It is the first Friday of February, and my first interview of the new year. The call begins, and across the Atlantic, in Liverpool, I am joined by The Head Hunters Blues Band. Instantly, the feel of it is one of the more 'rock-n-roll' interviews I have done: very casual with drinks and takeaway kebabs.
It is a nice atmosphere - light and carefree. The conversation comes naturally, quickly, and laughter springs forth without any sort of delay.
First subject is, of course, musical influences. The Head Hunters Blues Band released their third album Cold Cuts last fall in late September. Drummer Mark Hook (whose blues name is to be determined at a later date...) is the first to speak:
"I love and I'm open-minded about all genres of music. Biggest influences for me are the Live/Recording Session drummers. They can play every style of music in every situation," Mark tells me. "Legendary session drummers like Steve Jordan, Steve Gadd and Bernard Purdie. to name only a few, are my biggest influences and educators. Musical education is a big deal for me, as I love to teach and pass on my experience to others and see other players grow and develop."
Keyboardist Danny 'Emo Jimmy Page' Webster's influences have direct links to the songs on the album . . ."I was never into piano. . .At first I was a guitarist, originally since I was 10, and then I went to piano when I was like 14. I'm self-taught piano, and Tim Minchin was my idol for that. He's like an idol mainly for his riffs, I'd say, even though he's a comedian." Danny's influences have grown further from being in the band: "I think about influences since meeting these guys for sure . . .I think playing comes from like a lot of music that I grew up around, like Muddy Waters, for instance, or Howlin' Wolf, or even if it's like Eric Clapton. It's a bit different version of the blues stuff, but with things like that I trace it back from classic rock artists as well. And I'm still in the midst of actually going back and just trying to listen. It's a bit more of a deeper call."
Indeed, the opening track off of Cold Cuts is a Howlin' Wolf song - "Goin' Down Slow". The Head Hunters Blues Band's version still has that cool, collected attitude from the original, and it makes for a killer opening track.
Singer and harp player Reverend Jonnie 'Slackjaw' Hodson agrees with Danny, that there's an "endless well" with music - "When we started putting the first album [Back from the Delta] together, we were talking about Delta guys, and like the obvious names come up, like Robert Johnson and some people like that. Then we were looking at that music to kind of pull apart and put back together. It's like, 'Who are these dudes, like Peetie Wheatstraw, do you know?' I mean it's like, 'Who's Little Hat Jones? Who are these guys?' I mean, it's an endless well of music."
'Bouncin'' Dave Rowlands, bassist, tells me, "I came into it through like a mod scene and all my love of various bits and bobs. The mod bands with R&B covers, really, like Small Faces and The Kinks and The Beatles. All of what those bands were doing, and that was a common thread then I think."
"Like you find the white guys. And then you find who the black guys were, that the white guys were ripping off," Jonnie says.
Dave agrees and extends on the well of music discussion: "It's a well of knowledge - a knowledge that is very collective. I have learned lots on this journey."
Will 'Big Bill' Riding, who had joined the interview playing guitar literally right from the first second, says, "No, I can't even play." I laugh, and he gives a serious answer. "B.B. King. That's it, it's just B.B. King. Also, Mike Bloomfield, or Freddie King, or Clapton; Jimmie Rodgers. All of them mainly."
Something that I have always been so struck by and admired in the blues is how connected everything is. How it just sounds that all musicians on a song are in total understanding and unison with one another.
The Head Hunters Blues Band certainly have this trait, but I know that modern ways of recording are different. I ask what recording the album was like: "Are you guys all in the same room while recording?"
"Yes," Jonnie says. "In one big room. The way we set it out was: Mark was kind of almost like at the very front at the center. And then Will left with guitar. Dave was allowed sufficient bouncing room. Danny was facing Mark so he could take cues for stuff. And then I was behind. Will would want to go round again on a solo or something, and he'd shuffle out from behind me. It was fun; it was a long day, but it was worth it."
I suddenly remember a Keith Richards quote, something about how one has to know the blues to play rock-n-roll or any genre. I ask the band what the blues mean to them.
Will says, "It's all about the feel, the notes."
Mark agrees, "As a player, you got it. It's the feels, it uses all the feels. And reacting to that, I think that's the hardest bit for the drummer. You've got to know what to dictate the play and know when to let someone else dictate it. So you can't look up and don't mess it up, man."
"God, that is hard to follow-up on that actually, 'cause he pretty much covered the basis," Danny laughs. "We do receive it; it's kind of like, 'Alright, I'm gonna go in depth from the feels and like it invokes those emotions in me personally - like it helps me perform better when I'm feeling more in tune with emotions."
Dave says that the audience also plays a part in how the band approaches the blues: "I think it's the live aspect for me; how the audience is feeling."
The 'feels' is certainly something that attracted me to the blues in the first place. To me, in some ways, it is the most authentic form of music; sometimes, it is raw, pure emotion. And with a band like this, I am so glad that this characteristic is something present in their music.
"It's putting feelings into sounds, but it's conveying the song and the lyrics and just having that moment of feeling. It's the perfect vehicle to express yourself as well. You can hang your soul on 12 bars." Jonnie says that, like Keith Richards, he finds blues to be the foundation. "It's the soul, you know. If soul music doesn't exist, none of it exists. It was born out of hardship and the blues. I think I know what Danny was alluding to: it's all things to all people, like there is stuff in there that is gut-wrenchingly sad. I mean, when you look at the lyrics to 'Goin' Down Slow', it's to his mother saying that he's dying."
Still, there is from time to time a more upbeat side to the blues, as heard on the album: "But then if you listen to something like 'I Ain't Drunk', it's such a joyous, upbeat song. I don't think I've ever seen an audience go when we're playing 'Mojo Workin''. It's so upbeat, frantic, exciting. That's what it should be.
"It's basically gospel," Jonnie concludes. "It's gospel."
This insight to the album has meant a lot to me as I listen to the music again to prepare for the review. One can hear so many things on the album: the connection between the band, their strong foundation and understanding of the blues, and the feels that must be present in the blues. It makes for a wonderful album, some truly emotional music, and creates anticipation for what is next on the journey for The Head Hunters Blues Band. Until their next release, as seen on a post on the band's page, "May the blues be with you!"
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