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Butch Trucks: Uncorking the Frog
by Bob Makin

For 30 years now, Butch Trucks has helped to propel the intricate rhythms behind The Allman Brothers Band's intricate harmonies. As the late Duane Allman, then Warren Haynes, now Jack Pearson sculpted dual guitar leads with Dickey Betts; Gregg Allman belted out his gruff vocals and punched his Hammond B-3; Berry Oakley, then Allen Woody, now Oteil Burbridge laid down a bass foundation, Trucks has been there with fellow drummers Jai Jaimoe and Marc Quinones to seemingly lift the Brothers' fans off their feet. That otherworldly zone of rhythm and harmony and true-as-blue blues-rock has made The Allman Brothers Band the greatest live outfit in the history of rock 'n' roll. Twenty years ago, they were the pioneers of Southern Rock. Now with more than a hundred jam bands that cite the Brothers as a direct influence, as do some of the finest contemporary blues musicians, the band is so much more. As excited as he is about the Brothers' upcoming 30th anniversary, Trucks seems equally enthused about his new supergroup side project, Frogwings, featuring Quinones; Burbridge, who also plays with Aquarium Rescue Unit and in his own Peacemakers side project; his keyboard-playing brother and fellow ARU member Kofi Burbridge; ARU-Jazz Is Dead guitarist Jimmy Herring; Blues Traveler vocalist-harpist John Popper, and Trucks' 19-year-old guitar sensation nephew Derek Trucks. Popper has replaced original Frogwings vocalist Edwin McCain and has increased the band's energy level, Trucks says. Having recently recorded a live album at the jam haven of Wetlands in New York City, Frogwings will be heard from again this summer when the disc comes out on Trucks' own Flying Frog Records.

>>From now to then, there'll only be 30 years of Allman Brothers Band history to celebrate, first with March Madness, the annual month-long stand at New York's Beacon Theatre, and then on an anniversary summer tour. I spoke with Trucks about this history, his new band and the obscure Southern sport of corkball, which, perhaps after this interview, readers will be playing all over the world.

How does Frogwings compare to The Allman Brothers Band?

Oh God, I don't know. Man, that's like saying, which wife did you like better. I don't know (laughs). I tell you, right now it's a bunch of young guys, and they're keeping me on my toes. Oteil and Marc Quinones in Frogwings have a little more freedom, and they get into these incredibly complex jazz patterns, and I've got to hold on for dear life or I get lost. It's fun.

Comment on how Frogwings is a modern Southern-rock supergroup consisting of members who all have been greatly influenced by the Allman Brothers Band.

That was never the intent. I mean, John Popper isn't from the South. I was looking for a vehicle do something with Derek. You always want have the best people you can have around you. The first sessions I did with Derek, Jimmy Herring was there. I had heard rumors about Oteil that I always figured were bullshit, because nobody could be as good as they said he was. But then Jimmy was saying, 'Yeah, he is.' I played with Oteil in Frogwings about two or three months before we hired him to be in The Allman Brothers. I brought him to the audition for the Allmans Brothers bass player. Then Oteil told me about his brother Kofi and we added him. Now with the addition of John Popper, it's smoking.

I hear Popper brings a lot to it.

Oh wow, I had no idea what would happen. We wrote a lot of stuff with Edwin and now John's come in with his harp and his writing and his singing. It's a lot harder edge now, a lot more rock 'n' roll oriented. It's fun. I'm enjoying the hell out of it. We're just going at it. We're writing songs and playing and just having a ball doing it. What's really fun about Frogwings is that there's really no pressure at all. We're all making a living doing other things, and this we do plain and simply for the fun of it. We're playing the hell out of it. We can carve a few weeks out of the year to do it. And when we do, it's just for the sheer pleasure.

How do you like performing with your nephew Derek?

Derek is like this 50-year-old man in a 19-year-old's body. He's kind of always been that way. There's something very special about him. He'd come sit in with us here and there, but he's also my brother's son, you know? There's a strong connection between us. For quite some, at the least the past four or five years, I've wanted to get in a situation where I could do more than just jam with him once every other year. A group like this seemed like the right vehicle. It's just broadened out from there and added a lot of other elements to it. But that's how it got started. That's kind of where the name of the band comes from. I always wanted to do this with Derek and I knew if I didn't, I'd regret it. And Frogwings is like that old story. Duane Allman used to love it. When you're sitting around, saying, 'Well, if only I'd done this and if only I hadn't done that.' Yeah, well if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bust ass every time he jumped. So frog wings is a symbol of no regrets. To give the frog wings, he doesn't bust his ass. If you want to do something, just do it.

Instead of doing Frogwings, why not relax and take time off from the road during the Brothers' downtime?

I actually do. I'm just not sedentary person. I don't like to sit on my ass too much. After about 30 lousy rounds of golf, you want to go do something else.

Does Frogwings keep your participation in The Allman Brothers Band fresh?

Absolutely, if for no other reason, I've had a week or two of working my ass off and I'm feeling strong. The other thing is with Frogwings, Oteil and Marc, especially can really stretch out. The rhythms get much more complex, and it really stretches me. When you do that, you learn how to do something new. You've got a broader vision of what you're doing, and you can take that into the Allmans Brothers' concept. We've been playing that stuff for 30 years. It's kind of hard to come up with something new. You need to go out and do something else to get a fresh perspective on it.

What will the sets consist of?

It's all new. We're doing Dylan's 'Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat,' we're doing one old Tower of Power song and we play Hot 'Lanta, but all the rest is brand new. We worked up 14 songs in five days last week. John Popper and Oteil were writing a song a day. It was amazing. They run the gamut from a calypso song to 'The Thrill Is Gone' kind of a blues feel to a really uptempo Latin groove to one that is almost industrial thrash rock. On the surface, that's what you're hearing, but when you listen to what the bass and the guitars are doing, it's fucking incredible. Really cool. It's like industrial rock meets James Brown.

Comment on how the process of recording the live Frogwings album at Wetlands will be inexpensive.

Oh God, with modern digital technology. I mean, we've got 48 tracks of digital. They've really gotten to the point now where I feel sorry for anyone that owns a big recording studio, because they're sitting on a big white elephant. What five years ago would have cost you $2 million to own in technology, you can own now for $15,000 to $20,000. We're using some really inexpensive multi-track recording devices. We'll record the whole thing multi- track, and we will take it into a big studio to do the mix. And in the mix, we'll tweak it and add this, that and the other. But the basic recording, you just don't need a $200,000 or $300,000 mobile truck anymore to get a major live recording if you've got a good person who knows how to put it down. We're actually recording on that 8mm videotape. That's the storing device.

What are the plans for the album?

We'll release it later this year. I'm starting a little label. I'm doing it myself. I think it's going to be Flying Frog Records actually. We've got a distribution deal with a company called ADA, which is a Time-Warner company. That should be this summer.

It's interesting that Popper will be the vocalist of record, because the original vocalist Edwin McCain has to promote his own stuff. Will the lead vocalist spot — for that matter the entire lineup — operate on a rotating door policy?

I don't think so. The only reason that Edwin had to leave was problems with his record company. We haven't run into that problem with John. John seems to be madly in love with what we're doing, and we're in love with what he's doing. So basically what we'll do is just carve a few weeks out of every year to just take this out and do it. It's going to be kind of a bass ackwards approach to a band. In the old days, you make a record and then you hit the road to promote the record. We're going to make the record, but we're just going to put out live CDs and people in Des Moines and the rest of the country are just going to have to get the live CD, because there's no way that we have enough time to come there. It's just not going to happen. The few days that we do get to play, we're going to play in New York, Boston, Atlanta and the major markets and that's about it. This band will never go in the studio. Never. It's a live band. That's all it is and that's all it ever will be.

How have the past 10 years been better than the first 10 years with The Allman Brothers Band?

'Cause I remember it. The first 10 years I don't think could ever be topped by anyone. At least the first two or three years. That was 350 shows a year non-stop. Adolescent boys hitting the road with a new religion. If you're very, very, very lucky, you get to do that once in a lifetime.

And survive it.

That's the main thing (laughs). But then that intensity of the first few years spawned and got poisoned. We tried to stay as intense, but rather than focusing on the music, it went somewhere else, the sex, drugs end of the rock 'n' roll crap. It just got really, really sick for a while. It really did. The second half of that first 10 years is just a big fog. I got little gaps here and there that I can remember. But for the most part, we were all just so fucked up, we didn't know what we were doing. And the last 10 years have been very sober. I've been really, really back into the music. But it's also, just to face reality, the music as a career. Those first two or three years, it was just the music and there's no thought of career. I mean, 20-years-old boys don't know about that. The last 10 years, it's been a real nice combination of the two, where we're actually taking care of business and then trying to play good music at the same time. We've been very lucky to do both.

The band, particularly Gregg, who was the most fucked up of all the Brothers, seems much more spiritual now. I see a lot of references to zen and stuff like that.

Yeah, with Gregg. Yeah. I'm very much a pragmatist and realist. I was raised a Southern Baptist. I don't have a lot room for organized religion. I think this world and this universe is so fucking phenomenal that you don't really need much else. The reality of what is so absolutely awesome. You can sit there and play a piece of music and just tear yourself apart like you do. I don't require the services of a savior to get me spiritual. You ever read Carl Sagan?

Yeah.

If I have a religion, that's it. Saganism. What we know and the reality that exists and the more we find out about, it's so awe-inspiring, you don't really need faith in some other thing to fill that gap in your life. I don't think so. I don't anyway.

What is your fondest and funniest memory of the magic mushrooms at Rose Hill (the Macon, Ga. cemetery where Dickey Betts and Duane Allman got the headstone inspirations for the titles of 'In Memory of Elizabeth Reed' and 'Little Martha' and where Allman and Berry Oakley were buried in the early '70s after their fatal motorcycle accidents)?

Oh God. I didn't spend all that much time there and when I did, they weren't usually funny. It was usually pretty profound or sexual. I remember walking one night with a girl. It was pretty cold and she didn't have any shoes on. I said, 'Aren't your feet cold?' And she said, 'Yeah, one of them.' I said, 'What about the other one?' She said, 'Oh, I can't feel anything there.' I said, 'Why not?' She said, 'Oh, a couple of years ago I was riding a horse, and the horse rolled on me. And the last thing I remember before I passed out was seeing my foot on the other side of the horse.' The horse ripped her foot off. Her father was some kind of hot-shot surgeon who put her foot back on, but she had no feeling in it. I thought it was quite amazing.

We just took all the mushrooms we could and did all kind of things. We'd practice all day downtown and the cemetery was just a place to go hang out late at night. We didn't normally do that as a group. Maybe one or two of us would go down. A cemetery is not a place for eight screaming, tripping hippies, especially back then. People would have come and killed us in Macon, Ga., back in 1969. We were walking a thin line as it was.

What was really funny was that we'd play corkball in the apartment every night at about 5 or 6 in the morning. I mean raising hell, and we were in an apartment building full of people. But rather than call the police, everybody moved out. We'd come home from rehearsal in the afternoon, and you'd see some very angry man and wife taking their furniture out We'd line up in the hallway and applaud. We had some kind of guardian angel, because back in 1969 in Macon, Ga., and us looking the way we looked with illegal drugs all over the place, that we weren't either hung from the nearest yardarm or put in jail is just amazing. I don't know how we got through that. I really don't.

What did you used to play? Corkball?

It was an old sport that I learned as a kid. You take an old cork and put a penny on the small end and wrap it real tight with a white adhesive tape. Then you pitch it underarm and you thump it and make it spin so that it will rise when you thump. Then you take a broomstick and hit it. If you swing and miss and the catcher catches it, you're out. But that's the only way you can get out. You can swing all day long. You've got to have a gutsy catcher that'll get up close, and then you've got to have a good pitcher that will make the cork rise up to him.

We used to play this all the time. We'd do it during the day, then we'd get in at night and play. When you hit it, if it went past a certain point, it was a single; another point, double; another point, triple. But we kind of made up our own rules for the indoors. We'd actually run bases. We had a Coca-Cola machine that was full of beer that was third base.

Who was the gutsy catcher?

Duane. Me and Duane were undefeated. I was the only one who knew how to pitch, because I grew up playing it. It was my game. And Duane was really good and really coordinated. We'd play everybody else in the band. It'd be me and Duane against 10 or 12 people and we never lost.

What does the band think of the fact that people party and have sex on Duane and Berry's graves?

It doesn't bother me. I'm real sure it doesn't bother Berry and Duane. The only person it seems to bother is Berry's sister (laughs). She put up a damn fence around it. Put up a barbed-wire fence around the damn grave sites to keep people out. The mayor had to come out and tell her to remove it. It was only there two or three days.

You guys partied and had sex there, so it's symbolic.

I guess. It doesn't bother me. The only thing I don't like is leaving a mess. Whatever you do is between you and whoever you're with, but if you leave a mess, then other people get involved. That's not cool.

How long have you been playing the Beacon in March?

We started six years ago. We did it one year, then we did Radio City, but that just wasn't as much fun, so we went back to the Beacon. And we've been there ever since.

Is March Madness at the Beacon a tribute to the historic 1971 Fillmore East date where you played until 6 a.m.?

No, I don't think so. I think it's just coincidental.

That's an amazing coincidence. Comment on the near 30-year relationship the band has had with Tom Dowd. How he has been instrumental in helping to shape the band's original songs and arrangements.

Well, Tom is our daddy. Tom is the only guy I've ever known who has been able to come in from the very beginning and command everyone's respect. That's what a producer has to do. It's a personal respect. We absolutely admire his history, his professionalism, his knowledge, his charisma. When he gets in the studio, Tom does not produce in the traditional sense of the word. You can go back and listen to a Bob Clearmountain production and there's something about it that will let you know that Bob Clearmountain was involved in that. He's a very pro-active producer. Tom is much more the psychologist. He knows his music, but more than that, he knows people. Tom has a way of pulling the very best out of you without you doing his thing. Tom will come and rather than say, 'Play this,' he'll say, 'Try this.' And it's always just enough of an idea to get you going in a better direction. To me, Tom is by far and away the best record producer that ever lived without a doubt.

What are the Brothers plans for a new record?

We've been bogged down with our record company (Epic). We just didn't particularly want to do another record, because we didn't feel like we were getting a fair shake. We finally reached a point where I think we've all agreed our record company has offered a better deal and it's not quite what we want, but we think we owe it to Oteil and Jack to at least get another one done pretty quickly. They're really making a big contribution. They're both really good songwriters too. I think before the year is over, we're going to have a lot of new material and head towards another record. It may make it out by the end of this year. We'll see.

The Allman Brothers Band have been the best live American rock 'n' roll band for the past 30 years.

Oh, I like to hear that. Is that a statement of fact or an opinion (laughs)?

That is a fact! It's beyond opinion. It's written in stone. What are the positives and negatives of living up to that legacy?

Oh God. If that is true, the positive is if you carry that inside you...and I do. I feel we've made a real contribution. Whether we're the best or not, I know we've made a contribution, and I'm very, very, very proud of that contribution. There's certain elements to the musical canon that we've contributed that wouldn't be there if it wasn't for this band. That I'm very proud of

. The negative is, God, every night you're expected to get up and do it again. And some nights you just don't feel like. Sometimes we get to the end of the tour, I'm so goddamn, I can't see straight. Then I think, it's the price you pay. I could be selling used cars (laughs).

If there was one artist or band that The Allman Brothers Band would like to pass the improvisational rock torch to, who would best live up to that?

It would have to be Phish. I used to really like Dave Matthews Band. I haven't heard them in a while. I hope success hasn't spoiled them. But I think of the people who can really improvise, Phish is by far the best. By far. Blues Traveler has some amazing stuff. When you head into the blues and jazz improvisation, they're amazing. But I think overall, Phish is the standard bearers.