By Eric Staniford

     

EU: This is your 10th G. Love and Special Sauce album; you guys have been together for 15 years. Are you still having fun?
G: Yeah man, I have fun every night! (laughs) Definitely! I love it. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

EU: You recently got to produce John Hammonds new Album “Push comes to Shove.” How does it feel to work with one of your biggest influences?
G: That was a like a real milestone for me in my career. I kind of looked at it as the player coaching the coach. You know what I mean? Cause John is and certainly was a huge influence. He was an Idol of mine growing up. I’ve gotten to know him real well these years doing shows. I got to hang out with him a bunch. And then Marla and John called me asking me to do the record and I’m like, ‘Sure! Are you kidding me? I’ll drop everything I’m doing.’ I dropped everything I was doing in that moment, you know what I mean? To me it was a huge opportunity - just to be able to work with one of the greats like that, and he made the record so easily in four days. They were great.

EU: Sort of along the same lines: you’re known for doing a lot really great collaborations and jams with other musicians. Are there any musicians you haven’t gotten a chance to play with that you want to?
G: On my last record I really got a chance to work with people that I’ve been wanting to work with. Ben Harper and a lot of people I have been working with before, like Tristan Prettyman, Mark Broussard, Los lobos, and Blackalicious. You know about all that, but uh, yes and then I worked with John Hammond. And I guess something I’m real interested in right now is maybe doing a blues record, after I finish touring on Superhero Brother - do a blues record and go around and film it and kind of try to find a lot of the old unsung blues heroes and some of the more famous ones and try to get some recordings with them.

EU: A lot of your fans know of your influences by John Hammond, Bob Dylan, Run DMC and groups like that. What musical influences do you have that fans might not expect you to listen to?
G: That’s a good question. You know, I’m just like anybody else and I hear all kinds of music. It’s funny because like, for me - I’m a musical sponge, you know what I mean? So every kind of music I hear you know - you get a lot of good music and you hear a lot of bad music (laughs). And I’m a father now, my kid’s seven this month and the year before when we were driving around we got a lot of Radio Disney so I definitely got my share of Hannah Montana and stuff like that. There are some great singers in that kind of “Pop” pool. I mean, we’re kind of tempted write it off because it’s pop. But there are some really talented people that do write great hit songs and are amazing singers.

EU: I definitely didn’t expect that.
G: Yeah that’s what I’m saying. It’s like once you hear it, it’s really catchy and, like wow, it’s a really good song (laughs). But then “cooler” influences that people might want to hear more about, like I’m really a fan of Jack White and both of The White Stripes.

EU: What about non-music Inspiration, like Art or Film?
G: Well I think my biggest non-music inspiration comes from reading. Some of my favorite authors are Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison. A book that I read this past year that I really liked was The Time Travelers Wife¬¬. And I read a lot, you know. And especially the first two authors I mentioned: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison. Their writing, to me, is very musical. The imagery that they put into their words, I’m able to find a lot. When I read their books, I use a pen so I can underline stuff. They have great lines in these books and often times I read a book like that and a line from a book will inspire a song. You know? That’s probably my biggest non-musical related influence.
That and the regular people I see and hang out with through the day. Especially if you hang out in a diner or whatever with some good ole boys or some regular people or just meet these characters, man. Because people have a lot of good expressions, you know, and expressions are often what lead to a song.

EU: You’re getting ready to start this tour with John Butler Trio. How did you first hear about those guys?
G: They are an amazing band, and I’ve been hip to them for years because we’ve been playing in Australia for a long time. They’ve been HUGE in Australia. He is one of the biggest rock stars in Australia. There’s this whole roots, rock n’ roll movement that he’s kind of the forefront of. He’s really breaking here in the states right now as well. We asked him to tour. We talked about me going over and opening for him in Australia for years. We never could get the dates. We got this tour together and he was my first choice as someone we wanted to tour with, and we were lucky enough to get him. It’s going to be an amazing show, and then Tristan Prettyman rounds out the bill. That last one we were at was with Slightly Stoopid. That was a great tour and that was almost like a party, you know? I liked the last one for sure but I think this tour will be more musically inspired. Just by the caliber of musicians we have opening up.

EU: You guys have a special thing with iTunes and this tour right?
G: That’s right. We are going to be recording the shows every night and at the end of the tour we’re going to pick a couple songs and put them out on an EP that will be for sale on iTunes. One of them will be a collaboration that John and I do.

EU: You get involved with a lot of grassroots organizations like One Percent For The Planet and things like that. What other organizations do you support?
G: One organization I work with a lot is the Surfrider Foundation. They do things like clean up beaches, local community projects, and local outreach projects in poor communities - places were people go to surf. So that’s a good one. That’s at SurfriderFoundation.org
And then another one that’s even more close to me is Malaria No More, malarianomore.com. The mission is to eradicate Malaria, which is killing over a million people every year - mostly in Africa but in other places all over the world as well. It’s a totally preventable and curable disease. So it’s something I just got involved with in the past six months. I’m actually launching a Public Service Announcement that I did on web pages. And I look forward to doing more work for them. Those are some good organizations.

EU: You sing about a lot of political and social issues in your songs like 200 years, Peace Love and Happiness, and the title track to new album, Superhero Brother. Is it hard to find a groovy way to sing about such a depressing subject?
G: Superhero Brother was like a protest song. I wrote that when George Bush was getting ready to be re-elected. I couldn’t believe that a lot of the young people had come out and supported him, especially with the war in Iraq. It feels like the element of the youth in our country has shifted so tragically. And I’d say that money was ruling people over values you know? Anyhow, in Superhero Brother I wanted to do a song about every problem I see wrong with the world. It is a very serious part in musicians that think they can change the world with their guitar. Musicians kind of have to believe that they can change the world with their guitar. You can’t just look into political policy to save the world. I try to do my part and speak on as many issues as I can, but at the same time my music is a celebration. So even when I’m talking about heavier things, I want to do it in a way that it’s a celebration, and a celebration of people coming together to do something good. In that way, it’s not hard to me - it comes kinda natural but it’s something that I strive to be conscious. When I’m making a record I want to represent what I’m experiencing. So that’s why on my albums you’ll have political songs like Peace Love and Happiness and Superhero Brother. You’ll have some personal songs, you’ll have some fun loving songs and you’ll have some straight up love songs. I try to cover it all on a record. If you did a record all about politics, it gets kinda preachy. And at the same time, if you do a record all about partying or smoking weed or whatever, that’s kinda lacking, you know? I like to represent all sides of my life.