Country Fried Rock 1218: Mark Durfield of the Bearfoot Hookers on Guitars, Gospel, and Good Times

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Welcome to Country Fried Rock, where we talk with musicians to find out what inspires their creativity.

Speaker A: 00:00:06

Country Fried Rock Music Uncovered Today on Country Fried Rock, we're talking with Mark Derfield of the Barefoot Hookers of Athens, Ga.

Speaker A: 00:00:14

Welcome.

Speaker B: 00:00:15

Thank you.

Speaker A: 00:00:16

Thanks for being with us.

Speaker B: 00:00:17

Pleasure.

Speaker A: 00:00:18

How'd you get into music originally?

Speaker B: 00:00:19

Oh, gosh, I've been playing guitar since.

Speaker B: 00:00:22

There's actually pictures of me playing a guitar when I'm about 2 years old.

Speaker B: 00:00:25

I don't think I was playing very well, but I'm holding one.

Speaker B: 00:00:28

But I started taking some lessons when I was an early teenager, and I'm not going to give away my age, but it's been more than 20 years since I've been playing way more and just, you know, I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:00:39

Music from a very young age has always been something that was inspirational and spoke to me and something that I can't get away from.

Speaker B: 00:00:46

So no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on other things, music was always the thing that grabbed my attention.

Speaker B: 00:00:52

So I figured out a play.

Speaker A: 00:00:53

So in those years between, you know, hanging with the guitar as a little guy and deciding to want to play, what were you listening to?

Speaker B: 00:01:00

Well, of course, at a very young age, listening to whatever my parents had on the radio, which was they liked Elvis and some of the country music people like Loretta Lynn and things like that.

Speaker B: 00:01:08

So I heard a lot of that kind of stuff.

Speaker B: 00:01:10

My mother's a big fan of gospel music, so I heard a lot of gospel music growing up.

Speaker B: 00:01:14

And then when I got old enough to start listening to things on my own, I mean, I was fascinated with the sounds of rock music from the 70s, which is about the time it was when I was a young fella.

Speaker B: 00:01:24

You know, I loved big guitar sounds and big guitar music.

Speaker B: 00:01:27

So.

Speaker B: 00:01:27

But actually, the interesting thing is the first person I remember being being a fan of and still one of my greatest influences is Johnny Cash, and my dad had Johnny Cash records.

Speaker B: 00:01:36

So I used to just wear those out, listening to them and pretending like I was playing along with them, you know, when I was a little guy and learned all the words, even the dirty words.

Speaker B: 00:01:44

And so Johnny Cash was a big influence, but then got a little older and started listening to the stuff that was on the radio at the time, on the rock radio.

Speaker B: 00:01:51

So, you know, a lot of the British rock bands were influential, like, you know, the big sounds of Led Zeppelin and Cream.

Speaker A: 00:01:58

And what kind of gospel did your mom listen to?

Speaker B: 00:02:01

It was mainly contemporary kind of stuff.

Speaker B: 00:02:03

My mother's, bless her soul, she's a very religious Woman.

Speaker B: 00:02:06

And her claim to fame in my eyes is she got to see Jerry Lee Lewis play one time in Birmingham.

Speaker B: 00:02:11

Both my parents are from Alabama and she saw Jerry Lee Lewis once and I think that's awesome.

Speaker B: 00:02:16

But she wasn't all that impressed.

Speaker B: 00:02:17

I think it was a little too wild for her.

Speaker B: 00:02:20

She said he just made a lot of racket and bounced around and played with his feet.

Speaker B: 00:02:23

And I said, that's so cool.

Speaker B: 00:02:25

That didn't impress her, apparently, but she grew up out actually in a country town in north Alabama in a small country church.

Speaker B: 00:02:32

And they didn't have a whole lot to do but sing, so.

Speaker B: 00:02:35

And my grandfather, who I didn't know very well, was a banjo player.

Speaker B: 00:02:38

And so they would probably sit around and sing, sing some traditional gospel songs.

Speaker B: 00:02:41

And of course, growing up in a church, we learned a lot of those as well.

Speaker A: 00:02:45

As you moved into choosing your own stuff and kind of the album oriented rock stuff at the time.

Speaker B: 00:02:49

Yes.

Speaker A: 00:02:50

As you started to take some lessons, what were you doing?

Speaker B: 00:02:52

I really started playing country style.

Speaker B: 00:02:55

Even though I was listening to the rock music.

Speaker B: 00:02:57

The stuff that I.

Speaker B: 00:02:58

It's funny and we'll probably talk about it more, but several of us in the band, really, the music we love to listen to is rock.

Speaker B: 00:03:04

And even.

Speaker B: 00:03:05

I mean, Ty Manning, the other guitar player, singer, kind of our front man is.

Speaker B: 00:03:09

He's an old metal head.

Speaker B: 00:03:10

But the funny thing is when we sit around and try to make up songs and make up a record, it always winds up sounding kind of country.

Speaker B: 00:03:16

And so, you know, for whatever reason, when I started taking lessons, that's the kind of stuff I learned to play.

Speaker B: 00:03:21

Some Merle Haggard songs and Willie Nelson songs and Hank Williams songs and things like that.

Speaker A: 00:03:27

That is funny.

Speaker B: 00:03:28

It's strange.

Speaker B: 00:03:28

I love all that stuff, but it's not necessarily when I'm wanting to sit down and blow off steam and listen to some music, that's not necessarily what I go listen to.

Speaker B: 00:03:35

But yet that's a big part of my background.

Speaker B: 00:03:38

So that's the kind of stuff I really learned to play.

Speaker B: 00:03:40

Maybe it was that I never really could figure out how to play like the big rock guys.

Speaker B: 00:03:43

Of course, you know, Led Zeppelin's music is when it's not just kind of a straight blues thing.

Speaker B: 00:03:48

It's actually pretty complicated stuff and I'm not patient enough to sit and learn it.

Speaker B: 00:03:51

I learned to play what I.

Speaker B: 00:03:52

What I could play.

Speaker A: 00:03:53

Was there any influence with Southern rock through the 70s and 80s there?

Speaker B: 00:03:57

Absolutely.

Speaker B: 00:03:57

You know, growing up, all of us grew up in Georgia.

Speaker B: 00:04:00

I was a very young Teenager in the late 70s.

Speaker B: 00:04:03

And Lynyrd Skynyrd was a big influence.

Speaker B: 00:04:04

I loved it.

Speaker B: 00:04:05

To me, they're the greatest American rock band there ever was.

Speaker B: 00:04:08

Just the big raw sound of it.

Speaker B: 00:04:10

And the thing about their music and really Southern rock in general is I could understand what they were talking about songs.

Speaker B: 00:04:16

You know, obviously I have a lot of respect for guys like Bruce Springsteen, but I have.

Speaker B: 00:04:20

I have a couple of good friends from New Jersey and I tell them all the time, I don't know what the he's talking about.

Speaker B: 00:04:25

I have never been on the New Jersey turnpike, just don't get it.

Speaker B: 00:04:28

But when Lynyrd Skynyrd sings about swamp music, I know what that's about.

Speaker A: 00:04:32

Exactly.

Speaker B: 00:04:32

And so, yeah, I mean, Southern rock, whether it was necessarily what I always went to, to listen to, it's something that's prevailing influence just because we heard it all the time and so much.

Speaker B: 00:04:43

And it was such a big part of growing up in the south during that time.

Speaker B: 00:04:46

You know, you go to New Jersey and Bruce Springsteen is the Lynyrd Skynyrd of that region.

Speaker B: 00:04:52

I've had conversations with my friends over beers talking about these things and how those artists are so intertwined with the environment they came up in.

Speaker B: 00:05:00

Yes, and that's probably true for all of us, but that those of us are from the same area, get it.

Speaker B: 00:05:04

And if you're not from the area, maybe you think it's interesting, but you don't really get it.

Speaker B: 00:05:08

I mean, that's my experience with Bruce Springsteen, who's a fabulous artist and I love his music, but I just sometimes just don't get what he's talking about.

Speaker A: 00:05:15

You know, as you were taking these first lessons and it was coming out countryish, twangy, ish.

Speaker A: 00:05:20

What led to either playing out or writing stuff?

Speaker B: 00:05:24

Probably writing stuff came first.

Speaker B: 00:05:25

I started writing pretty early, but I never wrote anything that was any good until probably 10 years ago when I started really playing out more.

Speaker B: 00:05:32

I mean, I played a lot of years just sitting around.

Speaker B: 00:05:34

I'm actually.

Speaker B: 00:05:35

I'm fascinated with the recording process.

Speaker B: 00:05:37

So I spent a lot of time holed up in a room in my house with all my instruments.

Speaker B: 00:05:41

And as soon as the four track Porta Studios came out, I went and got one of those things and just started playing around with recording and learning, overdubbing.

Speaker B: 00:05:49

And that's when I started crafting songs.

Speaker B: 00:05:51

But I wasn't writing lyrics yet.

Speaker B: 00:05:53

I was really just coming up with arrangements and compositions and.

Speaker B: 00:05:56

And, you know, made a couple cassette tapes and handed them out to a few people, and.

Speaker B: 00:05:59

But, you know, unless you have songs, that doesn't do much.

Speaker B: 00:06:02

So I started one of my anniversary gifts from my wife years ago.

Speaker B: 00:06:07

I'd been complaining to her, like, you know, I play guitar.

Speaker B: 00:06:10

I'm okay at that, and I love playing with people, but unless I feel like I'm never gonna really get an opportunity to do much unless I sing, and I don't know how to sing, so why don't you take some singing lessons?

Speaker B: 00:06:19

And I said, well, all right.

Speaker B: 00:06:21

I don't.

Speaker B: 00:06:22

Okay.

Speaker B: 00:06:22

I don't know where you got to do that, but.

Speaker B: 00:06:23

And so she did a little research, and she found this.

Speaker B: 00:06:26

This wonderful lady in Athens, Georgia, named Olwen Kirsch, who was an opera singer.

Speaker A: 00:06:32

Wow.

Speaker B: 00:06:33

But had a lot of students that were, you know, wanting to sing pop or country or rock music or whatever.

Speaker B: 00:06:38

And she, you know, she was very, very open to that.

Speaker B: 00:06:41

But the fundamentals of singing are the fundamentals of singing.

Speaker A: 00:06:44

Right.

Speaker B: 00:06:45

So I took a handful of lessons from her just to get an idea of, you know, how you.

Speaker B: 00:06:49

How you phrase things, how you handle the breathing.

Speaker B: 00:06:52

And it was amazing.

Speaker B: 00:06:53

As soon as I started to get comfortable with the idea of singing and what my voice sounded like, writing songs became easy.

Speaker B: 00:07:00

It's like being able to sing gave me a voice and an idea of how to take music beyond just banging on a guitar and actually creating songs.

Speaker B: 00:07:08

So that's when I started sitting down and writing.

Speaker B: 00:07:10

And that's about the same time that I ran into Ty Manning, who's the other guitar player, singer, and de facto leader of the band.

Speaker B: 00:07:17

He was actually working.

Speaker B: 00:07:18

He's a high school teacher.

Speaker B: 00:07:19

He teaches art, and my wife was teaching at the time.

Speaker B: 00:07:22

She introduced us, and we started sitting around writing songs together and recording stuff.

Speaker B: 00:07:27

And then he introduced me to his buddy John Tang, who is our bass player.

Speaker B: 00:07:32

And so the three of us started sitting around writing and recording some stuff.

Speaker B: 00:07:36

And then we.

Speaker B: 00:07:38

John lived upstairs from a guy that played drums, so Josh Skelton joined the band.

Speaker B: 00:07:42

We started playing, and, you know, that's kind of the history.

Speaker B: 00:07:46

But writing happened after I learned how to sing.

Speaker B: 00:07:49

When you're writing songs, you sit around with a guitar, or at least I do.

Speaker B: 00:07:52

I sit around with a guitar and I sing, and it works or it doesn't work, and you keep tweaking it.

Speaker B: 00:07:57

But until I was comfortable with what that sounded like, I wasn't comfortable with writing.

Speaker B: 00:08:01

Dear Olwen Kirsch, I owe whatever good or bad's happened to me since to her.

Speaker B: 00:08:06

She passed away, unfortunately, a few years ago, but wow.

Speaker A: 00:08:10

You said that you were fascinated with the recording process and would goof around with your four track.

Speaker A: 00:08:14

Has that fascination continued?

Speaker B: 00:08:16

Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker B: 00:08:17

I mean, I've got a studio in a barn out behind my house.

Speaker B: 00:08:20

I live out on a farm, so I've got a little barn behind the house and that's a recording studio.

Speaker B: 00:08:24

And actually the majority of our last record was recorded there.

Speaker B: 00:08:27

Our first record was recorded in my house.

Speaker B: 00:08:29

I've got a 16 track Pro Tools, set up a handful of good microphones and we do our demos there.

Speaker B: 00:08:36

We've got to where it's difficult to handle the recording, handle the board, handle the computer and play too.

Speaker B: 00:08:43

So I really like working with an engineer when I can.

Speaker B: 00:08:46

I got a favorite one, a guy named Will Thrift, who was the engineer on our last record.

Speaker A: 00:08:52

How did you and Will hook up?

Speaker B: 00:08:53

Will is an old high school buddy of John Tonge, our bass player.

Speaker A: 00:08:56

Oh, cool.

Speaker B: 00:08:57

They went to high school down in Waycross together.

Speaker B: 00:09:00

Will does recording for a living.

Speaker B: 00:09:02

That's his real job.

Speaker B: 00:09:03

He does mobile stuff and he's got a little studio up in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Speaker B: 00:09:08

In fact, I just spent a weekend up there with him a couple weekends ago recording some new songs, so.

Speaker B: 00:09:13

But I've got all this stuff at home and, you know, when I get time, I love to just go out there and hook up microphones and start playing.

Speaker B: 00:09:20

And that's, that's how I compose songs these days.

Speaker B: 00:09:23

You know, besides walking around the house with a guitar at 3:00am Right.

Speaker A: 00:09:27

You know, as you're doing your own demoing for yourself, what do you do with it?

Speaker A: 00:09:31

Do you go back and listen and.

Speaker A: 00:09:32

Or is it that you just have to get it out?

Speaker B: 00:09:34

It's a lot that I just have to get it out.

Speaker B: 00:09:36

I do go back and listen to those.

Speaker B: 00:09:38

The band is kind of at an interesting point right now.

Speaker B: 00:09:41

Our bass player wife has just had a baby and so we're kind of on a little bit of a hiatus, just giving him a little time to figure out how to be a dad.

Speaker B: 00:09:50

So in the meantime, Ty and I are out playing acoustic stuff together and some solo.

Speaker B: 00:09:55

We're both continuing to write songs and some of them may very likely be barefoot hooker songs on another record.

Speaker B: 00:10:01

And some of them may wind up something that we do solo.

Speaker B: 00:10:04

I don't know yet.

Speaker B: 00:10:05

There's three of us.

Speaker B: 00:10:06

Ty Manning, John Tonge and myself are the songwriters in the band and we often collaborate, but we also do a lot of stuff on our own and then bring those songs to the band and if it's, you know, not all of them are barefoot hooker songs necessarily.

Speaker B: 00:10:18

And I don't know what necessarily makes a Barefoot hooker song, but it seems to be sometimes they fit and sometimes they don't.

Speaker B: 00:10:23

And it doesn't mean that they're not good songs.

Speaker B: 00:10:25

And John is prolific writer.

Speaker B: 00:10:27

He has hundreds of songs and we pick out three or four of the ones that we really like at the time that he's.

Speaker B: 00:10:32

That he's keen on.

Speaker B: 00:10:33

And we put those on a record and then he's got a handful of others that I don't know what he's ever going to do with them, but he.

Speaker B: 00:10:39

Maybe someday he should put them on a record.

Speaker B: 00:10:41

You know, I'm the same way.

Speaker B: 00:10:42

I've got a bunch of songs that are rolling around that I'm kind of experimenting with.

Speaker B: 00:10:46

And so I spent a weekend two weekends ago up in North Carolina with my buddy Will recording those just to see what comes of them.

Speaker B: 00:10:53

Hey, this is Mark Derfield with the Barefoot Hookers on Country Fried Rock.

Speaker A: 00:10:57

Of the ones that clearly are not going to be barefoot hookers songs, what's different about them?

Speaker B: 00:11:01

Sometimes it's the content.

Speaker B: 00:11:03

You know, Barefoot hooker songs have evolved a little bit since the first record to the last one.

Speaker B: 00:11:08

And the first record actually was all songs that we already had written before we were even a band.

Speaker A: 00:11:13

Gotcha.

Speaker B: 00:11:13

We just got together for like three weekends and just recorded stuff and wound up.

Speaker B: 00:11:18

We were basically looking to make a demo record so that we could get some gigs.

Speaker B: 00:11:21

And so we had stuff to send to the bars and the venues to say, here we go, we're a band, we can play these songs for you.

Speaker B: 00:11:28

And we wound up with enough to make a record, so we made a record out of it.

Speaker B: 00:11:31

But those songs are.

Speaker B: 00:11:32

They're kind of rowdy, you know, the content, it's about partying, having a good time, a lot of drinking songs, kind of pretty irreverent stuff.

Speaker B: 00:11:41

And the second record, the writing on it was a little more mature, but most of the songs on it came out of stories from all the playing we were doing.

Speaker B: 00:11:50

After the first record, we were out late, you know, on weekends and a few three or four day runs and had a lot of interesting experiences that we're glad that we survived.

Speaker B: 00:12:01

And that record, Life at the Bar is basically about that.

Speaker B: 00:12:05

Most of those songs are along those lines.

Speaker B: 00:12:07

And when we went five years where we didn't do another record, we were just playing and we did our last one and it's even more mature and there's some sort of Introspective, mature relationship type songs, because people were starting to have relationships and grow up a little bit.

Speaker B: 00:12:22

But to answer your question, what doesn't make or does make a Barefoot Hooker song?

Speaker B: 00:12:27

I think it's.

Speaker B: 00:12:28

You know, that's a difficult question because I don't want to say anymore.

Speaker B: 00:12:32

Early on, it was the song's got to be fun.

Speaker B: 00:12:35

They got to be about partying.

Speaker B: 00:12:36

They got to be about getting rowdy.

Speaker B: 00:12:38

And that was kind of the vibe that we were going for.

Speaker B: 00:12:40

And as we did that enough and started to get to grow up a little and where we.

Speaker B: 00:12:44

It hurt too much the next day.

Speaker B: 00:12:46

Yeah, just our behavior changed a little.

Speaker B: 00:12:48

But also the material that we wrote changed a little.

Speaker B: 00:12:50

But I think that the key is basically the way we determine what songs go on a record is that John and Ty and I will sit in the room and we'll play them, we'll demo them, and then we'll make decisions about what needs to go on a record.

Speaker B: 00:13:02

And they're actually.

Speaker B: 00:13:03

We've got probably 30 songs that we play from time to time that have never been on one of our records.

Speaker B: 00:13:09

So there are songs that we play, but.

Speaker B: 00:13:11

But yet just don't make a record because of the limitations of how much space you got and the effort it takes to make a record.

Speaker B: 00:13:17

So in terms of what gets on a record, it's basically the three of us sitting around listening and deciding which are the best ones that make a cohesive album.

Speaker B: 00:13:25

But just because a song doesn't make it to a record doesn't mean it's not one we're gonna play.

Speaker B: 00:13:29

And that's very often the case.

Speaker B: 00:13:30

We've got quite a backlog of things that, you know, might someday wind up getting recorded.

Speaker B: 00:13:35

But maybe they're holdovers from years ago and we play them regularly, but we just don't think they're.

Speaker B: 00:13:40

They're not necessarily fitting what we're trying to do.

Speaker B: 00:13:42

We try desperately to make the records a bit thematic.

Speaker B: 00:13:45

And so the songs have got to fit the theme to some degree.

Speaker A: 00:13:48

If the moon and stars aligned, are y' all gonna move towards another recording?

Speaker B: 00:13:51

I think so.

Speaker B: 00:13:52

We've got.

Speaker B: 00:13:53

Still got quite a backlog.

Speaker B: 00:13:54

And in this little bit of a hiatus, since November, when Young Sam Tons was born, we've all been writing, and I think even John's been writing.

Speaker B: 00:14:02

And I can't wait to see what he's got going on.

Speaker B: 00:14:05

He's probably got songs about being a.

Speaker A: 00:14:06

Daddy now, I would imagine.

Speaker B: 00:14:08

And that would make an even more interesting theme for a barefoot hooker's.

Speaker A: 00:14:12

Yes, it would.

Speaker B: 00:14:13

For many years.

Speaker B: 00:14:14

Actually, until about two years ago.

Speaker B: 00:14:16

Well, three years ago, I was the only guy in the band that was married, but I don't have any children.

Speaker B: 00:14:20

So John's the first one to come along and make babies.

Speaker B: 00:14:23

And so now we've got onto three of us are married.

Speaker B: 00:14:27

One of them is about to be only one baby yet to speak of.

Speaker A: 00:14:30

So that's a lot of life changes.

Speaker A: 00:14:31

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: 00:14:32

Yeah, it is.

Speaker B: 00:14:33

So, you know, that will affect what we write, what we record and how we behave.

Speaker A: 00:14:39

I would imagine that thematically that would certainly move you in some different directions as a group.

Speaker B: 00:14:43

I would think so.

Speaker B: 00:14:44

Certainly.

Speaker B: 00:14:44

We're looking for earlier gigs.

Speaker A: 00:14:47

No kidding.

Speaker A: 00:14:48

Midnight start time.

Speaker B: 00:14:50

Midnight start times are just get too hard.

Speaker A: 00:14:52

I hear you completely.

Speaker A: 00:14:54

As you all met one another.

Speaker A: 00:14:56

Were you playing in Athens?

Speaker A: 00:14:57

Mainly, yes.

Speaker B: 00:14:58

We really have two homes.

Speaker B: 00:15:00

We have.

Speaker B: 00:15:00

Athens, of course, is our home.

Speaker B: 00:15:02

And we.

Speaker B: 00:15:03

When we first started, there's a.

Speaker B: 00:15:04

There's a bar.

Speaker B: 00:15:05

It used to be called DTs down under.

Speaker B: 00:15:07

And we played like six or eight weekends in a row at DTs, just working on stuff, working on material, flushing out songs.

Speaker B: 00:15:16

And that's when we then settled in and made that first record.

Speaker B: 00:15:20

Took stuff that we'd been playing and then finally were able to get some gigs in some other places.

Speaker B: 00:15:24

And still love DTs.

Speaker B: 00:15:26

But it's just a little small and carrying gear up and down those stairs is terrible.

Speaker B: 00:15:30

But it's not DTs anymore.

Speaker B: 00:15:32

I forget.

Speaker B: 00:15:32

It's Rybar, I think is what it's called now.

Speaker B: 00:15:35

And it's actually a little nicer than it used to be.

Speaker B: 00:15:37

But we have fond memories of old DTs.

Speaker B: 00:15:41

And I still see pictures of us playing in those places.

Speaker B: 00:15:44

We played there the night or the day that Johnny Cash died.

Speaker B: 00:15:48

And that was our first good Barroom brawl that we got into.

Speaker A: 00:15:51

Wow.

Speaker B: 00:15:52

And emotions were pretty high.

Speaker B: 00:15:55

And it was one of those nights where they'd overbooked the place and this punk band comes in following us.

Speaker B: 00:16:00

And they hadn't been there all night.

Speaker B: 00:16:01

And they didn't realize that the thing was overbooked and that everybody was running about 30 minutes late.

Speaker B: 00:16:06

We played our first song and they got right up in front of us, told us to get down and get out of the way.

Speaker B: 00:16:10

A bunch of our fans had imbibed a little too much and started swinging.

Speaker B: 00:16:15

So we had a good barroom brawl and DT's on about our fourth show.

Speaker B: 00:16:18

That kind of set the stage and tone for the rest of the experience.

Speaker A: 00:16:22

What a great Story.

Speaker B: 00:16:25

But we were all pretty hot.

Speaker B: 00:16:26

So we broke into Folsom Prison Blues.

Speaker B: 00:16:28

And while the guys were throwing gear around and swinging and throwing beers at each other, oh, my goodness, it was a great night.

Speaker A: 00:16:36

That is a great story.

Speaker B: 00:16:39

So fortunately, none of us got hit.

Speaker B: 00:16:40

I think we did get some beer thrown on us.

Speaker B: 00:16:42

But it was okay.

Speaker B: 00:16:44

It was all part of the.

Speaker B: 00:16:44

Part of the thing.

Speaker B: 00:16:45

And we got to play our set.

Speaker B: 00:16:46

So we showed those guys.

Speaker B: 00:16:48

I don't know where they are anymore.

Speaker A: 00:16:50

Where's home?

Speaker B: 00:16:51

So Athens.

Speaker B: 00:16:51

But also Ty and John are both from Waycross, Georgia.

Speaker A: 00:16:54

Gotcha.

Speaker B: 00:16:55

Which is down, way down south, four hours from Athens.

Speaker B: 00:16:58

And the very next place we played after Athens was down in Waycross.

Speaker B: 00:17:02

That's literally our spiritual home.

Speaker B: 00:17:04

I mean, we play Athens all the time.

Speaker B: 00:17:05

It's where we live.

Speaker B: 00:17:06

We're part of the scene there.

Speaker B: 00:17:08

But gosh, we love to go down to Waycross.

Speaker B: 00:17:10

There's a couple of festivals that happen down there.

Speaker B: 00:17:12

There's the Swamp town, Get down.

Speaker B: 00:17:13

That's in the spring.

Speaker B: 00:17:14

And then the Grand Parsons guitar pool.

Speaker B: 00:17:16

They're on like 13 or 14 years in a row now.

Speaker A: 00:17:19

That's a big deal.

Speaker B: 00:17:20

And it's turning into quite a big thing.

Speaker B: 00:17:21

And we've played that the past six years.

Speaker B: 00:17:24

We've made the rounds.

Speaker B: 00:17:24

We've outlasted several venues in Waycross.

Speaker B: 00:17:27

But there's one in particular.

Speaker B: 00:17:28

It's been in about four different locations, but it's the same people running it.

Speaker B: 00:17:31

And it's now called L.L.

Speaker B: 00:17:33

creek.

Speaker B: 00:17:33

Used to be Cypr Creek.

Speaker B: 00:17:34

Leeta Osborne and Larry down there are like our surrogate big brother and sister.

Speaker B: 00:17:39

They take care of us when we go down there because it is a four hour drive.

Speaker B: 00:17:43

We go out, we play Friday and Saturday nights.

Speaker B: 00:17:44

We'll do a big rock show Friday night.

Speaker B: 00:17:46

And then on Saturday, they have to shut down at midnight on Saturday.

Speaker B: 00:17:49

So we will do an acoustic show that night.

Speaker B: 00:17:51

Kind of make it a little lower key.

Speaker B: 00:17:53

So it's a different thing.

Speaker B: 00:17:53

So people come out both nights.

Speaker B: 00:17:55

We get big crowds down there.

Speaker B: 00:17:57

The Waycross folks love music more than anybody I've ever seen.

Speaker B: 00:18:00

There's so many talented people down there.

Speaker B: 00:18:02

It's a really strange little railroad town.

Speaker B: 00:18:05

That's our second home.

Speaker B: 00:18:06

And you know, it's just John and Ty that are from there.

Speaker B: 00:18:09

But I mean, I know.

Speaker B: 00:18:10

I know as many people in Waycross as I do in Athens.

Speaker B: 00:18:12

I go down there and, you know, I grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Speaker B: 00:18:15

I go down there and I get treated like I've been from Waycross my whole Life.

Speaker A: 00:18:19

Wow.

Speaker B: 00:18:19

And so we love it down there.

Speaker B: 00:18:21

It's hot as summertime, though.

Speaker B: 00:18:23

Wow.

Speaker A: 00:18:23

Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:18:24

Because it's like almost north Florida.

Speaker B: 00:18:25

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:18:26

It's only 30 miles or so from Florida, so it's hot and it's.

Speaker B: 00:18:30

You know, it's on the edge of the swamp.

Speaker B: 00:18:31

So the mosquitoes are gigantic and the gnats are huge and everywhere.

Speaker B: 00:18:35

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:18:36

But while they love their music and late at night it cools off and lots of nice, cool beverages.

Speaker B: 00:18:41

Crazy, crazy people down there.

Speaker B: 00:18:43

That swamp water makes them crazy.

Speaker B: 00:18:45

But they do love the music.

Speaker A: 00:18:47

What has been something either other bands that you get to work with or how that collaborative process works for you all in a positive way in Athens.

Speaker B: 00:18:56

Athens, of course, is just jam packed with musicians and some very talented people.

Speaker B: 00:19:01

And the result of that is there's a lot of resources.

Speaker B: 00:19:03

There's.

Speaker B: 00:19:04

I would say that collaboration is one of the biggest things.

Speaker B: 00:19:07

But I mean, there are some.

Speaker B: 00:19:08

Some fantastic resources.

Speaker B: 00:19:10

Things like Nucci space.

Speaker A: 00:19:11

That's unbelievable.

Speaker B: 00:19:12

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:19:12

The practice space there.

Speaker B: 00:19:13

And a lot of.

Speaker B: 00:19:14

I mean, they do a lot of health care work for folks that don't have insurance.

Speaker B: 00:19:17

People that are trying to do music full time and they do a lot of other good programs there.

Speaker B: 00:19:22

There's a lot of great resources.

Speaker B: 00:19:23

There's.

Speaker B: 00:19:24

I mean, there's a ton of recording studios up there.

Speaker B: 00:19:26

There's probably too many.

Speaker B: 00:19:27

They can't make a living at it.

Speaker B: 00:19:28

But just having such a plethora of musicians and people that play all kind of different styles and all kinds of instruments.

Speaker B: 00:19:36

On the last record we had several guests.

Speaker B: 00:19:38

We needed a fiddle on a song and none of us play fiddle, so it's easy.

Speaker B: 00:19:43

We had like four or five people to pick from and we chose Leah Calvert, who's a fantastic fiddle player.

Speaker B: 00:19:48

She does bluegrass.

Speaker B: 00:19:49

She's actually in Atlanta nowadays.

Speaker B: 00:19:51

She played around Athens, I think when she was in school there.

Speaker B: 00:19:53

She did some fantastic work.

Speaker B: 00:19:55

You know, we had a.

Speaker B: 00:19:55

We've got a kind of a bluegrass song on the last record and can make a little noise on a mandolin, but we're not that good at it.

Speaker B: 00:20:02

So we know several guys that play mandolin and we picked out Hal Misseri and he came in and tracked mandolin and helped.

Speaker B: 00:20:08

He plays in bluegrass band.

Speaker B: 00:20:09

Really high, lonesome, lonesome singing voice too.

Speaker B: 00:20:12

He helped sing bluegrass style harmonies on the song.

Speaker A: 00:20:15

Cool.

Speaker B: 00:20:15

And so just the availability of musicians.

Speaker B: 00:20:19

Betsy Frank, who I know you know.

Speaker A: 00:20:21

Yeah, I love Betsy.

Speaker B: 00:20:22

Betsy sang on two or three songs on the record.

Speaker B: 00:20:26

She did harmony parts and then.

Speaker B: 00:20:27

And then sang a lead with tie on one.

Speaker B: 00:20:29

She's fantastic and a great resource to have around for a good, soulful female voice.

Speaker B: 00:20:34

Adam Payne, good friend of ours, sang on.

Speaker B: 00:20:37

On two or three songs, sang some harmony parts.

Speaker B: 00:20:39

Adam's a funny guy because he's.

Speaker B: 00:20:41

He's a big fella, but he's got the highest.

Speaker B: 00:20:43

He's almost got like an opera voice.

Speaker A: 00:20:44

He has a beautiful, beautiful voice.

Speaker B: 00:20:48

Yes.

Speaker B: 00:20:48

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:20:49

So he came in and sang some high harmony parts on.

Speaker B: 00:20:51

On some songs.

Speaker B: 00:20:52

And I mean, just having a network of people that you can call in on recording projects.

Speaker B: 00:20:56

But also one of the things that we liked to do after we got far enough along in the Athens scene where we could sort of, when you're first starting out the bars, book their own shows.

Speaker B: 00:21:06

We would constantly be getting lumped in with, you know, I love good punk band.

Speaker A: 00:21:10

Right.

Speaker B: 00:21:10

Mixing our music in a punk band.

Speaker B: 00:21:12

You know, our fans weren't sticking around for it.

Speaker B: 00:21:14

And one of the things we really used to get frustrated with was who we'd wind up getting grouped with.

Speaker B: 00:21:18

When we weren't booking our own shows as absolutely early as we could, we would go to the.

Speaker B: 00:21:23

The venues and say, look, this is what we want to do.

Speaker B: 00:21:25

We want to put together a show, two or three bands that are similar, so that we can advertise it, market it, promote it, and bring in a group of people that are going to stay all night drinking your bar all night.

Speaker B: 00:21:35

And they loved that idea.

Speaker B: 00:21:36

Once we got far enough along where we could pick up the phone, call other bands or other musicians that we knew were similar enough to us that would make a cohesive show.

Speaker B: 00:21:44

There's plenty of people like that, and we never had any trouble booking shows that way.

Speaker B: 00:21:48

This is Mark Derfield with The barefoot hookers.

Speaker B: 00:21:50

Thebarefoothookers.com, the B E A R F O O T H O O k e r s.com who are some of your.

Speaker A: 00:21:57

Go to buddy bands for that.

Speaker B: 00:21:59

Adam Payne Band.

Speaker B: 00:22:01

Ken.

Speaker B: 00:22:01

Will Morton played a lot of shows with Kenwell Morton, good friend of ours.

Speaker B: 00:22:04

We've played tons of shows with Betsy Frank and Bare Knuckle Band.

Speaker B: 00:22:07

There's a few bands that aren't around anymore.

Speaker B: 00:22:09

The Chasers, which is Clay Leverett's country band.

Speaker A: 00:22:12

Oh, okay.

Speaker A: 00:22:12

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:22:13

Did a few shows with them.

Speaker B: 00:22:14

Carla Lafever.

Speaker B: 00:22:15

Carla's like the godmother of rock music in Athens.

Speaker B: 00:22:18

She's.

Speaker B: 00:22:19

She's this crazy character and she's.

Speaker B: 00:22:21

She's probably one of the hardest working people we know.

Speaker B: 00:22:24

And she never.

Speaker B: 00:22:24

God bless her, she never really has.

Speaker B: 00:22:26

I don't Think broken out of the Athens thing, but, man, when she puts on a show, she always has a tight band.

Speaker B: 00:22:30

She's singing, she's singing.

Speaker B: 00:22:32

She does a few originals, but mainly it's rock covers.

Speaker B: 00:22:34

Cover songs.

Speaker B: 00:22:35

She does them so well.

Speaker B: 00:22:36

She's got this huge personality, and she's just so much fun to watch and listen to.

Speaker B: 00:22:40

There was a band called Andrew Nelson and the Shotgun Lovers.

Speaker B: 00:22:43

They've since moved to Nashville and are playing up there.

Speaker B: 00:22:47

Folks like that.

Speaker A: 00:22:48

The fact that you're able to list off so many bands so quickly is.

Speaker A: 00:22:51

That is just one of the coolest things to me about Athens is that people do look for that.

Speaker B: 00:22:55

Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:22:56

You know, let's support one another and move forward.

Speaker A: 00:22:57

I mean, everything's got its infighting, but in general.

Speaker A: 00:23:01

Yeah, that and the fact that people play in more than one band.

Speaker A: 00:23:04

And that's okay.

Speaker B: 00:23:05

Yeah, that's.

Speaker B: 00:23:06

That's true.

Speaker B: 00:23:06

I mean, two of the guys.

Speaker B: 00:23:07

Our core band is.

Speaker B: 00:23:08

Is myself and Ty Manning and John Tongs and Josh Skelton.

Speaker B: 00:23:13

That's the guitar, bass, two guitars, bass and drums.

Speaker B: 00:23:16

We've got Marcus Thompson, who joins us absolutely every time he can.

Speaker B: 00:23:20

He plays slide guitar.

Speaker B: 00:23:22

So he was the recording engineer on the second record.

Speaker B: 00:23:24

So that's where we.

Speaker B: 00:23:25

We actually knew him.

Speaker B: 00:23:26

I knew Marcus before that, but he was working at Chase Park Transduction.

Speaker B: 00:23:29

Yeah, just Dave Barbee's studio.

Speaker B: 00:23:32

And when we went in to do the second record, Life at the Bar, Marcus was pegged as the engineer on that one.

Speaker B: 00:23:37

So we worked with Marcus and I got to know him real well.

Speaker B: 00:23:40

He just started coming to play with us because he knew all the songs, and we loved having him because he's a fantastic slide player.

Speaker B: 00:23:45

I mean, he's one of those guys that actually studied music and went to college and learned it.

Speaker B: 00:23:49

And he's.

Speaker B: 00:23:49

He's super talented and rock solid, and he plays in three or four bands.

Speaker A: 00:23:55

Right.

Speaker B: 00:23:55

And then there's Scott Nicholson, who's piano, organ, and he does a lot of harmony vocals.

Speaker B: 00:24:00

Scott's really been with us from the beginning, but there were periods of time when he was doing other things and couldn't play all the time.

Speaker B: 00:24:05

But he doesn't miss a show these days.

Speaker B: 00:24:07

But he's playing in probably six bands right now, and he is.

Speaker B: 00:24:12

He's making quite a reputation for himself in Athens as.

Speaker B: 00:24:14

As the.

Speaker B: 00:24:15

The organ piano player.

Speaker A: 00:24:17

Cool.

Speaker B: 00:24:18

Around town.

Speaker B: 00:24:19

So he's coming in quite high demand.

Speaker B: 00:24:20

But.

Speaker B: 00:24:21

And we're honored to see that he still lists himself as the piano player for the Barefoot Hookers.

Speaker B: 00:24:25

That's very Light of the fact that he's playing with all these different people, too, some of which are probably much better than us.

Speaker A: 00:24:30

I'm fascinated to hear where this next thing is going to go for you all.

Speaker A: 00:24:33

I hear you on the thematic thing.

Speaker A: 00:24:35

When you're looking at a group of tunes, as you're getting ready to, you know, you're going to make a record, do you let the songs find their theme, or do you have the theme and let the songs.

Speaker B: 00:24:44

It's funny because the theme kind of happens because we all have been writing generally about the same experiences.

Speaker B: 00:24:52

And so I can say, you know, the first record is not so thematic.

Speaker B: 00:24:55

It was.

Speaker B: 00:24:56

It was kind of a group of songs we had.

Speaker B: 00:24:58

Second one was literally after being out playing for a year.

Speaker B: 00:25:02

Holy.

Speaker B: 00:25:03

We've done a lot of weird and crazy stuff, and here's some stories about that stuff.

Speaker B: 00:25:08

And so that theme kind of happened on its own.

Speaker B: 00:25:10

You know, the title song, Life at the Bar, is literally about spending your life in bars.

Speaker B: 00:25:15

And the rest of the record kind of followed that same idea.

Speaker B: 00:25:18

I mean, even there's a song that I wrote for my wife called Angelina on that record, but even that one is a song about sort of growing up with her, but also being gone A lot.

Speaker B: 00:25:28

It's about being gone and out playing.

Speaker B: 00:25:29

It's sung from a traveling musician's perspective.

Speaker B: 00:25:33

And then the last one.

Speaker B: 00:25:35

A lot of time had passed and a lot of things changed in our personal lives and things mellowed a little bit.

Speaker B: 00:25:41

And I think we.

Speaker B: 00:25:42

We all sat down and we said, we want to write some really good songs that aren't just.

Speaker B: 00:25:46

That aren't just drinking songs.

Speaker B: 00:25:47

I love a good drinking song.

Speaker B: 00:25:49

But we wanted to do something.

Speaker B: 00:25:50

We figured we had done that already.

Speaker B: 00:25:51

And so it's very much more introspective.

Speaker B: 00:25:54

But it's the stuff, you know, once we.

Speaker B: 00:25:56

Once we gathered it all together, we sort.

Speaker B: 00:25:58

We started listening to the songs we had.

Speaker B: 00:26:00

We said, wow, this is.

Speaker B: 00:26:00

There's a kind of a theme going on here of maybe some inner struggles about relationships and inner struggles about our place in the world and what's important about what we're doing.

Speaker B: 00:26:10

And then there's.

Speaker B: 00:26:11

The name of the record is Beer Drinking Gospel Revival.

Speaker B: 00:26:13

And that's a song.

Speaker B: 00:26:14

And two or three of us have got some sort of deep south, conflicting religious issues.

Speaker A: 00:26:20

Sure.

Speaker B: 00:26:20

And that's a lot of what's rolling through that.

Speaker B: 00:26:23

There's kind of vaguely references to that all through the record.

Speaker B: 00:26:27

It's literally our version of a gospel record.

Speaker B: 00:26:29

But it's.

Speaker B: 00:26:30

It's a bit reflective of.

Speaker B: 00:26:33

It's almost cliche, but the demons that are haunting us instead of some of the things you might think of when you talk about gospel songs.

Speaker A: 00:26:40

Yeah, you know, I wonder because that's like so prominent.

Speaker A: 00:26:43

I think I see that even now.

Speaker A: 00:26:45

It's not like that's an old time issue.

Speaker A: 00:26:48

So many people having really a daily struggle with that conflict.

Speaker A: 00:26:54

Yeah, it's there.

Speaker A: 00:26:56

And I find that people from outside of here want to politicize that conflict and that's not it.

Speaker B: 00:27:03

No.

Speaker B: 00:27:04

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:27:04

Ty and I both come from very religious families.

Speaker B: 00:27:07

He and I are not that way at all.

Speaker B: 00:27:09

As much as we like to say everything's cool, we struggle with that.

Speaker B: 00:27:12

You struggle with it when you have relationships with your parents.

Speaker B: 00:27:15

And fortunately both of us have both of our parents still.

Speaker B: 00:27:18

But, you know, there's conflict there.

Speaker B: 00:27:20

My dear mother, bless her heart, she's not very happy about some of the stuff that I record that causes a bit of conflict.

Speaker B: 00:27:26

She doesn't understand why I have to have to write music that glorifies what she considers bad behavior.

Speaker B: 00:27:32

And I try to explain.

Speaker B: 00:27:34

Well, I'm just being honest.

Speaker B: 00:27:36

I know you don't like to hear that, but that's just the way it is.

Speaker B: 00:27:40

Ty and I have sat and had these conversations.

Speaker B: 00:27:43

Our buddy John Tonge, his father is an Episcopal priest and John, he's got a healthier perspective on this than.

Speaker B: 00:27:50

Than we do.

Speaker B: 00:27:50

But I think he grew up with a little less of a conservative influence.

Speaker B: 00:27:54

He's still a God fearing churchgoing boy, but he's got his own issues.

Speaker B: 00:27:57

He's.

Speaker B: 00:27:58

For quite a while.

Speaker B: 00:27:59

John's probably had the wildest life of all of us and he settled down as being a good husband and father now.

Speaker B: 00:28:05

And I'm proud of him.

Speaker B: 00:28:06

But wow.

Speaker B: 00:28:07

I don't know how he survived some years.

Speaker B: 00:28:10

He's got a lot of stories to tell.

Speaker B: 00:28:13

He tells a lot of those stories and a lot of his songs and they're mostly true.

Speaker A: 00:28:17

That will be interesting to see then where his writing goes.

Speaker B: 00:28:19

Yeah, it will be.

Speaker A: 00:28:20

That'll be fascinating.

Speaker B: 00:28:21

Yeah, looking forward to it.

Speaker B: 00:28:23

But you know, Ty and I sat and had conversations about when we were kind of leaning towards theming this last record in sort of our version of a gospel album.

Speaker B: 00:28:32

We had a lot of conversations about that same conflict.

Speaker B: 00:28:34

Laugh about, well, mom's not gonna like that song and Mom's not gonna like that song.

Speaker B: 00:28:38

And yeah, there's one on there called Drunk Again which is unfortunately a true story.

Speaker B: 00:28:43

Yeah, that one didn't go over too well.

Speaker A: 00:28:45

I'M dying to hear where this heads.

Speaker B: 00:28:47

Yeah, me too.

Speaker A: 00:28:48

What would you all want to bring to that recording process?

Speaker A: 00:28:51

You know, who could you bring into the collaborative process of the next recording?

Speaker A: 00:28:54

That would really help y'.

Speaker A: 00:28:55

All?

Speaker B: 00:28:56

I think we'd probably rely on some of the same folks we've.

Speaker B: 00:28:59

We've used before.

Speaker A: 00:29:00

That's nice.

Speaker B: 00:29:00

But we might get them a little more involved.

Speaker B: 00:29:03

There's another guy I haven't mentioned yet named Fester Haygood, that he was somebody we played with quite a few times.

Speaker B: 00:29:08

He had.

Speaker B: 00:29:08

He's had various bands and played with Fester a lot.

Speaker B: 00:29:11

He's just finished a new record, and Ty and I have been playing some acoustic shows weekly on Wednesday nights at a little place called Hindershots in Athens.

Speaker B: 00:29:19

And Fester's been coming up and sitting in with us.

Speaker B: 00:29:22

He's got some fantastic songs.

Speaker B: 00:29:23

Good at crafting them.

Speaker B: 00:29:24

I think it might be interesting to bring some of those folks in that we've just used to play instruments or sing parts and bring them in on the arrangement process and get some interesting ideas outside of what we come up with.

Speaker A: 00:29:36

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:29:37

Just to see what might happen with that.

Speaker A: 00:29:38

That would be fun.

Speaker B: 00:29:39

Might work.

Speaker B: 00:29:39

It might not, I don't know.

Speaker B: 00:29:40

But it'd be an interesting process to talk with those folks on, say, the front end of a recording process instead of, here's the track.

Speaker B: 00:29:47

We just need you to.

Speaker B: 00:29:48

To do this on it.

Speaker B: 00:29:50

And so.

Speaker B: 00:29:50

But I think we would.

Speaker B: 00:29:51

We would very likely rely on some of the same folks we've used before.

Speaker B: 00:29:55

Getting them in a little earlier in the process would be an interesting thing.

Speaker A: 00:29:58

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:29:59

You know, having.

Speaker B: 00:30:00

Having Betsy's input on crafting of a song would be interesting.

Speaker B: 00:30:05

Every time you make a record, you learn.

Speaker B: 00:30:07

I think what you never want to do is just do the same thing over and over again, and every time we've done it, we've done something different.

Speaker B: 00:30:14

And so I think the next one, the thing that might be interesting is to have that collaboration, a little broader collaboration than maybe we've done before.

Speaker A: 00:30:22

Thank you.

Speaker A: 00:30:22

Thank you.

Speaker A: 00:30:22

Take it easy.

Speaker B: 00:30:23

All right, take care.

Speaker A: 00:30:24

Bye bye.

Speaker A: 00:30:25

Country Fried Rock Find the full playlist from this episode on countryfriedrock.org check us out on itunes.

Speaker A: 00:30:32

No music, Just talk.

Speaker A: 00:30:34

Our theme music is from the Full Tones.

Speaker A: 00:30:36

Our Country Fried Rock stinger is from Steve Soto in the Twisted Hearts.

Speaker A: 00:30:40

Country fried Rock Copyright: 2012

Speaker A: 00:30:45

All rights reserved.

Speaker B: 00:30:48

Country Fried Rock.