ALISSA ORDABAI: Hi, Pat. Alissa Ordabai here from Crusher magazine.

PAT TRAVERS: How are you doing today?

AO: Not too bad, thank you. How about you?

PT: I’m having a ball, I guess. You know, I’m up near Detroit, Michigan, just North of there. We have a show tonight here.

AO: Are you currently on tour?

PT: Well, yeah, permanently on tour. [Laughs] We actually did the UK two weeks ago.

AO: Really?

PT: Aha. We did six shows.

AO: It’s a shame I’ve missed you!

PT: Are you in London?

AO: I am in London.

PT: We played at a… I guess it was called something else before it was called Rio Music. It was alright.

AO: How was the reception?

PT: Yeah, it was really good. It was a Sunday night as well and we did really well. Then we got home and went off for a few days and now we are basically back at it. You know, we are playing here tonight and then in Chicago tomorrow before we go back to Florida.

AO: Talking about live performances, what things do you think need to come together for a good live performance to happen?

PT: You know, sometimes it’s surprising. The ones that you think are going to be really crappy or even when you are not feeling too well yourself, because when you’re sick you just continue, there are no days off, there are no sick days in rock’n’roll… So it’s strange sometimes when a lousy stage set-up or sound system or whatever, and you’re feeling crappy, somehow they can conspire to make a really great performance, I don’t know what that is. But I don’t know, we can generally make almost any show turn out pretty good. It’s very unusual when by the end of the show we haven’t made things go our way in the way we wanted them to.

AO: Your latest live album, Stick With What You Know captures that wonderfully. On what basis did you choose the tracks that would make it to the record?

PT: I’m thinking when we went… Because it’s been almost two years since we did this, and the entire show had 14 songs, I think. And so I got the title called Stick With What You Know which is a kind of a carry-on from the live album which we had many years ago called Go For What You Know.

AO: Yes.

PT: And so I didn’t really want to try to duplicate the songs that were on that live album. So I think I left some things off just because of that. And then also on the new live album we have a set which is pretty bluesy. I do a slide version of Hendrix’s “Red House” and a Robert Johnson tune, and then we’re off doing an Albert King song. So we get that blues section of the set which is pretty much custom tailored for our European audience. Because they seem to love all that blues stuff. For me it’s just fun to play. When we play the same tunes in the States, they go down great, but they don’t have the same kind of appetite for the blues in general whereas it seems more widely accepted in Europe.

AO: Would you say there is oversaturation of that stuff in the States?

PT: Yeah, well, ok, that’s what I was saying. [Laughs] We call it “white boy blues” because we hear it sitting wherever we are playing when they are playing the music through the PA before we go on, and I ask my co-guitarist Kirk McKim, “What the hell is that?” It sounds like another Stevie Ray Vaughan clone, like there is some factory where they are training them and then pumping them out, and I just go, “Why?” You know, people have approached me to do blues albums or whatever, and I just can’t do that imitation of Stevie Ray Vaughan doing an imitation of Jimi Hendrix doing an imitation of…

AO: Robert Johnson.

PT: Well, Albert King.

AO: Yeah, right, Albert King doing an imitation of Robert Johnson, let’s not skip generations here.

PT: Right. The blues that we do, I take it very seriously. And I try to put some authentic feeling and emotion in it. And it’s taken a long time for me to get there. I always have had a bluesy feel to the way I play anyway, but it’s been during the recent last year or so that I’ve really got back and listened to a lot of original artists and tried to get a feel for what the blues is really all about. And it’s kind of a similar thing to reggae music, you know. There’s lots of white-boy versions of authentic reggae. What they think reggae is. But it can easily become a caricature. So I take some study to find out what the emotions are, and the timing, and the playing or not playing, as the case may be. Especially if you listen to somebody like Albert King, the space between his soloing—four bars can go by before he plays anything. And those are notes, too. They are just notes that you don’t play. So you have to learn to be laidback in the number of notes that you play and make the few that you do play more expressive.

AO: Would you say that your approach to making music has significantly changed since the time when you were just starting out?

PT: As a matter of fact, we have just finished the new studio album over the summer. And I went back to basically doing it the way I always have done it, and that is to come up with some cool musical ideas which I then put down, make a little demo of, and then I drive around in my car and I listen to them. And that’s when I come up with the vocal ideas or a riff, or a chord that may in itself remind me of a phrase, or a word, or something. So I have that phrase or a word, and that’s where I’m gonna start from. Once I know what the song is about, then it’s pretty easy to write. That’s how I’ve always done it. And I used to feel guilty about it for some reason. I guess people think that people write the words first and then they write the music. And that is the case sometimes, but not very often. You know, even Paul McCartney who is one of the greatest songwriters of all times, one of his biggest songs, “Yesterday” was originally called “Scrambled Eggs”.

AO: That’s right.

PT: So I get the same thing. And Kirk, the other guitar player, was talking about Jeff Lynn, and all those pop hits that he did, where the music was completed first an then he just knew that there had to be something clever or poppy to sing over, and he would just find it. I sort of work like that, but can generally write the music and know when the vocals are going to come, what’s gonna happen. And after I get a chance to sing it a little bit, I make some adjustments to the music or to the dynamic, or make one part longer or shorter.

AO: What does the new album sound like stylistically?

PT: The new album is just great. I’m so excited because despite the whole bunch of obstacles that were thrown in my way, I was so focussed. I’m drawing from all of my years of writing, playing, living, whatever, I’m coming up with this complete record that says it all. Or says quite a bit anyway. And I really think we’ve achieved that goal and more, so it’s kind of killing me because it’s not going to be out until the next year.

AO: New year?

PT: Yeah, because it’s impossible to get anything out before Christmas. So in the meantime, in our live set we still sneak a couple of new songs in because they are too good not to do. So I’m excited about that. I’m excited about the live album, which is very truthful. We did it mainly for the European audience, and then also it’s a gap thing while I was working on the next studio album. And it’s been released in the US and in Canada as well, so I haven’t really anticipated that while we did it. It’s funny that it’s reminiscent to what happened with the first live album we did years ago with “Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)” and all that stuff. It was the same thing—we recorded the last four shows at the end of a tour knowing that we were going to be working on a new record for six months or so and then just forgot about it and went to work. And the next thing I know we are getting all this air play, so we’re back out on the road. I didn’t expect this kind of reaction to this live album so it’s interesting how it’s working out. People seem to like it, we get great reviews, and it is what it is, so I’m happy about that.

AO: The new album—is it going to be completely original?

PT: Oh yes. They are all really good songs. We got to work back in Canada, which was a real weird set of circumstances. My record label has a studio in a cottage on a lake in Northern Ontario and it was beautiful to wake up there every morning and be on this lake in this beautiful area. So during the day, late in the afternoon and early evenings I would rehearse with the guys and show them my ideas, and they’d show me their ideas, and we’d make the recordings, wake up early the next morning and listen to them. Sit outside, look at the lake and write the songs, you know. It all flowed pretty easily.

AO: Who are the musicians you are working with this time?

PT: Kirk McKim playing guitar, he’s on the live album. But I’ve had a change of the rhythm section. Since then, I’ve got Sean Shannon playing drums. Sean used to play with me six or seven years ago. We’re neighbours, and he’s also a recording engineer and he has a sound studio, so we mixed the live album at his studio. He’s worked with me on a lot of little recording projects. I had a weird situation with a drummer who decided to bail in the middle of the recording, so Sean jumped in and saved the day. And I’ve got a guy named Rodeny O’Quinn. [Laughs] A nice Italian name. He plays bass guitar and he’s just a wonderful guy. So we’ve just finished four weeks in a van travelling through Europe and the UK, and everybody is still talking to each other. [Laughs] So that’s a pretty good indicator that everybody is getting along pretty well.

AO: Does the album have a title yet?

PT: I’ve got one. I’m keeping it in my head. I’m pretty sure that it’ll end up being the title, but I wanna make sure. If I tell you one thing, it will probably change.

AO: I wanted to talk to you about the time when you arrived in the UK back in 1976.

PT: Yeah! [Laughs]

AO: You got your record deal early, almost straight after you’d arrived in London.

PT: I know. I had no rules, I didn’t know anything about how anything worked over there. [Laughs] I just kind of assumed that that was the way it was gonna work. That I was going to meet some people, have an impact, and get a record deal. And that was exactly what happened. It wasn’t quite that glamorous, but nonetheless within about three months I had a record deal and the curve just kept going up. And I remember my first album came out in April ’76, and back then it was pretty much the way it is today—there really is no radio in the UK other than…

AO: Radio One.

PT: Yeah. So there was the only show where we had a chance of playing…

AO: John Peel’s show.

PT: Exactly. Here you go. It was on Sunday afternoons, right?

AO: Yes.

PT: He had a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons. We had a heads-up that he was going to play one of the tracks off the new album. So I think we were driving to some show at some place on a Sunday afternoon and he played one of the tracks off my first album. And, you know, I remember thinking that you’re supposed to have some real big emotional moment at the time it happens. But by the time you get to that part, because you’ve worked on this thing so long, you’ve heard it so many times, you know, by then I was starting to write the new songs for the next album,. I was glad that it happened, but it was more like, “Yes, that’s what’s supposed to happen.” I probably would have shown more emotional response if he hadn’t played it. [Laughs] But yeah, that was quite interesting. I enjoyed that. Actually, I’m enjoying it more now looking back on it.

AO: Did you get to meet John?

PT: No, I never did, no. But I did meet, what’s his name, who did The Old Grey Whistle Test? Bob? With the beard? Whispering Bob Harris! I met him several times. He was another old-time radio icon.

AO: Was it a conscious strategy on your part to go to London because you knew or thought you’d have a better chance of getting signed in the UK rather than in North America, or was it a spontaneous decision?

PT: The reality was that I started playing very young, when I was about fifteen, and that meant playing in bars, night clubs, five-six nights a week, multiple sets every night and either an afternoon set on a Sunday or a Saturday depending on which province you were in Canada. And, you know, we just played whatever was popular on the radio and then some standard stuff that, actually, goes back. Hendrix was playing some of these songs that I played; I was amazed to read that. And, you know, I ended up playing with a guy in Toronto named Ronnie Hawkins who’s kind of an old rockabilly legend. The band were his back-up band called the Hawks from the early Sixties. So I played with him for about a year and took it as far as I could. I then went back to Ottawa, and ended up playing with some guys in this bar that I have played three years earlier playing the same Eagles song. I just remember looking around and there was probably the same drunk sitting on the same chair, and I went, “No, this cannot happen, I just can’t do this.” So I started to get the idea having to go somewhere. And the thought of going to New York or LA just really scared the hell out of me. And my mom was English and my dad was Irish, so I just felt more comfortable going to England. So that worked out for me, and I guess I sort of thought, “Well, if it worked for Jimi Hendrix...” Although I wasn’t really thinking that exactly, I wasn’t planning it, but there was something there that happened that was similar that motivated me. Yeah, it worked out, and it was probably tougher in a lot of ways. It’s still hard today to make it in the music business in the UK. You have to be pretty damn good to do it. Or lucky. [Laughs] Or both. So that was why I went to England. I thought I’d be more comfortable there than in the loud, brash, bullying New York or LA. But I found them all in England, and more! [Laughs] They just had a different accent.

AO: You got to London just in time before the punk explosion.

PT: Yeah, I know. Right, nice timing!

AO: What was your take on the UK scene at the time?

PT: Well, you know, I was so naïve because of where I came from, because most of the bands played two weeks in the same club, six nights a week, multiple sets, so if somebody showed up with a guitar who was sort of new and you had an inkling might not be too bad, by the end of the night you were begging to have somebody to come up and play and jam just to ease the monotony or the boredom of playing the same old songs. So when I went to London I sort of thought the same thing, “Oh, I’ll go to the Marquee and I’ll bring my guitar with me.” And then I found out that most people who played in bands had to have a day job or they run the door, and they got their little spot to play for one hour at the Golden Lion or somewhere down in Fulham, and they weren’t going to let anybody just pop in and play. [Laughs] It took me a while to figure that out. But then yeah, I realised that it was a lot harder than I thought. But, you know, I had some solace because we played some of these old clubs like around Liverpool ,and actually, all over England. And a lot of those places were the same venues where The Beatles have played and where Hendrix has played. Cream, everybody. Playing at all the same places, trying to reflect on that.

AO: Which period in your career so far do you look back most fondly on?

PT: Oh, boy! [Sighs] You know, I think I just have to deal with now and, you know, I can look back and reminisce about some times that were good and shows that were great, but that’s just a highlight. And there was other stuff going on that wasn’t so nice. People tend to do that—look at the past through rose-coloured glasses. So I think I’m kinda happy right where I’m at right now. I feel positioned pretty well. I’ve still got a following after all these years, and I still feel excited about performing and playing, and with this new studio album in the can I’m supremely confident that it’s gonna broaden my audience considerably. So I feel good about that. Right now, that’s what my focus is on, what my challenge is, trying to be successful in the 21st century. Which even though there are different challenges, is no easier or harder than it’s ever been. People say things like, “Well, the Seventies had so much better music,” but it’s all edited now. What we are hearing now is the cream of the crop, you know. There has always been crap. In the Sixties there was terrible music on the radio. But they only play the good stuff now, so it’s the same thing. I’m sure twenty years from now they will make it sound like this was the great time in music. Which maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. [Laughs] I’m just focused on my own little thing.

AO: But would you agree that lately there has been a resurgence of an interest in serious guitar craft?

PT: Yes, absolutely. My son is twelve and he’s shown absolutely no interest in playing the guitar all his life, although there are guitars all over the house. And about eight months ago he played me this band, actually a band from the UK called Dragonforce.

AO: Oh, god!

PT: Yeah, yeah, this speed metal band. [Laughs] But he’s just, “Listen to this!!”, he’s so excited. It got him to pick up the guitar, and then he moved on from that to Deep Purple. He loves Deep Purple.

AO: Oh, good.

PT: Yeah. So, you know, he’s got a great drummer, the look is a blond and blue-eyed version of him.

AO: Aww.

PT: And they’re amazing, and they are so into it. You know, it’s what they want to do, and it’s not for attracting girls or anything like that.

AO: Of course not, no. [Chuckles]

PT: They stay at home. They’ve got their amps and drums set up in our front room in the house and that’s where they’re at when they are not at school. That’s what they like to do. It’s a positive thing. And then, of course, I try to teach him the nuances of playing and all the little different things. I can show him that there are ten different ways to play the same thing, and one of them really sounds good.

AO: Do you follow any of the new trends? Do you listen to the radio? Do you watch the music channels?

PT: No, not really. I rely on—my daughter’s fifteen, so she has—you know, I ask her what she’s listening to, or I’m forced to listen to it because as soon as we get in the car, she plugs in her iPod. So I try to find out. She listens to good stuff. So yeah. Earlier this year at the NAMM show in California I jammed with a bunch of guys, a younger band called Black Stone Cherry. And they RAAWCKED! There’s one blond-haired guitar player…

AO: Ben… What’s his name? Ben Wells!

PT: Yeah, he’s such a rock star! He’s just got it, it’s so natural. It just oozes out of him!

AO: He seems to be pretty sincere.

PT: Oh, yeah. So I enjoyed that. I liked their energy and their approach.

AO: He told me that his favourite bands were Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

PT: Yeah, I know.

AO: Amazing how it goes back full circle.

PT: No, kids these days, they don’t care if they are alive or whatever, they just like what they like. And that’s cool. It works out really good. There are some interesting combinations of music. Yeah, I like to see it. It’s something I can relate to, and it’s something that my son and I can share. And my daughter. We’ve always enjoyed the music. They’ve loved the great singers and actors, too. They do theatre and stuff, so it’s interesting.

AO: There are some things you can teach younger bands.

PT: Oh, absolutely. But you know, I don’t like to go, “Yeah, OK, sonny, you’ll figure that out one day.” I don’t do that because I was young and inexperienced as well and you gotta find your way. I would always go and see any kind of band when I was thirteen or fourteen or fifteen. It really didn’t matter. I just wanted to see people play instruments. And I wasn’t afraid to ask people how they did this or how they did that. We were doing a show in Germany or in Holland some place, and there was a group of people there who looked like they were in their early twenties—four or five of them. And it was unusual that they were right down in the front row and they didn’t look like they had an uncle or a dad or somebody with them, they were just there. And I went to sign some CDs and stuff after this show and they were still there. And I said, “What brings you to my show?” and they said, “Well, we are forming a band and we are just looking for inspiration.” I thought that was very cool. And still now I tell anybody who’s staring out on an instrument, “Don’t just play the music you like. Try to explore other things because you’ll find stuff that you will take and use in a completely different context, and then it becomes something that defines your own sound.”

AO: Let me ask about some particulars of your craft. To me you are one of the very few people who can combine being a guitarist and a singer while still being able to deliver an equal amount of substance doing both.

PT: Well, thank you very much. I work hard at it. [Laughs] I make it look easy.

AO: But that’s true. Would you say that in live situations concentrating on both…

PT: You know, I’m so used to doing it that it’s just a part of what I do. It’s choreography and you kind of have to—especially if it’s a complicated musical passage that’s going on and it needs a vocal that’s kinda loose and expressive and doesn’t follow any pattern—it takes a little while to get both sides of your brain working there. But I’m used to doing it, and I’ve done it for so long that even when I’m in the studio recording, you know, you always record the vocals separately, I still very much air guitar when I’m signing. And actually, on this new album there is one song which is completely live. Because I always sing the guide vocal while we’re cutting the backing track. We did this one tune and after the take the producer was running around the control room and he’d come over to the glass, and he was really getting into it. And when we finished and said, “How was that?” he said, “That’s a record! That doesn’t need any overdubs, that doesn’t need anything, THAT is a record!”

AO: Wow! So he just got you in the room, miked up your room and that was it?

PT: Well, the way we were set up it was kind of unusual. The drums were in one big room and then we had this isolation booth and we put the three of us—two guitars and a bass—but we had this little speaker cabinet, just little boxes with the speaker and a mic built in. What are they called? They are really cool for tracking if you live in an apartment or if you are recording somewhere where you can’t be very loud because you can crank this thing full-blast but it doesn’t make any sound. So we had those and I had a vocal mic set up and we all were wearing headphones. And I would normally sing parts of the song anyway as a guide to everybody as we’re cutting the tune. But this time I just sang the whole thing and it came out great.

AO: That’s amazing!

PT: Yep. You never know.

AO: Where you inspired by any earlier performers who also played guitar and also sang?

PT: Oh! Well, Johnny Winter, yeah! Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, who’s always discounted his own vocals.

AO: He was pretty embarrassed about it, yes.

PT: Johnny Winter was probably the biggest influence because with him it was hard to tell where the guitar started and voice stopped, you know what I mean? It was just one big barrage of stuff. So I was very much influenced by him.

AO: How did you feel when people were comparing you to Alvin Lee back in the ‘70s?

PT: Ah, that would be weird! You know, I actually was at Reading Festival standing on the side of the stage watching somebody I knew and there was this big tall guy standing next to me. And I sort of look at him, going, “Yeah, I think that’s Alvin Lee!!” [Laughs] And he’s sort of looking at me, too. He’s about four inches taller than I am. We met, we never said, “Hi.” I never said, “Hey, my name is Pat Travers, I’m very pleased…” I never said that, and he never said anything to me. We both stood there quietly watching. Sizing each other up. He was much taller than me. [Laughs]

AO: He’s a very tall guy.

PT: I used to listen to the live Ten Years After album…

AO: Recorded Live, the double album.

PT: Yeah, “Woodchopper’s Ball”! “Woodchopper’s Ball”! We were just… We would get so wrapped up on that! My friend had a big set of Conway speakers and a big power amp, and we would just crank that up, and the energy was just incredible. So yeah, I’ve forgotten about that. His blues and R’n’B was always very… It had so much energy. It was great.

AO: It’s funny because most of that album was recorded in Germany and seems that his biggest following was actually there, in Germany.

PT: I think he used to live in Barcelona.

AO: Really? I didn’t know that. But which audience, would you say, is your favourite audience?

PT: Oh, Geee… Wolverhampton! [Laughs] I mean really, just all over the UK every show we did was great, and I don’t think I have a favourite place. But I always know, for example, if we play in Newcastle, or if we play in Glasgow, or if we play in Wolverhampton [Laughs] and we’re gonna get a great crowd, and they have some history with me, that’s the weird thing.

AO: Wolverhampton?

PT: Well, not just there but everywhere. It goes back like thirty years with me.

AO: Isn’t that where Robert Plant is from originally?

PT: Robert Plant? I believe so. I know Ozzy is. The funny thing is, I’d come over there and people in the US who are familiar with the way Ozzy speaks, they think he talks like that purely because of drug and alcohol abuse. And I go, “Oh no, that’s a regional dialect! Let’s pull over here and ask that lady directions to the hotel.” - “Aw reeight, teern reeeight and keep geeein’!” [Pat’s doing his best Ozzy imitation] They go, “Oh my god, it’s Ozzy’s mother!” And I say, “They all talk like that.”

AO: Ha-ha! That was excellent! Now let me ask you about your technique. Does it still require everyday practice?

PT: You know, I like to play every day if I can, only because I enjoy it. I’ve got some really, really nice guitars that I’ve been able to collect over the last few years. They are all a little different, but I can’t really bring them on the road with me because I don’t want to risk them getting damaged. So they are all sitting there in my bedroom, and so I can pick one or another, and go, “Ah, I’d like to play the old Telecaster today,” or play a Les Paul. So, that’s interesting for me because different guitars make you play in a different way. So, I try to pretty much play every day if I can. And I’m still always working on new material. I had a real big burst of creativity over the summer and it still seems to be carrying on here now. I’m enjoying it. Because sometimes writing the songs is the hardest part of the whole thing, especially when they don’t come. Once you know what the song is about it’s usually pretty easy. That’s the hardest part—finding out what the stupid song is about.

AO: How long did it take you to write this album?

PT: In some regards it’s taken me my whole lifetime. It’s all my experience. And then at other times things just came so quickly. Literally, if you look at my lyric notebook for this album, I really just wrote everything out. There might be a little word change here and there or a line crossed out, but it looks like I just wrote it from memory or someone dictated it. It’s pretty amazing how that happened. I guess my mind is particularly clear at the moment, I don’t know why.

AO: Well, I have one last question, and it’s a bit goofy, I hope you don’t mind.

PT: I don’t mind.

AO: Given that you’ve had such an extensive career that spanned four decades, looking back, if you had an opportunity to write a letter to yourself that would travel back in time, what would you write?

PT: Ha-ha! It would probably have something to do with money! [Laughs] Of course we think about that, “If I’ve done this, if I’ve done that,” but I’m so happy with where I’m at, with my family and where I live, and I’m sure I could have done a lot of things better, but I wouldn’t have ended up where I’m at. I don’t have too many regrets. And you know what, it just seems like sometimes you are not in control at all. Because in the beginning of this year when this new record deal came along and everything started happening, it was just effortless, like I didn’t have to do anything at all. And then around the middle of making this record some peripheral stuff started to fall apart. I guess at other times in my life I would have reacted by running and hiding, or running and getting drunk or something, but now I’m at the point of my life where I’m so focused I’m getting everything done and I’m not letting anything stop me. I don’t want to live in the past. I’m doing what I’m doing now. I’m never completely happy, but that’s what motivates you.