Conversations: More with Dave Alvin

Talking about major labels vs. indies, favorite albums, and a couple of great tales

For most of my adult life, Dave Alvin has been a great influence, both as a storyteller and as a musician. He may never be a household name, but to those who appreciate evocative songwriting and incredible guitar playing, he’s a legend.

Alvin’s recently released book, New Highway, collects lyrics, tributes, eulogies, and poems that — as he describes it in the introduction — provide the reader with vivid tales of “lives populated by celebrated or obscure historical figures, non-conformists, criminals, angels, liars, dreamers, deceivers, blues shouters, mad rock-and-rollers, honky tonk weepers, confused lovers, picket line believers, skeptical waitresses and other characters who have fascinated me.”

Last month, I was fortunate to interview Alvin for Americana Highways as he promoted the new BMG Books’ release. The interview was very conversational, and numerous side stories could not be included in the main piece. While Alvin’s admirers wait for the publication of his still-gestating memoir, those stories include:

• Starting as a solo act, working for major labels and then moving to Hightone Records and YepRoc, the independents where he found and nurtured his voice.

• His favorite albums as a solo artist.

• Current artists he admires.

• Alvin’s time with the Pleasure Barons, an “all-star revue” that included the late Country Dick Montana, Mojo Nixon, John Doe, and a cast of various and sundry “characters.”

• And finally, a great story about his best friend, Chris Gaffney, and a Cypress Hill T-shirt.

I hope you enjoy these outtakes. To read my Americana Highways interview, click on this link.

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You don’t remember this, I’m sure, but you and I have met and spoken to each other twice — on your first solo tour for “Romeo’s Escape” in Houston and again on your tour behind “Ashgrove” in Arlington, Va. As a result, I feel like we’ve had a long-term, though mostly one-sided friendship.

Dave: Oh, God. I'm a terrible friend, sorry. (Laughs)

No, you’re not.  The first time we met, I was inside at Rockefeller’s, standing at the bar in that old, converted bank. You walked in through the front door, walked to the bar, ordered a Budweiser, turned to me, and said, "Hi, I'm Dave." We talked for a couple of minutes and then you went in there and put on one helluva show. As someone who admires musicians and performers, just the fact that you were able to make that personal connection, I was hooked.

Dave: Thank you very much.

At the time, 1987-88, you were on a major label. You had been on a major label with both the Blasters and X. How was it fronting your own band for the first time and being on a major label.

Dave: A hell of a lot of pressure. I didn't really set out to be a solo artist like certain people. I just woke up one morning and found myself in that position. It wasn't a grand plan. I remember very well when it hit me. The Blasters were very tight with our money, meaning we didn't accept tour support for a record label because we didn't need it. We were such a respected live act that whether we had a new record out or not, we could go and sell out shows because people knew they were going to get a good one.

We never spent our money, wasted our money on tour buses or fancy hotel rooms or limousines. Everything was played really tight financially. That was all by plan. Then in X, I was just a paid sideman. Technically, I was a member of the band, but really, I was just getting a paycheck. Then suddenly, I find myself as a solo artist and I remember leaving.

We played a gig in Milwaukee early on. It was the second or third gig of my solo tour. I was on Epic Records and yes, they had given me tour support because there was no way I could pay for all the musicians and everything like that.

I had set things up exactly like it was with the Blasters. There were two vehicles, one for the gear and the road crew and one for the band and the luggage, that kind of thing. We were leaving Milwaukee and I was sitting shotgun in the passenger van. I had a road manager, a two-man road crew, and a five-man band. It's snowing and I'm looking in the rearview mirror and I'm seeing the equipment vehicle with our amplifiers and drum kits and whatever else. I'm looking around at all these musicians. I'm thinking about the hotel or motel we stayed in last night, the one we're on our way to, and I'm thinking about gas and then it was just like it just dawned on me that I'm paying for everything.

Me. Not the Blasters, not X. Me. I got to pay for all this. That's when I realized, ‘Oh God, I don't know if I can do this.’ Then it got scary and then I felt the pressure. The bass player had just gotten married and his wife was expecting a kid and all he wanted to do was stay on the road and work and make money. I'm just thinking, "Oh my God, I just got married and I'm having a kid."

I didn't, and I wasn't, but I might as well have been because I'm supporting him and his wife now. All those pressures, I learned a lot.

I learned how to juggle. It took me many years of figuring it out, how to not feel that pressure as intensely. Then I had a record label where the pop music side was saying, ‘Your music's too country.’ The country side was saying, ‘Your music's too rock and roll.’ I was just basically a blues player. I didn't know where I was or who I was at that time. It was a little weird.

When did it become more comfortable?

Dave: When I signed with Hightone Records. I figured out after all my experiences with major labels that major labels were not where I belonged. I wanted career longevity. I wanted to be like my heroes — Big Joe Turner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, people like that, They had career longevity in a weird way, but they never stopped playing music.

To me, not playing music was not an option. I really can't do anything else. I had to figure out a way to survive. I had seen a lot of my friends get signed to major labels. If you don't sell X-amount of copies, you're done. They had to stop playing music and go get day jobs or go find another angle in the music business.

That wasn't for me. I loved playing music live and that's all I wanted to do. How do I get to do that? I thought about I needed to be on a record label that one, would understand what I was trying to do musically, that wouldn't be saying, ‘Well, that's too country. Oh, that's too rock and roll. That's too much blues. Why don't you do one or the other?’ I needed somebody like Hightone that would just let me make whatever record I wanted. I needed somebody that would let me grow within art and experiment and make mistakes.

That was really important for me. In the Blasters days I always felt that we could have had hit records, We succeeded maybe with one or two things and failed with most, but we tried. Then with X, it was the same thing. X was trying to break into the mainstream when I was with the band. When I was signed to Epic Records, I was signed through Epic Nashville as part of CBS national, and they were trying to fit me into whatever slot they could possibly think of. This is before the term Americana existed or the concept really, and so I needed a record label that just wouldn't give me any grief about what I did, what songs I was writing.

I've stayed true to that. I've been on YepRoc for 15, 16, 17 years. They don't give me any grief; they just let me make my records.

What are some of the favorite albums you’ve made?

Dave: I'm very proud of King of California, Eleven-Eleven, and and Ashgrove. I wouldn't have been able to make those records if I was on a major label.

If a record like King of California had been on a major label, we would've sold a crap-load of them, because we sold a lot of records on Hightone of that album, but no major label would've allowed me to make that record. That album was where I found my singing voice and no major label was going to wait two or three solo albums for me to find how to sing. I had to blaze my own trail. By blazing your own trail and stepping out of the mainstream, some of that pressure to fit in just goes away.

What current artists do you like?

Dave: Jason Isbell's a pretty talented cat. He's pretty smart. Sturgill Simpson has done some good stuff. Those are the more well-known people. I think that they've risen to be the cream and the top for obvious reasons.

One, I think they represent their audience really well. They are the voice of modern America. They're not stupid. You know what I mean? I don't really care for music that makes people glorify stupidity. Those guys are smart.

There's a lot of musicians that I like that are not that well known and that do things that I think are fantastic. That's always been the case, basically. As a songwriter, no matter what kind of genre I listen to, I want to hear some thought in the lyrics.

How do you describe your music?

Dave: It's not a genre, but I consider myself a rock and roll blues guy, or a rock and roll blues songwriter. I've been called so many names and terms over my 40-year career. I think it's sad. I don't like some of the distinctions because I think it segregates music and musicians. Isbell has got the ability to eventually cross over into pop culture and hit it kind of big, but will the powers that be let him?

As much as I enjoy your solo work, I like that you step out with other bands like The Knitters, The Flesh Eaters, and the Pleasure Barons. The Pleasure Barons show I saw in 1993 in Houston remains one of the top two or three concerts of my life.

Dave: The Barons, once they got going, were a really good band. The fact we could play while (Country Dick Montana) was flying through the air and could possibly do damage to us was the sign of a good band.

The only thing I wish you’d included in New Highway was some mention of the Barons or at least one Country Dick story.

Dave: There’s a book coming out in about a year, a year and a half that has more of those types of stories. I’ve got Country Dick stories for days. I love that guy.

Any you can tell me now?

Dave: There were two Pleasure Barons tours, the first one in 1989 and then the one you saw. The first one was a semi-disaster. We started in San Diego and planned to go up through California through to Portland, Eugene and then Vancouver before coming back down again. I’d been feeling sick before the rehearsals even started, but I made it through the first three gigs. At the Sacramento gig, I realized I was dying.

A friend of mine drove me to the hospital and I was hospitalized for two weeks with meningitis. I almost died. I got released from the hospital the day the Barons tour wrapped back around. They were playing in San Francisco, so I got out of the hospital and went to soundcheck, and picked it up as if I never left. We went on to do San Francisco, Santa Barbara, L.A., and San Diego again and finished in Las Vegas.

I haven't been paid for anything yet. We get to Las Vegas and Dick tells me, ‘Oh yes. Okay. I'm going to get you tonight after the show.’ In those days I really needed money badly, and this was a nice chunk of change. We play the gig in Las Vegas and then I get distracted by someone or something and go away for the evening. The next morning I go find a road manager, feeling like this time Dick is going to pay me. Instead, after the gig in Vegas he took my money and a couple other people's money and thought, ‘I can double this.’

He lost, of course, and so I didn't get paid for the first tour. But after all the crap going to the hospital and hospital bills and all this shit, I didn't get bitter. Two or three years later, Dick calls me, (imitates Montana’s deep voice), ‘Dave, we're going to do Barons again,’ and I was like, ‘Fuck you. I didn’t get paid for the first tour.’

He had to pay me for the first tour plus the second tour in advance before I played one note, and he did. But I just loved it. I was going to do it anyway just because he was such a great guy. I’ve got a bunch of stories like that.

The second time we met was at the former Iota Club in Arlington, Va. It was the first tour where I saw Chris Gaffney as part of the Guilty Men and I talked to the two of you after the gig. You were standing outside with Gaffney and he had a Texas Longhorns hat on.

I was dead drunk that night. I had a ball.

I asked Gaffney if he was from Texas or a fan of the team because shirts and hats are often great conversation starters.

Dave: Exactly. Yes.

He said, "Nope, picked it up from Kmart."

Dave: That's Gaffney. I can hear him saying that. He liked Austin and he really loved beers. If you are a musician and wear that hat in Austin, you get half price on beers.

One of my favorite parts of the book was reading the “not poem” on him hating poetry. It was a great tribute.

Dave: I'm glad you got a kick out of that. That’s Chris. One of the things he left me after he passed away, one of the things that I treasure most believe it or not, is a Cypress Hill T-shirt.

When I first took him out on the road, he had never really done touring before, like that. Professional touring. I was my own road manager back in those days and I gave him whatever the per diem was for the week. It's like 150 bucks. What Chris hadn’t grasped was I wasn’t giving him 150 bucks just for being a cool guy; that was supposed to buy your food and whatever else — drinks, cigarettes, etc. — for the rest of the week.

We were outside Cincinnati and I had to go to the bank, and there was a Target or a Wal-Mart or some megastore near the bank. Chris went into the Superstore, bought all this garbage and he comes back real happy into the van.

I was like, ‘What did you just do?’

‘All that money you gave me, man. I needed some stuff.’

‘That was supposed to last all week.’

One of the things he bought was the Cypress Hill T-shirt. It had all this weed imagery on there and Chris loved his weed. He's looking at it as we're driving away and I said, "Well, man, there’s your money for the week to live off of." He’s staring silently and looks at me and goes, ‘I did a really stupid thing, didn't I?’ When he passed away I made sure that I got that Cypress Hill T-shirt. He loved his discount T-shirts, I remember that.

And his Texas Longhorns hat too.

Dave: That too.