Page 5 of 6
"I mean, it feels familiar, but with Shannon ... I mean, Travis being up there and the difference between Travis and Shannon is just two different people. There's a different feeling there, you know, because of that. But, as far as playing with the four musicians, it feels completely natural. We really learned how to play together -- especially me, I had only been playing the guitar for four years or so when we started writing for our first record. It really, you know, that style of playing feels like home to me in a way. I find these guys easy to play with. I mean ... I think what we did was sort of learned all the songs in a way that would be sounding close to the record. That was the way we used to do it as well before tours or when we were going to start touring. Rehearse everything and get it right and then it just goes from there as we start ... especially as we start getting into the tour and songs start to change. They're pretty straight as far as the way they were recorded, I mean, there were a few moments on this last run and I think it's gonna start changing."
And, I guess you'd have to bring in some ... You guys have been busy over the last 10 years with guys producing and a couple of them in Unified Theory and you were in Tender Trio. Do you look at ... I mean have you brought those experiences in for songwriting or do you look at it ...
"Yeah, in a way and in a way, not. In a way, you kind of wanted to unlearn a lot of things because there was a sound and a feeling to Blind Melon that it's important to capture. And, um, I think it's unavoidable to be influenced by people we've played with over the last few years so, there's probably some of that in there, but ... yeah. I think we tried to kind of go back to something ... a way that we used to play. I don't think it's gonna ever be possible to completely capture that. When we did our first record, we were really sort of frantic in a way because none of us had been playing as long as we have now. Everybody's sort of a more proficient musician. A lot of that sound on the first record is us flailing away trying to keep up with the beat or whatever. There's a kind of magic to that but I don't think that we could do that anymore. I mean, we can play those songs and make 'em sound like that, but to write like that? It's different now."
You guys released ... at this point have you released all that you've got from the back catalog? I know you released a live DVD and a live album. Well, I guess the live album was released without too much of your approval.
"The live album was fine. The problem with it ... it's ... that was just a disaster. We were furious. It's one of those things where you just couldn't get it fixed. You'd call and nobody was accountable. It just went on and on. It was kind of ridiculous. Beyond that ... I mean there's ... we recorded a lot of shows and we did ... uh ... there are a lot of demos and some other things I don't think have been heard, but they're not studio quality recordings that are ... they're demos. Some of them were cool, but ... I think with all the time I've completely forgotten about."
I was going to ask if the best of those got on Nico -- a lot of those were voicemails and demos.
"Um-hmm. Well, the ones that got on Nico were the ones that were either had been found at the time or inspired us to fit on there that we thought, 'This will fit.' A lot of that stuff we recorded on after the fact. We recorded on the DAT tapes after Shannon died. So ... and it worked. And some of it was less successful in that experiment."
So, at this point, are you guys just kind of touring on and off until the album comes out?
"I think we're gonna be touring pretty consistently. The plan is we're gonna go up until ... I mean, all of our dates that go up until the New Year haven't been released yet. We're gonna keep going until about the 20th I think in the Southeast and then stop for the holidays and then we're gonna pick back up in Texas, I think. And, uh ... maybe go out West, I assume and keep going. I think we're gonna go to Europe at the end of February. Um ... so, I mean, we're gonna be out there."
