Anthony Moser: First things first man- you must be pretty excited about releasing [So Close To It].
BR- I am, I am. Actually, this is my second album; I recorded the first one at the very beginning of my solo career, after playing for many years with Linsey Alexander. You know, at the beginning of my band-leading career I didn’t really know what was really going on, in terms of recording an album and leading a band. After about 4-5 years- almost 6 years after that album, this one has a different twist, because you know I’ve been playing a lot with my band and I learned a few tricks. So I’m excited, because I think that it is the best of me at the moment.
AM: How long have you been working on this record?
BR: We recorded it in March, it was a two-day session, and it is pretty much a live recording.
AM: I was about to ask you that.
BR: It’s a studio album but we recorded it live.
AM: It definitely has that feel.
BR: I tried to capture the old B.B. King style, not only in terms of sound, but in terms of taste and guitar licks, because I wanted to pay tribute to my heroes.
AM: I noticed you have some T-Bone [Walker] tunes on there.
BR: I do, a couple of them.
AM: Yeah, “Too Lazy,” I love that tune. I’ve never heard anyone do that tune.
BR: It was quite a challenge. It’s not a standard blues progression, it has more of a jazz feel and it has massive horn section behind it. It took us a while to put the song together and I was pretty happy with the result.
AM: So I’m curious then, when you were working with your horn section, did you have arrangements already in your mind? Or did you develop them as a group, or did you have something charted out?
BR: For a majority of the songs I wrote the horn lines. For all of the original songs, the horn lines, the lyrics and music, I wrote everything. For the covers we tried to play the lines as close as possible. They’re slightly different, but it would be literally impossible to reproduce that song the way they recorded it. But I’ll be honest with you, we tried. It’s not a different arrangement because we decided to; we tried to play it exactly as they did.
AM: You came so close.
BR: We could not play like they did because it’s impossible. The drummers, the musicians it was a different era.
AM: So you didn’t overdub anything, everything is live?
BR: No, we did overdub a couple things. We did overdub the special guests obviously for technical reasons. Billy Branch, Lurrie Bell, Carl Weathersby, Joe Barr.
AM: Yeah, I was going to ask you man, you’ve got a killer lineup. These are some notable figures from around town.
BR: Yeah, these are all guys I’ve worked with in the past. And they have been part of my career, because in one way or another, they’ve helped me out over the years, so I figure I’ll ask them if they want to be part of this project. They all noticed the progress I’ve made through the years and they were happy to be a part of it. There were a couple more people I wanted to be a part of this, but then I figured that it would be too many, so I selected the four people that were really a big help or a big influence. Not that I didn’t have more. I have so many people that I respect and who have helped me out a lot, but Billy Branch and Lurrie Bell they are- obviously, they have supported my music for years and have been so nice to me. Lurrie is on my previous album. Carl Weathersby, I talk to him for hours every time and he gave me so much advice, and Joe Barr, he is the most amazing singer I’ve ever seen in Chicago, so it was just an honor to have him on my CD because it was just phenomenal. Ariyo on piano from the Sons Of Blues because he’s the only one that I’m aware of capable of reproducing that sound that I wanted in the city.
AM: You’ve got a very traditional sound, not in the sense of copying what people have done. In order for people to produce an authentic traditional music you have to own it in a way that is more than just learning parts.
BR: It’s funny that you say that because a long time ago Guy King told me once, “Before you start messing with your own [sound] you should master what other people did and then come up with your own.” That’s what he told me once, and I found that very interesting and realistic….What I try to do is try to work on my approach and my taste, to use what I learned from these guys and make it my own. You hear a lot of influence from B.B. King and T-bone Walker, but I try to use that within my own taste. I feel like that is the fine line between creating your own style and sound, and still maintaining a link to the past. And that’s what I’m trying to do.
AM: One of the things I think gives you a distinct sound is your singing. Listening to this record, there are parts of it during the instrumental stuff where if you blindfold somebody and ask them to tell you when this was recorded they’d have a really hard time saying if it was this year or fifty years ago. Your singing makes it sound much more contemporary.
BR: I spend a lot of time working on it. At the beginning of my career, Linsey [Alexander] told me, “If you don’t sing, you’re half a guitar player.” So I gave it a shot, and I thought I was in tune and singing in pitch, which is the number one requirement. Obviously a lot of people ask me where I’m from because of my accent. I do get people who tell me that when I’m singing they wouldn’t know I’m not from the US if they didn’t know me. Of course when I start speaking it comes out, but that’s me, it’s part of who I am. I decided to sing the way I sing which is a smooth approach, because it’s me. I notice that there are a lot of people who will talk in a way and then sing in a totally different voice. In my singing I wanted it to be me, I didn’t want to sing like Mr. X.
AM: What is your song writing process?
BR: That’s a good question. I’m always afraid to be predictable, because when you write a blues song- usually it’s goes around three chords or four or five, but the music is there, you’ve heard it a million times, the lyrics too more or less. So the title track of the album, I think we did a really good job at it, it has a different twist and it is kinda catchy.
AM: Is it about somebody specific? I have to ask.
BR: It is about somebody specifically. I’m not going to say who, [laughs] maybe once we stop the recording. Usually what happens is I write down the lyrics all at once. Like 15 minutes the lyrics are done. I usually stay on my couch, smoking a little cigarette you know, and the lyrics I just start writing and the lyrics are done. The music it takes me a little more, because I’m trying to match the lyrics with the music. I always try to make the music interesting, and then at the end I start thinking, “Oh, maybe I should just keep it simple?” Like doing a one-four-five Jimmy Reed lump or whatever. So it’s more time consuming, because I’m looking for that twist. Sometimes it just doesn’t work at all and I lump it. So lyrics first, music second, but it’s always finding the right music to go with the lyrics.
AM: Do you know right away, ‘OK, this is one I’m going to have horns on it’ or is it like, ‘I’ve got this tune and this music is going to work right for it’ and then try to figure out the instrumentation afterward?
BR: When I write the music, I try to have the band in my head so I’ll know if it’s an organ song or straight up piano. When we rehearse the songs I will tell them what I want. Like, I want four on the floor, I want the keep the shuffle this way, whatever. Sometimes what I hear in my head doesn’t really work, so we get into the adjustment process and they’ll put on their own twist. Like the drummer will say, four on the floor doesn’t really work, let’s try the one and the three. Sometimes we get into a collaboration process, which is how this album turned out. We got together in my tiny apartment in east Lakeview with a 3 piece drums, upright bass and piano…
AM: Your neighbors must just love you. (both laugh)
BR: They knock on my walls sometimes, but they’re pretty cool about it when I tell them we’re about to record a record. We pretty much created this album together. I wrote the lyrics and the songs but the guys definitely helped me out and have 100% credit for what’s going on the CD.
AM: You had your CD release party at Legends right?
BR: Yes it was very exciting, headlining at the major blues club of the world, because that’s what it is. It might be true, I’m not sure, but I was told I might be the youngest headliner to ever play at Buddy Guy’s Legends.
AM: I was thinking about Quinn [Sullivan], but I guess he’s never really been the headliner. We are talking about the blues community, 40 is young, how old are you?
BR: (laughing) 34. I mean there are some guys around my age headlining here, like Guy King, Corey Dennison and so on. If I’m not the youngest I’m right there, which makes me really proud. It’s such an honor. First of all, I have to say about Mark Maddox, he was first one to really believe in my music. He was the first one to give me the opportunity to perform, not only at Buddy Guy’s Legends, but at a club with my band. He listened to my CD and he said, “let’s see how it goes.” And people didn’t do that for me. Once people found out I was playing at Buddy Guy’s Legends they started to say, okay, he can play at House of Blues, you can play at Kingston Mines, you can play at Blues on Halsted, so on and so on. People would say, “you’ve played there, come to France.” I’m going to Brazil for a month and a half, and it would not have happened if I didn’t have this background, so I have to thank Mark Maddox for believing in me.
AM: I’m curious, how did you get connected down there, are you doing all of your own booking and promotion?
BR: No, not at all. I’m- I got in touch with this promoter because of Guy King, who previously went to Brazil. He [the promoter] gave me a couple of gigs, so I met people there, and they just started following my career on Facebook or on my website. They saw I was doing good and they asked me to come back and do the shows I done there before. It went great and they asked me back, so one gig led to another and so on. So now I have a big, big tour coming up and I’m pretty excited.
AM: I was going to ask you what your big plans were, but I think we’ve already covered that (both laughing)
BR: I was very fortunate to Europe with the blues festival at the end of 2013. That was pretty big, it was a huge European tour, I went there with Linsey Alexander and Harmonica Hinds, and Nelly Travis. I was definitely the youngest guy there. I was the only white guy, and I was the bandleader and MC of the tour. So it was a huge responsibility, and you have no idea how hard it is to put together 3 bandleaders who are older than me and experienced. Everybody wants to shine, obviously, because they deserve it. Try to imagine this: we didn’t play any clubs. Maybe two clubs in thirty five gigs all over Europe. We were playing in front of, I’m not exaggerating, like fifteen hundred people every night, because there’s no clubs, only theaters, packed. In France people are really blues lovers. They don’t want to be entertained, they’re not looking for the comedian. They just want to hear the music, so they’re sipping their wines or beverages, staring at you, and they don’t clap, they don’t say a single word. You get up there and say, “Welcome, everybody, we’re really happy to be here.” And they’re just silent. It can be really intimidating, so I learned a lot from that tour. Not only how to MC or to perform in front of authentic blues loving audiences, but how to pull together three bandleaders who were very experienced, successful and different. Because you know they’re all wonderful, but so, so different.
AM: Do you run into resistance with people’s stereotypes of the blues? People will sometimes call the club to ask if the band is black, because their idea of real blues is an old black guy sitting up on stage, preferably from Mississippi, and you’re coming at it being a younger dude, a white guy.
BR: You know man, you’re coming up with some great questions. I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been living in the United States for a long time now, so there is part of me when I started my band that was really intimidated because I was white, and I obviously was not from around here. I thought it was really going to be a downer- who’s going to hire me? They want the black guy from Mississippi, who is this white young dude? I really thought there was no way I was going to make it. Eventually, though, I found that it was an advantage for me. People ended up hiring me because they were intrigued by my personality. I never lost a gig or got denied for a gig because of my background. Conversely, I got gigs because of my background and I would never have expected that. I don’t know if they find it funny, amusing, or intriguing but it works.
AM: Getting people to pay attention is the first part.
BR: You know I really had the opportunity to study the music with some really great players, and some of them taught me the music, some of them taught me how to present myself on stage. Like for instance, not to name any names, but Linsey Alexander. I’m not afraid to say this: he’s the greatest entertainer in Chicago, or one of the greatest. You can argue that if you want, but he’s a force of nature, he has incredible charisma on stage. I’ve been playing with the man for years, many years; now it’s up to me to get something out of what I learned from him and use it. That’s what it’s all about. He taught me a lot, so did Guy King, and I had the pleasure to study from a lot of different and amazing musicians.
AM: Where can people buy your album?
BR: In my shop or at my shows, breezyrodio.com and it’s regularly updated. iTunes and CDbaby too.
AM: Well is there anything else you have cookin right now? Do you feel like you have a plan now that you’ve made this album or you’ve released the album, you’re going to do the tour and then see where that takes you?
BR: No, I do have a plan, and I put myself in debt because I just hired a publicist. And it’s so expensive all of my savings went to it. I’m investing in this CD because I thought it could be liked by the blues lovers. I’m trying to bring my music to the next level and build my name, and eventually be known in the blues community worldwide, so I hired the publicist and she’s sending 500 CDs around the world, radio stations and magazines and stuff. Dude… if that doesn’t work, well at least I tried. To me it doesn’t make sense to have a CD if nobody knows about it, so let’s see what happens. Until then I’ll go home after my gigs and play my classical guitar on the couch listening to B.B. and T-Bone and enjoy their music and learn as much as possible.
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