I guess its really very interesting one and I hope you enjoy..
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THE SOUND OF THUNDER!!!!
STEVEN SEAGAL AND THUNDERBOX RUMBLE INTO TOWN
by David Mahmoudieh
WHOEVER said the Blues were dead? Well if they were, then one thing’s for sure – they’ve just awoken to the sound of Steven Seagal’s thunder. Thunderbox, to be precise – his superb, seven-piece Blues band straight from Memphis.
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but long before he picked his first fight, Steven Seagal picked the strings of his guitar.
In the all-black Detroit neighbourhood where he was born and tendered his early childhood years, the man we know best for his distinction as a martial arts master first and foremost began mastering the mercurial art of the Blues. And there you thought he was just another regular, one-trick-pony action hero, huh?
Well the pony is still there, but his box of tricks has blasted wide open to reveal there’s more to this man-of-many-talents than his more-familiar screen exploits. Sure, one could be forgiven for initially adding writer, director, producer, environmentalist, eco-warrior, animal rights activist, Buddhist and finally 7th-dan black-belt aikido pioneer to the most obvious of his faculties. And at fifty years young, it makes you wonder where and how he fits it all in.
Yet despite the mantle of being the first “westerner” to open an aikido dojo in Japan, despite a film career that has grossed over $600m in worldwide box office receipts and despite his selfless work as an active behind-the-scenes charity-man – if there’s one thing Steven Seagal doesn’t reap enough universal credit for, it’s his fine gift for writing and performing some damn good music.
Having learnt to play the guitar from the age of five (by contrast, Seagal didn’t begin learning martial arts until his mid-teens – nor make his first film until age thirty-three), the Blues have been the longest, most loyal constant throughout his eclectic rise to fame.
Now, returning to his first love, and for the first time in 20 years, Seagal is back in the UK as part of a year-long World tour performing his new album, Mojo Priest.
Keen to gain ground on their equally impressive 2005 album Songs From the Crystal Cave – a hybrid assembly of Blues, reggae and motown containing duets with both Ruth “Lady” Brown and the inimitable Stevie Wonder – in Mojo Priest (see our interview for full vindication of the album’s name) lead-vocalist/guitarist Seagal has conjured up an all-in-all pleasantly surprising mini-masterpiece in the genre.
Alright, so I’ll confess – I love the Blues, which probably renders me more prone to this breed of contagion. But it’s hard for even the most homogeneous, genre-devout music fan not to be – especially when it’s being played this live and with this much ardour and energy.
And let me stress, this is no “transition” of an actor-turned-musician in an overnight levity. This is a return to the rawest roots; the ageless brimstone of musical cinder from a man who loves nothing more than living every note in unison with his guitar seized indulgently in his hands.
Any of you expecting to heed the company of some egocentric movie-star rambling with stories of his past-time film experiences between songs like most other actors who settle for the stage once the camera departs, will be relieved to find that Steven Seagal is no such animal at the mercy of the Hollywood huntsman. Blues doesn’t get much more real than this, and Seagal seems focused solely on preaching only the sacred word of his beloved Blues through the microphone – and boy, can this guy sing live!
Some of the songs are absolutely awesome but above all else, Seagal lays claim to an amazingly natural, un-contrived voice, delivering great lyrics in compliment to some truly astonishing lead-guitar work. In fact, his string-bending skills alone are enough testimony to authenticate Seagal as a musician clearly endowed with the deepest understanding and sagacity of the Blues – blessed with that rare kind of innermost connectivity that cannot be obtained but rather discovered. Even non-Blues fans will appreciate and enjoy the ecumenical mix of songs, their rhythms and librettos as bombastic as their titles.
Alligator Ass, for example, will have you up out your seat, wondering what you’ve been missing out on all these years. Then there’s the reflective, contemplative chords and soulful bellowing of My Time Is Numbered, sung with a real matter-of-fact sentiment that underlines the desolation of the song’s message.
Yet regardless of Seagal’s not-so-much new-found as newly-valued musicianship, when laid in contrast with his more presupposed pastures of cinematic familiarity, there belies an unavoidability that some may not adjudicate the credentials as a singer/songwriter on merit rather than affiliation. But this level of talent is Hard to Kill – though some of the more conceited musical press have already tried. They may wish they hadn’t bothered as what hasn’t slayed Thunderbox has only served to make them stronger, and the platform is now set for Seagal to establish himself as one of the most respected modern-day, white Blues artists out there.
Associate ambassadors of soul and Blues, such as the UK’s own late, great Dave Godin would be on cloud nine to see a return to these shores of live Blues music right from the core of where true Blues came from.
If you've ever had the joy of sitting in a New Orleans bar and listening to a jam session, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t, now’s your chance to see it on your own doorstep.
So whatever your plans for February and March, check out a venue local to you at: http://www.stevenseagal.com/ and be sure to spare a night in your calendar for an opportunity not to be missed.
STEVEN SEAGAL INTERVIEW
THE BLUES AND MARTIAL ARTS MAESTRO LENDS HIS THOUGHTS ON MUSIC, MAGIC, MONKEY-HANDS… AND HIS LOVE OF JOURNALISTS
Making the journey up to Birmingham to meet with Seagal, I already half-expected to come across a man who had recently become increasingly annoyed with the misrepresentation of his trip to the UK, thanks in part to some valuable advice the night before from his tour promoter. Seagal wasn’t too happy with the press, who had been calling his musical expedition a “transition”, a “new career”, failing to understand that Blues to Steven Seagal isn’t some new fad he learned overnight. I wasn’t too wrong.
Meeting him in his hotel room, Seagal was a very hospitable gentleman who spoke with the mystic enigma of a shaman, whilst always displaying an extremely calm and welcoming demeanour.
We spoke about all manner of things from Blues to the media circus, as you’re about to find out, and our discussion proved to be one of the more fun interviews I’ve done in my time:
DM: Congratulations on another great album. I’m pleased to tell you I’m a big Blues fan.
SS: Thank God for that. I come over here to play music and all anybody wants to talk about is a load of b******t; how they thought I was gonna ‘swing onto stage from a chandelier with an Uzi, with explosions’ and everything. They don’t seem to wanna understand that’s not why I’m here.
DM: Then you might just be a little relieved to know I’m interested only in talking Blues.
SS: That’s… re-assuring.
DM: I wanted to start by talking about the album. Listening to that took me back to the early Blues Movement, with shades of Robert Johnson and Robert Pete Williams in there. Were any of the old Blues Movement guys influences for you?
SS: Well yeah, sure. I mean, I listened to a load of Blues as a kid. So I was influenced by tonnes of people. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, all those guys – I grew up with them, and BB King also, and they’re great examples of what it takes. So yeah, Blues is in my soul and those guys were all big inspirations.
DM: Since the shift of focus from regularly filming to regularly performing in a musical sense and the pressures of being on-tour – how has that changed your life? Is it more demanding, less demanding?
SS: For me it’s not really any more or less demanding. Touring is something I’ve done a lot of. Done a lot of playing, shows and concerts – more than cinema, so it’s more of a pleasure than a pressure.
DM: You’ve achieved a great level of respect through your musicianship, and I know you’ve said recently how you were getting slightly disillusioned with the film stuff. Can we expect to see more of you on stage than screen?
SS: I mean, I love and am very grateful to film. I never said I was giving up acting or anything like that. I wanted do the tour because this is what I love. Movies are great and I had, and still have, great fun doing all that stuff, but Blues is what I’ve always loved and always done, so to do be able to do that every day is, y’know…
DM: Sure. I guess your movie-roles are a job but your music is more a way of life?
SS: Yeah, I mean it’s what I’ve been doing since I was five or so, and that’s why in many reasons I was so kind of, I guess not really outraged, but I couldn’t understand when I went to Scotland how the whole of Scotland could provide me with that level of a journalist who all he could talk about was swinging from a chandelier and just stuff that was nothing to do with why I’m over here, which is the music. I mean, journalists have a hard enough time as it is because most of them, particularly in America, but a lot in the UK, are completely thoughtless. They’re like lawyers, only worse. Not only do they write things that we don’t say, you sometimes wonder whether maybe they should be doing something else for a living because they’re asking the wrong questions, they’re not... (gestures with his hand to our conversation) So when an – apparently – good one like yourself comes along and asks the right questions, I’m always happy to answer them.
DM: The title of your new album, Mojo Priest, intrigues me. I take it the ‘Mojo’ part harkens back to its earliest meaning of a black-magic guardian? Was that something you were conscious of given the origins of Blues music?
SS: Well you say and seem like you’re Blues efficient, so you probably know what a Mojo is, right? Well, when I was a kid a lot of the Blues guys, they all carried a Mojo bag. You know what a Mojo bag is?
DM: Isn’t that a voodoo-bag of which people use the contents to warn off bad spirits, etc.? Am I right...? Your gaze suggests I’m wrong!
SS: (laughing) Weeeeell, I never really looked as it as a magic bag, but it’s more like a custom – particularly to people down in Louisiana, who have a real understanding of the history as to where all this [the Blues] comes from. So black magic isn’t something they practice, it’s just something they look on as kind of tradition and history. But – I think it must have come from somewhere, y’know, because it came from Africa and similar to a Mojo hand – you know what a Mojo hand is, right?
DM: (tongue in cheek) ...yes?
SS: (smiling) What’s a Mojo hand?
DM: Isn’t it a hand they put on the end of a stick and bless people with it… warn off spirits...?
SS: Do you know what the actual Mojo hand itself is?
DM: Not the hand – but I’d love to know!
SS: Well an actual Mojo’s hand is a monkey’s hand. They used to cut off a monkey’s hand [once it had died naturally] – (laughing) by the way, does this stuff bore you, because we can talk about something else if you want?
DM: No, not at all – unless it bores you, otherwise please do continue.
SS: Okay, well they also use the Mojo hand a lot, particularly black men in the South, in order to keep their women to themselves, y’know, keeping their women from ever having another man. And you’ll hear that in a lot of Blues songs. It’s very, very interesting if you listen to the heart of these lyrics. But to answer your question, Mojo to me doesn’t really in my life have too much texture to do with black magic, but more in a protection sense. And also, [I chose the name Mojo] because it’s important to acknowledge the history of something.
DM: That’s an interesting point, because it does seem through the music that you’re very honourable to the history of black music, whether Blues-infused or not. For example, there are shades of reggae in there also. But then there’s also this hint of country & western in there, too. That’s quite a diverse mix. I was just wondering whether you were perhaps consciously aware of any correlation between the combinational style of your martial arts and the diversity of your music?
SS: We and everything around us in some way are all connected. Even the most diverse and diametrically opposed or opposite things have some kind of balance between them. As vast as it may be, one way or another we’re in a very small world. Blues people live and think, this very unique sort of thing... I mean, sort of, I’ve never really looked at it as in ‘is there any similarity between my music and martial arts?’, however, there’s always been in the Blues a lot of... (thinks) okay, like Charlie Patton, for example, he had his throat slit, was shot three or four times. Every Blues guy I knew, from Muddy Waters to Albert King – Albert King who lives where I live now in Memphis, all those guys all carried a gun, a pistol, they all gambled. In the jukes joints, they- I’ve been in juke-joints where all of a sudden you just hear gunfire and everybody ducks because they’re all gambling and drinking there, and... So there is sort of a, as you call it, correlation of the warrior monk, or warrior musician – whatever – that has a deeper appreciation for the history and the people who grew up in a time when writing Blues was their life, but who were also trying to protect themselves.
DM: Moving onto some of the songs on the album, now; one of them that really struck me was Alligator Ass. Not just the name but the lyrics. What does that song represent to you?
SS: Alligator Ass is a really, really good example of Louisiana. My father’s family were from Texas and Texas and Louisiana are kind of like sisters. I remember when I was I was a kid I’d be walking down the street and hear these drums, and I started out on drums so my bond with that instrument never left me. But the drums on those streets were something I’ll never forget. You’d just hear them playing and you’d notice it was for a funeral procession, moving through the middle of the road. And everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, people on the streets, people in the shops would just start joining in this procession, it was really amazing.
DM: A kind of celebration of life rather than the pain of death?
SS: Well, kind of both, you know. And Alligator Ass is really a classic example of that. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll hear what it’s about. It’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the album.
DM: Another one I really loved was My Time Is Numbered.
SS: Actually, those are maybe my two favourite songs [from the album]. Of the two though I’d probably say My Time Is Numbered is my favourite.
DM: Is that your favourite from a rhythmic or a lyrical perspective?
SS: Oh the lyrics, definitely. That song really means something – all my songs mean something to me, but that one I think applies to all of us, everybody’s time is numbered and I just love singing that song. It’s actually my favourite song of this album [Mojo Priest] and the last one [Songs From The Crystal Cave].
DM: Well let’s talk about that last album, Songs From The Crystal Cave, because on one of the songs on the album, My God, was a duet you performed with none other than Stevie Wonder? How did that come about and what was it like both working and sharing a recording studio with such a legendary musician?
SS: Stevie Wonder has been a friend of mine for a long, long time. He’s more like a brother. When I played him the song he decided he really liked what it stood for. And that really should be a national anthem right now, it’s a pity we haven’t re-released that record, because that song asks a lot about what’s wrong with the World today.
DM: Songs From The Crystal Cave was your first album with your band Thunderbox and did fairly well, particularly in Europe. But I saw that Mojo Priest debuted at No 1 in France. Do you have a large following out there?
SS: I’ve performed in France a lot, yeah. I have a pretty decent following in a lot of the Mediterranean, but yeah, it was nice to see it get to No 1.
DM: So how are you finding the UK?
SS: In terms of England everything has been wonderful, so far. Scotland was also wonderful, I just was really disappointed with some of the interviews and the journalists up there. I’m not saying they were bad people, I don’t think they were trying to be hurtful in any way which is something one could be upset about. It was just… disappointing that they didn’t really listen to why I’m over here. Y’know, I told people over and over again that I’ve been playing music since I was five or six year old but, it’s like they don’t hear it. (imitating) ‘Oh you’re just starting out, it’s your new career’. I’ve never said to anyone it’s my new career, I’ve never said to anyone I’m quitting the movie business. It’s like, they sorta hear what they wanna hear. So yeah, but apart from that, it’s been really great. I’ve been here before in the past but not for a long time, and I’ve always loved the UK.
DM: Just touching upon the fact you were playing music way before you learned martial arts, do you think the obvious hand-eye co-ordination gained through guitar-playing facilitated with the martial arts in any way?
SS: You know to be honest with you, you’re not supposed to look at your guitar, so hand-eye co-ordination isn’t something that should be too important. I look at my guitar all the time – and I shouldn’t, but I somehow do. One of the reasons I do that is because I grew up playing a Silvertone and then ended up with a Stratocaster, and it’s, y’know, the neck is (demonstrates) this long, it’s a certain scale. And then I started playing a Firebird, and with a Firebird, the neck’s about (demonstrates a smaller width) this long – it really has a different scale. So, when you’ve been playing one scale, one really long and the other not – when they’re that different, and you switch anywhere between five and ten guitars on a set or something, (laughs) you kinda have to look at your guitar because they’re all that different. But I guess, yeah, it probably did help in some way, got me used to using two hands at the same time for different functions, or something.
DM: One thing I noticed about you is that you do so much charity and environmentalist work – and you do it very discreetly, not to throw it in the media eye or use it to your own advantage. Therefore, these are obviously highly important issues to you. To you, is music or film a better medium for you to be able to get these messages across?
SS: Well, both are great platforms. To date, my movies have probably been seen by more people than have heard my music. But I don’t underestimate the power of movies. However, I do feel that with the music there’s a little more freedom to play with and expand on those things. Everything I write has to mean something to me. I don’t just write for the sake of it, it’s all got a message somewhere in there. And like you said, I don’t do the work for the spotlight of for attention, which why I don’t throw it [publicity] around. I do it because I want to and because they’re important things that I care deeply about.
DM: Songs from the Crystal Cave was quite diverse, wasn’t it – with layered tones of pop, Blues and world music. Would you say Mojo Priest was more a return to straight-Blues?
SS: Yeah, it’s still got a bit of everything in there but Mojo Priest has a little more focus on just being pure Blues, I guess.
DM: What about the next album, when can we expect to see that?
SS: If I’m really lucky I’ll start something in the fall.
DM: Thank you for time and good luck with the rest of the tour, it’s been a pleasure.
SS: It’s been a pleasure, too. Thank you.
© David Mahmoudieh 2007
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THE SOUND OF THUNDER!!!!
STEVEN SEAGAL AND THUNDERBOX RUMBLE INTO TOWN
by David Mahmoudieh
WHOEVER said the Blues were dead? Well if they were, then one thing’s for sure – they’ve just awoken to the sound of Steven Seagal’s thunder. Thunderbox, to be precise – his superb, seven-piece Blues band straight from Memphis.
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but long before he picked his first fight, Steven Seagal picked the strings of his guitar.
In the all-black Detroit neighbourhood where he was born and tendered his early childhood years, the man we know best for his distinction as a martial arts master first and foremost began mastering the mercurial art of the Blues. And there you thought he was just another regular, one-trick-pony action hero, huh?
Well the pony is still there, but his box of tricks has blasted wide open to reveal there’s more to this man-of-many-talents than his more-familiar screen exploits. Sure, one could be forgiven for initially adding writer, director, producer, environmentalist, eco-warrior, animal rights activist, Buddhist and finally 7th-dan black-belt aikido pioneer to the most obvious of his faculties. And at fifty years young, it makes you wonder where and how he fits it all in.
Yet despite the mantle of being the first “westerner” to open an aikido dojo in Japan, despite a film career that has grossed over $600m in worldwide box office receipts and despite his selfless work as an active behind-the-scenes charity-man – if there’s one thing Steven Seagal doesn’t reap enough universal credit for, it’s his fine gift for writing and performing some damn good music.
Having learnt to play the guitar from the age of five (by contrast, Seagal didn’t begin learning martial arts until his mid-teens – nor make his first film until age thirty-three), the Blues have been the longest, most loyal constant throughout his eclectic rise to fame.
Now, returning to his first love, and for the first time in 20 years, Seagal is back in the UK as part of a year-long World tour performing his new album, Mojo Priest.
Keen to gain ground on their equally impressive 2005 album Songs From the Crystal Cave – a hybrid assembly of Blues, reggae and motown containing duets with both Ruth “Lady” Brown and the inimitable Stevie Wonder – in Mojo Priest (see our interview for full vindication of the album’s name) lead-vocalist/guitarist Seagal has conjured up an all-in-all pleasantly surprising mini-masterpiece in the genre.
Alright, so I’ll confess – I love the Blues, which probably renders me more prone to this breed of contagion. But it’s hard for even the most homogeneous, genre-devout music fan not to be – especially when it’s being played this live and with this much ardour and energy.
And let me stress, this is no “transition” of an actor-turned-musician in an overnight levity. This is a return to the rawest roots; the ageless brimstone of musical cinder from a man who loves nothing more than living every note in unison with his guitar seized indulgently in his hands.
Any of you expecting to heed the company of some egocentric movie-star rambling with stories of his past-time film experiences between songs like most other actors who settle for the stage once the camera departs, will be relieved to find that Steven Seagal is no such animal at the mercy of the Hollywood huntsman. Blues doesn’t get much more real than this, and Seagal seems focused solely on preaching only the sacred word of his beloved Blues through the microphone – and boy, can this guy sing live!
Some of the songs are absolutely awesome but above all else, Seagal lays claim to an amazingly natural, un-contrived voice, delivering great lyrics in compliment to some truly astonishing lead-guitar work. In fact, his string-bending skills alone are enough testimony to authenticate Seagal as a musician clearly endowed with the deepest understanding and sagacity of the Blues – blessed with that rare kind of innermost connectivity that cannot be obtained but rather discovered. Even non-Blues fans will appreciate and enjoy the ecumenical mix of songs, their rhythms and librettos as bombastic as their titles.
Alligator Ass, for example, will have you up out your seat, wondering what you’ve been missing out on all these years. Then there’s the reflective, contemplative chords and soulful bellowing of My Time Is Numbered, sung with a real matter-of-fact sentiment that underlines the desolation of the song’s message.
Yet regardless of Seagal’s not-so-much new-found as newly-valued musicianship, when laid in contrast with his more presupposed pastures of cinematic familiarity, there belies an unavoidability that some may not adjudicate the credentials as a singer/songwriter on merit rather than affiliation. But this level of talent is Hard to Kill – though some of the more conceited musical press have already tried. They may wish they hadn’t bothered as what hasn’t slayed Thunderbox has only served to make them stronger, and the platform is now set for Seagal to establish himself as one of the most respected modern-day, white Blues artists out there.
Associate ambassadors of soul and Blues, such as the UK’s own late, great Dave Godin would be on cloud nine to see a return to these shores of live Blues music right from the core of where true Blues came from.
If you've ever had the joy of sitting in a New Orleans bar and listening to a jam session, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t, now’s your chance to see it on your own doorstep.
So whatever your plans for February and March, check out a venue local to you at: http://www.stevenseagal.com/ and be sure to spare a night in your calendar for an opportunity not to be missed.
STEVEN SEAGAL INTERVIEW
THE BLUES AND MARTIAL ARTS MAESTRO LENDS HIS THOUGHTS ON MUSIC, MAGIC, MONKEY-HANDS… AND HIS LOVE OF JOURNALISTS
Making the journey up to Birmingham to meet with Seagal, I already half-expected to come across a man who had recently become increasingly annoyed with the misrepresentation of his trip to the UK, thanks in part to some valuable advice the night before from his tour promoter. Seagal wasn’t too happy with the press, who had been calling his musical expedition a “transition”, a “new career”, failing to understand that Blues to Steven Seagal isn’t some new fad he learned overnight. I wasn’t too wrong.
Meeting him in his hotel room, Seagal was a very hospitable gentleman who spoke with the mystic enigma of a shaman, whilst always displaying an extremely calm and welcoming demeanour.
We spoke about all manner of things from Blues to the media circus, as you’re about to find out, and our discussion proved to be one of the more fun interviews I’ve done in my time:
DM: Congratulations on another great album. I’m pleased to tell you I’m a big Blues fan.
SS: Thank God for that. I come over here to play music and all anybody wants to talk about is a load of b******t; how they thought I was gonna ‘swing onto stage from a chandelier with an Uzi, with explosions’ and everything. They don’t seem to wanna understand that’s not why I’m here.
DM: Then you might just be a little relieved to know I’m interested only in talking Blues.
SS: That’s… re-assuring.
DM: I wanted to start by talking about the album. Listening to that took me back to the early Blues Movement, with shades of Robert Johnson and Robert Pete Williams in there. Were any of the old Blues Movement guys influences for you?
SS: Well yeah, sure. I mean, I listened to a load of Blues as a kid. So I was influenced by tonnes of people. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, all those guys – I grew up with them, and BB King also, and they’re great examples of what it takes. So yeah, Blues is in my soul and those guys were all big inspirations.
DM: Since the shift of focus from regularly filming to regularly performing in a musical sense and the pressures of being on-tour – how has that changed your life? Is it more demanding, less demanding?
SS: For me it’s not really any more or less demanding. Touring is something I’ve done a lot of. Done a lot of playing, shows and concerts – more than cinema, so it’s more of a pleasure than a pressure.
DM: You’ve achieved a great level of respect through your musicianship, and I know you’ve said recently how you were getting slightly disillusioned with the film stuff. Can we expect to see more of you on stage than screen?
SS: I mean, I love and am very grateful to film. I never said I was giving up acting or anything like that. I wanted do the tour because this is what I love. Movies are great and I had, and still have, great fun doing all that stuff, but Blues is what I’ve always loved and always done, so to do be able to do that every day is, y’know…
DM: Sure. I guess your movie-roles are a job but your music is more a way of life?
SS: Yeah, I mean it’s what I’ve been doing since I was five or so, and that’s why in many reasons I was so kind of, I guess not really outraged, but I couldn’t understand when I went to Scotland how the whole of Scotland could provide me with that level of a journalist who all he could talk about was swinging from a chandelier and just stuff that was nothing to do with why I’m over here, which is the music. I mean, journalists have a hard enough time as it is because most of them, particularly in America, but a lot in the UK, are completely thoughtless. They’re like lawyers, only worse. Not only do they write things that we don’t say, you sometimes wonder whether maybe they should be doing something else for a living because they’re asking the wrong questions, they’re not... (gestures with his hand to our conversation) So when an – apparently – good one like yourself comes along and asks the right questions, I’m always happy to answer them.
DM: The title of your new album, Mojo Priest, intrigues me. I take it the ‘Mojo’ part harkens back to its earliest meaning of a black-magic guardian? Was that something you were conscious of given the origins of Blues music?
SS: Well you say and seem like you’re Blues efficient, so you probably know what a Mojo is, right? Well, when I was a kid a lot of the Blues guys, they all carried a Mojo bag. You know what a Mojo bag is?
DM: Isn’t that a voodoo-bag of which people use the contents to warn off bad spirits, etc.? Am I right...? Your gaze suggests I’m wrong!
SS: (laughing) Weeeeell, I never really looked as it as a magic bag, but it’s more like a custom – particularly to people down in Louisiana, who have a real understanding of the history as to where all this [the Blues] comes from. So black magic isn’t something they practice, it’s just something they look on as kind of tradition and history. But – I think it must have come from somewhere, y’know, because it came from Africa and similar to a Mojo hand – you know what a Mojo hand is, right?
DM: (tongue in cheek) ...yes?
SS: (smiling) What’s a Mojo hand?
DM: Isn’t it a hand they put on the end of a stick and bless people with it… warn off spirits...?
SS: Do you know what the actual Mojo hand itself is?
DM: Not the hand – but I’d love to know!
SS: Well an actual Mojo’s hand is a monkey’s hand. They used to cut off a monkey’s hand [once it had died naturally] – (laughing) by the way, does this stuff bore you, because we can talk about something else if you want?
DM: No, not at all – unless it bores you, otherwise please do continue.
SS: Okay, well they also use the Mojo hand a lot, particularly black men in the South, in order to keep their women to themselves, y’know, keeping their women from ever having another man. And you’ll hear that in a lot of Blues songs. It’s very, very interesting if you listen to the heart of these lyrics. But to answer your question, Mojo to me doesn’t really in my life have too much texture to do with black magic, but more in a protection sense. And also, [I chose the name Mojo] because it’s important to acknowledge the history of something.
DM: That’s an interesting point, because it does seem through the music that you’re very honourable to the history of black music, whether Blues-infused or not. For example, there are shades of reggae in there also. But then there’s also this hint of country & western in there, too. That’s quite a diverse mix. I was just wondering whether you were perhaps consciously aware of any correlation between the combinational style of your martial arts and the diversity of your music?
SS: We and everything around us in some way are all connected. Even the most diverse and diametrically opposed or opposite things have some kind of balance between them. As vast as it may be, one way or another we’re in a very small world. Blues people live and think, this very unique sort of thing... I mean, sort of, I’ve never really looked at it as in ‘is there any similarity between my music and martial arts?’, however, there’s always been in the Blues a lot of... (thinks) okay, like Charlie Patton, for example, he had his throat slit, was shot three or four times. Every Blues guy I knew, from Muddy Waters to Albert King – Albert King who lives where I live now in Memphis, all those guys all carried a gun, a pistol, they all gambled. In the jukes joints, they- I’ve been in juke-joints where all of a sudden you just hear gunfire and everybody ducks because they’re all gambling and drinking there, and... So there is sort of a, as you call it, correlation of the warrior monk, or warrior musician – whatever – that has a deeper appreciation for the history and the people who grew up in a time when writing Blues was their life, but who were also trying to protect themselves.
DM: Moving onto some of the songs on the album, now; one of them that really struck me was Alligator Ass. Not just the name but the lyrics. What does that song represent to you?
SS: Alligator Ass is a really, really good example of Louisiana. My father’s family were from Texas and Texas and Louisiana are kind of like sisters. I remember when I was I was a kid I’d be walking down the street and hear these drums, and I started out on drums so my bond with that instrument never left me. But the drums on those streets were something I’ll never forget. You’d just hear them playing and you’d notice it was for a funeral procession, moving through the middle of the road. And everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, people on the streets, people in the shops would just start joining in this procession, it was really amazing.
DM: A kind of celebration of life rather than the pain of death?
SS: Well, kind of both, you know. And Alligator Ass is really a classic example of that. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll hear what it’s about. It’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the album.
DM: Another one I really loved was My Time Is Numbered.
SS: Actually, those are maybe my two favourite songs [from the album]. Of the two though I’d probably say My Time Is Numbered is my favourite.
DM: Is that your favourite from a rhythmic or a lyrical perspective?
SS: Oh the lyrics, definitely. That song really means something – all my songs mean something to me, but that one I think applies to all of us, everybody’s time is numbered and I just love singing that song. It’s actually my favourite song of this album [Mojo Priest] and the last one [Songs From The Crystal Cave].
DM: Well let’s talk about that last album, Songs From The Crystal Cave, because on one of the songs on the album, My God, was a duet you performed with none other than Stevie Wonder? How did that come about and what was it like both working and sharing a recording studio with such a legendary musician?
SS: Stevie Wonder has been a friend of mine for a long, long time. He’s more like a brother. When I played him the song he decided he really liked what it stood for. And that really should be a national anthem right now, it’s a pity we haven’t re-released that record, because that song asks a lot about what’s wrong with the World today.
DM: Songs From The Crystal Cave was your first album with your band Thunderbox and did fairly well, particularly in Europe. But I saw that Mojo Priest debuted at No 1 in France. Do you have a large following out there?
SS: I’ve performed in France a lot, yeah. I have a pretty decent following in a lot of the Mediterranean, but yeah, it was nice to see it get to No 1.
DM: So how are you finding the UK?
SS: In terms of England everything has been wonderful, so far. Scotland was also wonderful, I just was really disappointed with some of the interviews and the journalists up there. I’m not saying they were bad people, I don’t think they were trying to be hurtful in any way which is something one could be upset about. It was just… disappointing that they didn’t really listen to why I’m over here. Y’know, I told people over and over again that I’ve been playing music since I was five or six year old but, it’s like they don’t hear it. (imitating) ‘Oh you’re just starting out, it’s your new career’. I’ve never said to anyone it’s my new career, I’ve never said to anyone I’m quitting the movie business. It’s like, they sorta hear what they wanna hear. So yeah, but apart from that, it’s been really great. I’ve been here before in the past but not for a long time, and I’ve always loved the UK.
DM: Just touching upon the fact you were playing music way before you learned martial arts, do you think the obvious hand-eye co-ordination gained through guitar-playing facilitated with the martial arts in any way?
SS: You know to be honest with you, you’re not supposed to look at your guitar, so hand-eye co-ordination isn’t something that should be too important. I look at my guitar all the time – and I shouldn’t, but I somehow do. One of the reasons I do that is because I grew up playing a Silvertone and then ended up with a Stratocaster, and it’s, y’know, the neck is (demonstrates) this long, it’s a certain scale. And then I started playing a Firebird, and with a Firebird, the neck’s about (demonstrates a smaller width) this long – it really has a different scale. So, when you’ve been playing one scale, one really long and the other not – when they’re that different, and you switch anywhere between five and ten guitars on a set or something, (laughs) you kinda have to look at your guitar because they’re all that different. But I guess, yeah, it probably did help in some way, got me used to using two hands at the same time for different functions, or something.
DM: One thing I noticed about you is that you do so much charity and environmentalist work – and you do it very discreetly, not to throw it in the media eye or use it to your own advantage. Therefore, these are obviously highly important issues to you. To you, is music or film a better medium for you to be able to get these messages across?
SS: Well, both are great platforms. To date, my movies have probably been seen by more people than have heard my music. But I don’t underestimate the power of movies. However, I do feel that with the music there’s a little more freedom to play with and expand on those things. Everything I write has to mean something to me. I don’t just write for the sake of it, it’s all got a message somewhere in there. And like you said, I don’t do the work for the spotlight of for attention, which why I don’t throw it [publicity] around. I do it because I want to and because they’re important things that I care deeply about.
DM: Songs from the Crystal Cave was quite diverse, wasn’t it – with layered tones of pop, Blues and world music. Would you say Mojo Priest was more a return to straight-Blues?
SS: Yeah, it’s still got a bit of everything in there but Mojo Priest has a little more focus on just being pure Blues, I guess.
DM: What about the next album, when can we expect to see that?
SS: If I’m really lucky I’ll start something in the fall.
DM: Thank you for time and good luck with the rest of the tour, it’s been a pleasure.
SS: It’s been a pleasure, too. Thank you.
© David Mahmoudieh 2007
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