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John Popper: Keep on Keepin' On

by Robert Makin

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Lately, John Popper's life has been as up and down as one of his dynamic harmonica runs.

While his band, Blues Traveler, took a year off, the Princeton native recorded a solo album of well-crafted songs boasting his fine but rarely heard guitar playing.

But two months before the album's Sept. 7th release and the John Popper Band's live debut, the 400-pound, 32-year-old rocker underwent an angioplasty, having suffered from chest pains for nearly a year.

The operation, which cleared a blocked artery, has to be followed by a strict diet and a cessation from smoking, two tough nuts to crack in the midst of a fast-paced tour of smoky nightclubs.

Popper also has to deal with the loss of his longtime friend and Blues Traveler bassist, Bobby Sheehan, who died on Aug. 20 in his New Orleans home of causes that still were unknown at press time.

But Popper says the show will go on.

I spoke with him about Sheehan's death, Blues Traveler's future, his commitment to good health, his funky, poppy and delightfully weird solo album, "Zygote," the tour in support of it and his impact on the jam scene as the frontman of Blues Traveler and co-founder of the now defunct HORDE Tour.

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BM: Given what looks like a promising solo career for you, will Blues Traveler continue without Bobby?

JP: The three of us have talked about it, and we would like to try. What we have to do now is see what our options are. The band will never be the same band. It'll be something different, but that still could have validity.

Bob really drove us. He was the conductor of Blues Traveler. To stop completely is contrary to what Bob would have had us do. We want to continue to play. We're just going to have to try bass players on and see if there's something there. See if we can't continue.

BM: You say he was the conductor. What did he bring to the band?

JP: There's the musician, then there's personally. We've been such a family, it's hard to separate the two. He was always challenging me to be better than I could be. It's so easy for me to play the harmonica so well. I can play the harmonica like nobody can. It's very easy to sit back on that. He was always pushing me to top myself. He had that effect on people. He really made you be your best.

I'd push him back. We kept challenging each other to keep topping each other. That didn't drift into his music, but what was great about his music was his ability to use the bass as a segueing tool. I never heard anyone do it the way he did it.

BM: He was so fluid.

JP: Yeah. Out of all of us, he was the most underestimated. A lot of people didn't appreciate how much work he was doing.

BM: When you listen to the live album and the tapes, you can hear it more than on the studio recordings.

JP: Sadly he didn't take as much of a role in the studio albums. There was a lot for me to do and there was a lot for (Blues Traveler guitarist) Chan Kinchla to do, making a guitar army. And (drummer) Brendan (Hill) just loved the studio. Bob seemed kind of left out. But before his passing, he was working on his own home studio. He was starting to really get into it. The next Blues Traveler record I was really looking forward to, because Bob had found a way to put some input.

BM: Has his death taken some of the wind out of the sails of your solo record and tour?

JP: Well, it's not fun to talk about. I'm hurting right now, but I'm going to keep going, because I care about this record. I worked hard on it. People worked hard on it. My friend Crugie (Riccio), who played guitar on this album, has been waiting a long time.

BM: Like the guys in Blues Traveler, he's a longtime friend from Princeton?

JP: Yeah, he's somebody I've always wanted to work with.

BM: He was in Cycomotogoat?

Yeah. He's the guy who formed Cycomotogoat. He went to New York two years after we did and put a band together.

BM: So that's another guy from Princeton.

JP: Oh yeah. There's something about Princeton. It's pretty much if you're not from New Jersey, I can't play with you.

But the thing is, you know, we're all destroyed about Bob. Everybody loved Bob. But if I stop, all I'm doing is allowing a senseless death to spread. I just refuse to stop what I have to do.

It's weird, this whole summer has been very death-oriented. I almost had a heart attack. The last time I saw Bob alive he was chiding me for that. It just makes me want to dig in harder.

BM: How did you feel going into your angioplasty compared to how you feel now?

JP: Well, I don't get those nifty chest pains. I'm convinced if I smoke one cigarette, I'm going to die. I haven't smoked. Once you feel that steel wire in your artery, and they take a really long time cleaning all the gluck out of your arteries, suddenly smoking seemed very silly to me. Dieting is going to be the real problem. That's my addiction. My drug of choice is food.

BM: How much weight have you lost since the operation?

JP: I'm ping-ponging all over the place. I lost 10 pounds, gained back six, lost two, up three. I weigh more than 400 pounds. I never thought I'd get that big.

BM: Do you think you'll be able to keep losing weight and refrain from smoking while on a club tour?

JP: There's the question. I don't know. I'm going to give it a shot. That's definitely a concern. I know that everybody in the band and crew is pulling for me. We've got a system that's pretty good. Normally with Blues Traveler, when we're doing an arena kind of tour, we can bring a kitchen with us and hire a chef, but on a club tour, it's going to be catered and hotel food.

When I'm on my own buying food, that's when I really screw up. I go looking for celery and wind up with Big Macs. I've got to just treat myself like I'm an addict. Left on my own recognizance, I'm not going to make smart decisions about food. If I leave that decision-making process to someone else, at least for now, I think I can get my weight down.

Exercise is going to be a tricky one too. When you weigh what I weigh, it's hard to move your joints. Non-impact, that's fine.

This whole experience of going to a funeral has made me angry at death. I don't want to die anytime soon. I was looking at my Jimi Hendrix poster, thinking about Bob and people who died young. I used to think there was something so pure about what I thought was their bravery. But I think it was more fear than bravery. A friend of mine pointed out that life isn't pure. Your life is a convoluted, complicated thing to survive and live and face. That's courage.

Bob and I were co-dependent destructive people. I'm really excited about changing that.

BM: You certainly have the music to fall back on.

JP: Yeah, I do. I'm glad that that's what I'm worrying about. I have to take care of myself and the music.

BM: Which songs on 'Zygote' really fire you up?

JP: The spirit of doing the solo album can be summed up in track two, 'Once You Wake.' This album, to me, symbolizes something for me that I've always wanted to do. Our drummer was expecting a baby. A&M was just acquired by Interscope, so there were a lot of reasons to take some time off. But I wanted to make sure that I got to do this thing that I always wanted to do and just on my terms. The idea behind 'Once You Wake Up' is that you work to become aware of something, and once you are, you have to respond to it. I love that song.

I also like track 5, 'His Own Ideas,' because I get to really do the kind of guitar solo I've always wanted to do.

BM: That's the great thing about this album. You hardly pick up the harmonica.

JP: I said that on the last album, there'd be no harmonica. It wound up being on exactly half, which is about right. I wanted to not have to worry about the harp solo, so then when I used it, it would add to it. It wasn't required.

BM: Like a Clarence Clemons sax solo.

JP: Exactly. I remember some press guy said, 'It's like watching a Chuck Norris movie. You know somebody's going to get their ass kicked.' The gratuitous harp solo was starting to bother me a lot.

You know, it was a chance for me to do my guitar work. I did all the guitar solos. That was a real scary challenge. It's fun being scared.

BM: Musically?

JP: Yeah. I feel like I can't fail on the harmonica. It's nice to have that, believe me. I go to that when I need to. But on the guitar, I can fail. There's something very exhilarating about that. I have to really tried hard all the time.

BM: It's part of that challenge.

JP: Uhm-hmm. I think you can hear it in the music. There's a vulnerability to that. The harmonica is a mathematical certainy. The guitar has some unknowns to me. Live, that song is going to be hard to do, but I'm going to do it.

Our rehearsals pretty much got squashed by the funeral and stuff, but we're feeling pretty ready. We're just going to keep it loose. I predict my solo band is going to start out shaky and get really good.

BM: Who else is in the live band?

JP: Everybody who was on the album except for the drummer (Dave Matthews skinsman Carter Beauford).

BM: Who's drumming?

JP: His name is Aubrey Dayle. He's from Canada.

BM: So it's the Cycomotogoat guys and Aubrey.

JP: Exactly. Crugie Riccio, even though he's not doing a solo on this album, there's something about the way he plays that just inspires people around him. He has a very innocent approach. He cuts right through things. He can feel things in four-and-a-half (time) that I can't feel, and I'm pretty good. So he can play in four-and-a-half, which is hard to do.

Then there's Bob Clores on keyboards. I would say that if there's a band director, he's the band director. He's just a brilliant musician. And then there's (bassist) Dave Ares.

BM: And that was Cycomotogoat, which is one of the bands you really tried to push with The HORDE.

JP: Yeah. They had another drummer, but we went for Carter. One of my wish list items was Carter. He's very unlike Brendan whom I've played with for most of my life. And I love playing with Brendan. He's the drumbeat I hear. But I wanted to try something very un-Brendan-like.

BM: How are they different?

JP: Blues Traveler has a very heavy bottom, a very big bass and drum sound. So I wanted to get away from that as much as possible. Carter's more cymbally; an Omar Hakim style rather than a John Bonham style. Brendan's a Bonham student. That's were we live, but it's nice to get to an Omar Hakim kind of thing. Carter is one of the best drummers I know of.

BM: How else is the band different from Blues Traveler?

JP: Well, this is an experiment with totalitarian rule. Blues Traveler is a democracy. Now granted, I have some pull in the democracy. For instance, in the back of the bus, if I want to get the whole back lounge to myself, in Blues Traveler, I have to fake an injury. With Cycomotogoat, all I have to say is Elvis wants the back lounge and kick them right out.

It's the same thing musically. All decisions are made by me, which is good and bad. The hardest part with being the source of it all is starting your idea. Everybody's looking at you going, 'What do we do?' The momentum has to come completely from you. I slammed right into that.

It felt like we would never get it rolling. I think it was halfway through the album, I started to realize, 'It's working.' Where I'm good is that I picked the right people, because once they started getting into it in their own way, there was no stopping us.

It's my favorite thing I've done. I always love my most recent album the best. But it was just really rewarding to watch everyone take the idea and run with it. That's the fun part. The advantage to being an autocrat is that decisions get made very quickly. There's an efficiency to it. That's why I'd always planned for the solo project to be a side project to Blues Traveler, because Blues Traveler is an experiment on a higher level. We really have a thing of Congress. If you want to get something done, you have to argue it to death. Things are looked at from all sides. It functions very much like a democracy. I can't demand that people do something. But when you get to play autocrat, at the very least, it lets me blow off steam by ordering a bunch of people around. We're talking about a small group of people anyway. It's not like I have any governmental powers.

Artistically, I think both systems have merit. Being an absolute dictator can help. Prince, for instance, or the Artist Formerly Known As, I think he lives that way and it shows in his playing. You can see his genius at work really. Whether or not I am a genius, it's not for me to say, but at least I get to pretend. I can have my 'vision.'

With Blues Traveler, doing the solo thing has made me really appreciate what great partners I've picked, because the momentum was never that hard. There's always somebody who knew exactly what to do. When you didn't know what to do, you could rest. It was like a great marriage.

BM: You guys playing so long together has a lot to do with it.

JP: Yeah. Oh, we sucked big time way back when. I've got the tapes. We were in high school, so I guess people weren't expecting much. But I can remember when Chan didn't know how to tune his guitar.

BM: When did you know that Blues Traveler had evolved and arrived?

JP: We felt we arrived as soon as we were paying our rent. We were going to school, because our parents would give us money if we went to school. We were living off Bob's mom. She lived in Brooklyn Heights. Actually, we fled our crackhouse apartment and winded up moving in with her in Brooklyn Heights. But as soon as we could afford to pay rent, we quit school and told our parents that this is what we want to do. They thought we were insane, but in our mind, we had so much fun. So much of our daily culture revolved around playing music that we were quite certain that we could last forever, and eventually the record deal and touring would come, because we figured out how to survive and play music. Once you do that, it's a waiting game.

BM: But you brought so much to being in a band. I remember going to see you guys at Nightingales and Mondo Perso and the Cane and writing about you at The East Coast Rocker, right around the time A&M was about to sign you.

JP: I remember that East Coast Rocker article.

BM: You guys had this incredible network and organization that other unsigned bands didn't have then. They do now, but they didn't then. Then the HORDE seemed to put that kind of networking and organization over the top.

JP: The HORDE was just a way for us to play outdoors in the summer.

BM: Rather than having to play clubs separately.

JP: Yeah. We had a bunch of friend bands in the same predicament. We all sort of came up with the idea, but we just kept going with it. But the coolest part of the HORDE is that it was strictly accident. It went so far beyond what we planned it to be. Again, it's like you have an idea and other people start to run with it. That's when you see something really impressive happening. I marvel when one person's idea gets grabbed by other people who, in turn, inspire other people who inspire other people. And you watch this chain and before it completely distorts it something you can't recognize, it really goes a long way. That's where I feel kind of lucky. That's what I like about the work I do. That's the fun part of my job.

BM: Are you surprised by the number of jam bands involved with the scene?

JP: What happened with HORDE ... it started as an experiment to get us to play out in sheds. Then it became a source of income. Ultimately, it ate itself. You know, old jam bands and young jam bands.

I think festival tours are dead anyway, because radio shows are cheaper. They buy people with airtime, and they have one in every market. That's the way it should be. I don't think the festival tour is a good idea. But what happened in the interim, we didn't plan. We were happy when it happened, but it really required everyone to be very cool with each other. With the workshop stage, there was the respect that musicians paid each other, and the open sharing that was going on of ideas was just due to the fact that there were a lot of cool people on the road. They helped shape what HORDE became. It was miraculous, the kind of music that went on.

Taj Mahal and Dave Matthews playing under a giant, 60-foot carved whale that some artist did for free. My part of that was trying to figure out how to make the whale travel on a flatbed truck. I never thought in my life that I'd be having to worry about giant, fake whale. But people were just dying to express themselves in all kinds of ways. I feel lucky that we got to play a part in it, but I'm also mystified and in awe of what people are capable of.

BM: Have you seen the jambands.com website?

JP: No, what's its address?

BM: www.jambands.com (Popper seems to write it down). But when the HORDE started, there was just this handful of jam bands.

JP: There were six of us (also Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic, Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Phish and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones). Bela Fleck & the Flecktones were the sixth band. We didn't really think of them. We didn't know them. They were the only artificial flame in our little network of friends.

BM: But there was just this handful of bands. Now, I could write about two jam bands a week playing in the New York area and not run out of bands to write about all year.

JP: We were in the right place at the right time. I hope we've inspired people to try some stuff, but you can't ever assume that you have. You gotta really look at it like you didn't invent the wheel. If you think about the jam bands before, I don't think anybody's come along to top some of those guys. For me, it starts and ends with Jimi Hendrix. That guy's omega.

I think jam music comes in and out of style. It's like blues. It's an aspect of American culture, and there's times when it catches the popular, contemporary imagination and times when it just goes back to being something people like to do.

BM: That's fascinating that you mentioned the blues, because you've also had an impact on young, I mean really young, blues musicians. In the past year, I've interviewed three blues musicians under the age of16 who say that they play the blues because of John Popper and Blues Traveler. One of them is a harp player.

JP: Wow, I don't know what to do with that (laughs). That's pretty cool. I don't know which is scarier, the fact that they're blaming me or the fact that they're all under 16. Young punk kids out there!

(Teen-age guitar phenom) Johnny Lang co-wrote one of the songs on this album, 'How About Now.' We hung out one weekend for the purpose of writing. He played me these chord changes, so we wrote a little song. I had just been hanging out with Bijeau Phillips, so I think it's kind of about her. She's my little maniac friend.

We started hanging out at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards. She's a trip. She's sort of like the little psychotic sister you feel the need to take care of her but at the same time, you would date her if she'd let you.

BM: Very high school (laughs).

JP: Yeah. She told me that I need to find a fat girl. So I sent her a stripper dressed like me. She's afraid there's going to be some guy dressed like me in every bush. Yeah, Bijeau pushes me to try crazy stuff.

But anyway, I'm honored that young blues players are looking at me as an influence. I guess that's what's supposed to happen. I think of Hendrix and I think of some sort of deity. Truth is, he was just a guy.

I remember meeting Carlos Santana at the Warfield (Theatre in San Francisco). It was really funny, because Bill Graham had just started managing us. We had this gig opening for The Neville Brothers. What happened is that Carlos sat in with The Neville Brothers. It was a big surprise. Bill says, 'I was going to have you go and blow with him,' but I wasn't around. I was feeling bad in my dressing room listening to our performance on a tape. I walk into the next dressing room and ask the band, 'Do you think that maybe we could meet Santana?' They say, 'John, where were you? He just came in here and said hello to all of us.' So I'm like, 'Well fuck!'

So I run out. I don't know where I'm going. I'm going to go find him. And there he is! And I'm completely unable to speak. This is Carlos Santana. I'm like, 'Ahh, errhh. You're my biggest fan.' I was a total shmuck. And he goes, 'Hey man, it's cool. We're all part of the same thing.' I remember talking to Bill about that, and he said he remembered when Carlos Santana met Muddy Waters. It was a very similar conversation.

What's cool about music is that people can reach other people in significant ways. Santana blew me away enough to sort of think him of something other than human, to look up to him. When you meet a little kid who looks at you that way, it's kind of weird. I wish I drank more or at all, because it's easier when you're drunk. Then you've got that instant bonding going on. When some kid starts fawning all over me like that, I feel like I should be a responsible parent and make sure they brush their teeth and stuff.

BM: Do you think you'll ever be a dad at some point?

JP: I used to, but I don't think that's where my life is taking me. I'm starting to feel that bachelorhood is a really good deal. My brother had a baby, so the gene pool pressure is off. There's seven kids in my family...

BM: So that makes it easier.

JP: Yeah. I don't know. I guess that's the kind of thing you don't really plan for. You need the girl, and as of now, I'm still looking.

BM: What do you miss most about the early days in the clubs in New York City, the Mondos and the Nightingales.

JP: Well, being able to go somewhere and have to rely on my wits instead of my name. When I walk down the street -- and mind you, you can't ever count on this, so it makes it even more annoying -- but there are days that I'm very aware that everybody knows who I am. I'm treated very nicely. I mean, that's great, but I can't steal gum anymore. I can't yell at somebody who cuts me off in the road anymore. I can't think like that. I have to be aware that I'm being seen. I can't pick my nose anymore. But as soon as I'm convinced that everybody knows who I am, that's when, like, nobody does. Fame is a stupid thing. You can never count on it. It looms, the threat of fame.

Going through an airport is a difficult thing. But it's what I wanted. I don't want to pretend that I'm Greta Garbo after sticking my face on every periodical and TV I could for the last 10 years, going, 'Hey, look at me, look at me,' and wondering why people are looking at me. I don't really mean to complain about that, but I do miss, just in a nostalgic way, the anonymity. Both suck and both are good. But in those days, it was kind of fun that people didn't know, that we were kind of a secret. Once you're found out about, it's harder for you to innovate. Once you catch popular imagination, then a pigeonhole is created in your honor and you must reside there. That's kind of what I wanted to do with the solo record.

I read Rolling Stone's review of it. I've never been as flattered by Rolling Stone as I am now. Basically, it said, 'I can't figure this damn thing out. It's weird as hell. Popper dares to be a complete flake.' What that says to me is that it doesn't quite fit and that's where I want to live.

The thing that I can't stand is that people think that Sarah McLachlan only likes one kind of music. And they're wrong. They think that The Grateful Dead only likes one kind of music. And they're wrong.

BM: They think the Dead were trapped in the '60s and they were wrong. They were one of the most hi-tech bands.

JP: Absolutely. That kind of mistake is something that you're always going to have to rail against. To be able to make an album that is confusing is really a more accurate depiction of what's on my mind than anything else, because I am a fan of a whole lot of kinds of music. Extended jams and slam dancing. You know, some moshing.

BM: Slam dancing might be a good form of exercise.

JP: (Laughs) No, there's too many professionals. There's no amateur status anymore.