I was about 13 or 14 kinda the time the band started I was going out with Dad to this Festival in summer, I must have gone for maybe 8 years. I remember it was the coolest thing. I remember Otis Rush and he was a legend, sitting with my Dad and talking and telling him “My son’s a drummer and he’s playing in a band back home” and I owe such a lot of my appreciation to my Dad and my Uncle for taking me to see that. It’s good to be around that stuff man, you know.
John Fred: And now to the present day, to be driving around and find out the EP hit the Billboard charts, that’s just pretty insane for us man. And so to anyone who bought it man, thanks so much because that means a lot to us, man. It was just a little idea by the four of us that we should just do this little EP just to say we did it. And if nobody liked it man, hey, but it’s just so great to have so many incredible people supporting us and going out and buying it. (laughs) I think more people like the Blues record than they did the last record! I’ve talked to more people about this tan I have ‘Kentucky’! It’s funny man, but it’s cool. It’s fun to be able to do stuff like that.
Mark: It’s a great EP and my dad just recently went to see your Dad play back in the UK, so he had a great time at the Kentucky Headhunters show
John Fred: Oh that’s awesome, man, did he just go this past week or did he go last year?
Mark: No this last week.
John Fred: That’s awesome, where did he go and see them at?
Mark: Over in Nottingham.
John Fred: That’s cool, they played eight shows, I hope he had a great time.
Mark: he did, he’d never seen them before and he actually heard of them through you, he was a Black Stone Cherry fan before he was a Kentucky Headhunters fan.
John Fred: Dude that is awesome. You know my Dad told me, I was talking to him the other day when he was in Glasgow and he said man, I see so many Black Stone Cherry T-shirts at the shows! And for those guys this is incredible because they had so many opportunities to go overseas, to go to Russia, to South America, to the UK, even Australia. But I’ve got to be honest my Dad had this incredible fear of flying and it just lasted so long. And incredibly a friend of mine in England I was talking to him at Download and he said, man what’s happening with the Headhunters, and I said man, they’re still touring all of the time. And he said he’d love to book them and I said I would love nothing more than to get them over here, but my Dad just won’t do it. So I went back and talked to my Dad and I told him he could drink beer on the plane, it’s a 36,000 feet party and you should just try it and the next thing I knew he was calling me saying he was just about to go through security and I never thought I’d hear my Dad call me from the airport! It’s a big thing for them man, and they’re pretty much starting off like we did, it’s a grass-roots following, and you know its great to have a song on the charts and everyone knows who you are but just watching how the industry works and how radio works especially in America, it’s just so quick for it all to be over. And I hate that so many of our good friends in bands have experienced that and I think we’re just lucky – we’re just like a cockroach man you can’t kill us! We just hung in there and it’s been just so slow for us, but we’ve never given up, and our friends have spread the word of Black Stone Cherry far and wide. We’ve been one of those bands that aren’t just an overnight deal, you know that, but it’s wonderful to have that. And if we do have a string of Top 10hits with the next album, then that’s great but we’ve just had to do our thing man, and keep playing Rock and Roll, keep playing live and we could not be happier. And this outpouring of support for ‘Black to Blues’ is just mind-blowing! It really is, I’m sitting here just kinda laughing about it ‘cos I think it’s a joke almost, like someone made it up in Photoshop and I’m waiting for the punchline! But it’s really cool man, we’re so humbled and proud.
Mark: I think you really put your stamp on the songs and as a big Willie Dixon fan I think I Want to be Loved’ is the pick for me. Is there any news on a new album? When are you looking at putting the next record out?
John Fred: Willie Dixon of course was huge but he was the brain of that time period, he was the guy who was pulling everyone together to make records, my grandmother is a BB King nut, an 87 year old Southern grandma, who cooks every single day she still gets it man, and she’s always listening to the Blues. It’s funny Willie Dixon ‘Little Red Rooster’ she used to play that song. My grandfather who passed a way a few years ago he was one of the coolest cats on the planet, he was school teacher for 40 years and he played piano but he wasn’t a blues fan, he liked it, but he was more into the big show tunes, so my grandmother was in the kitchen with the Blues CD’s on and when I got the album I called her and told her I’d bring her this record so I have to go back to the house and get it for her. But the new record man is, I think we go back next Sunday to start recording. We took a week to record the drums and it’s the first time we ever wrote in the studio, normally we go in and play for a month, a month and a half, what am I talking about! (laughs) It took us 23 days to do the whole record! Everyone’s in there so long but we’re on a budget man, so we gotta go! But we’re going back in and we’re gonna start cutting guitars on the 15th and I’ve got to cut my drums because my wife and I are about to have a little girl and she’s supposed to be here Halloween night so I need to get that done in case she came early! So we’re going back in, we’ll do all the rim tracks, the bass, the vocals, but we’ve got another two and a half weeks. I’m looking forward to it man, I tell you! When we first started writing songs back in January, you know were at a point man, where everything is in our court and we’re so fortunate to be able to make music the way we want to. We’re with a great label mascot and they’re like the coolest cats on the plant and it’s rare to find a record label where the owner is a serious guitar player! We sent him the demos and he’s like “Yeah man, keep it raw!” Normally with a label you’ve got 25 notes per song and it’s like cut this down, cut that, but they knew when they signed us they were a different animal and that we’re making music for a live show. And that’s really the perspective when we go into to these records now, we’re always thinking what would this sound like to a live audience? I tell you what man, we’re just so fortunate to continue doing this for so long now, and you meet so many people that come out and hang out after the show you’re really meeting your fans, your Rock and Roll family and you really get to learn what they like. And then you start to get a genuine idea of who it is you’re making music for. You still make music for yourself and there’s that selfish part where you just want something to be bad-ass for yourself but as you’re touring you start dropping people’s names – “What would so and so in Glasgow make of that, or Mark down in Australia?” It’s funny when you know people you start to look at each other and think, they’re gonna love it when that part comes in! But we’re just happy that people have stuck with us man and let us have the luxury of keeping making music and that’s the greatest thing ever.
Mark: It’s fantastic, I’ve loved the band for years, seen you in the US, seen you in the UK, seen you Downunder , seen you play different Festival stage, different sized rooms, small cubs, arenas and it’s all been great so far. Thank you for the music and here’s to a lot more to come.
John Fred: Oh man thank you, I didn’t know you’d seen us in so many different places; that is awesome. You have the perspective of seeing us on stages like Download then as you said you’ve seen us in theatres and small clubs where the atmosphere changes and becomes way more intimate, but yes you’re right and that’s the beautiful thing about what we do, and doing those headline tours in the arenas that is monumental, but nothing takes the place of a sweaty Rock Club and it never will. You always obviously remember the huge Festivals like Download, the big arenas, the things we’ve done in the States too but when you see us in a sweaty nasty club man! I wouldn’t take anything for some of those memories, you know.
Mark: You take care of yourself John Fred, always great to speak with you.
John Fred: Oh thank you man, thank you so much. Hey buddy thank you so much for taking the time, keep rocking and I’ll speak to you next time we’re down under. Much love brother.
Black to Blues is out now on Mascot Records,
Keep in touch with Black Stone Cherry at http://www.blackstonecherry.com/
