G. Love – An Xperience Interview

Photo of G. Love by Joe Navas

The Protest Kid Returns

By Sara Busone.

G. Love and his chickens treat Sara Busone to a sneak peek of a new song, discuss the “Lemonade” anniversary tour coming to UPH in August, and the release of “Ode to RL.”

RRX: Have you played this area before, the Capital Region of New York?

G: I went to Skidmore (College) and … actually, it was a pretty informative place for me. I really was getting my thing together there, and I was a regular performer at Caffe Lena’s in Saratoga Springs there for the open mic nights, and also at Falstaff’s, the coffee shop on campus at Skidmore … that’s kind of where I (was) really getting my things going.  So yeah, it’d be great to be back there. And I know that there’s a huge live music community there.

RRX: I was just listening to “Ode to RL”. Tell me a little bit about the blending of the hill country blues with modern grooves and sampling and where the inspiration for all that came from.

G: So, during COVID, I reached out to my friend Luther Dickinson from the North Mississippi All-Stars, and they have their father’s studio, the Zebra Ranch studio in Coldwater, Mississippi … so, I moved there, and we went down to Cold Water, Mississippi during COVID to record there. And because everybody was on the road, it kind of became like a little summit, a hill country summit, and a lot of artists came through. One of those artists was RL Boyce … he passed a couple of years back, but he was kind of (an) elder of the hill country, and we had this amazing night. For me, it was one of the greatest nights of just music and my journey … I mean it was great; he was the best, and we drank some whiskey and played some blues all night, and I backed him up on the harmonica. That night we traded hats, and we went on our way. I had started working with this younger producer named Logan Tickner in Orleans, Massachusetts, where I lived in college, and he made beats. I was like, “Man, see if you can pop up this and sample some of RL’s voice, the harmonic guitars and everything, then we can make something out of them!” And it was so infectious that every groove he gave me, I went to the booth right away and was just able to come up with lyrics … recorded over these beats.  They’re all voices, vocals, snippets of his guitar, snippets of my harmonica, snippets of Luther either on piano and this guy Cody Harrell on slide guitar and Luther on slide, Chuck Treece on bass and drums. I was pretty amazed how it came out, and I just can’t get enough of that record … it’s been out for about a year now, and I just listen to it all the time. I love it.

RRX: I also read that you said you lost thousands of your fans due to your politics. You said, “It’s the duty of artists and always has been to represent the people.” I wanted to ask you if this has continued to be something of an issue for you between you and your fans, and how you handle that delicate issue. 

G: I don’t know … I kind of try to step back from it recently, but look – I write songs about all kinds of stuff. This country is extremely divided and tribal, and I certainly have lost a lot of fans that don’t agree with my politics, and I do notice that online. It’s an easy thing to say to artists, “We like your music, we don’t like your politics” or “stick to entertaining.” I think as artists we do have an opportunity and perhaps a responsibility to speak for the society … people … that we believe in and that we represent, and the communities and everything, and I certainly feel that way, and my mission has always been to spread love, and just to inspire people to play music. I used to say on my Instagram, “Saving the world one show at a time.” I was trying to spread a good vibe.  And my shows, anybody’s welcome at my shows, but I will say that … I don’t tend to preach at my shows or talk politics at the shows, but a lot of my songs have intonations or just are commentary on … politics or racism or social injustices or anything like that or, how I would see a better vision for the world. I’ve always been a protest kid.  There’s another song I’m working on that I wrote recently called “Reciprocity,” and one of the lyrics from that was like, “you’ll never be able to see what another person sees, but you should try to understand them with empathy, and then if you can understand” – let me just pull up this lyric because I think you’ll dig it. Hold on.

RRX: Sure, thank you, I’ll get a little sneak peek.  An exclusive! 

G: (distant clucking) You hear my chickens in the background?

RRX: (laughs) Oh … you have chickens!

G: Here we go … “we will never be able to see what another person sees/but we could try to understand them with empathy/we empathize with someone’s opinion and the way they look at life/even though we don’t agree and we don’t think it’s right/and how can we feel we’re so right when someone else thinks we’re so wrong/this is basic human nature/and the story goes on/people are shaped by the society that raised them/and the culture they know is what made them/if you can understand that/we don’t have far to go as we travel together down this common road/we can find respect for their perspective/mutual understanding leads us to a safe landing” … So, in that sense, most people are shaped by how they were raised and there’s some people that break from their parents’ politics, a lot of people, but some people don’t, and so … this is cultural stuff and I guess that’s it. 

RRX: This is the celebration of two decades of “Lemonade,” do you feel nostalgic?

G: (laughs) I feel super stoked about that record because it was an interesting time … we had just gotten dropped by Universal after we put out this record, “The Hustle,” which I thought in my heart of hearts was going to be like a real breakthrough record for me. So we only got one record out with Universal and Brushfire, and the Universal side of that deal dropped us … and Jack Johnson and Emmett Malloy said to me, “Don’t worry, we’re going to figure out a way to keep putting your records out.” And they did. They signed us, just to Brushfire Records, a truly independent deal, so we went to work on that record “Lemonade.” We had our own studio in Philadelphia, Philadelphonic Studios, so … for better or for worse, we worked on the record for the better part of a year.  It was one of those records that … it’s a collaborative record, which was interesting because for us, that was our first real collaborative record. Actually, that was kind of on the heels of the Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker collaborative records that were really big kind of blueprints for how an artist that’s been around for a minute could, you know, come together with their musical community and do something a little bit different. And that’s kind of how we approached “Lemonade.” And the guest list – so for the first one … props to Emmett and Jack for getting us the opportunity to make another record and then for it to be an independent record. Then we started tapping all of our musical community, which is pretty diverse. So that’s why on that record you got a hip hop act like Blackalicious, and you got Jack Johnson, and you got Slightly Stoopid on there, although they’re not publicized. Donavon Frankenreiter’s on there … Tristan Prettyman … Los Lobos is on the record. Ben Harper’s on the record. Mark Broussard’s on the record.  There’re just a lot of unbelievable artists that lent their hand to all the sounds in there. Chris DiBenedetto was the producer, and he just did such a wonderful job on that record, and man, it really stood the test of time. But right when it came out, it was crazy because the record went to number 2 on the iTunes charts – like, totally kind of unexpectedly! And then, it was our only record that cracked the Billboard Top 40. I mean, I’m proud of it. It went to number 39, so right inside the top 40 there, which is pretty cool for an artist like me. And it was a huge success and it was the only record up to that point that we ever made a dime on and now 20 years later, if you look at Spotify … well today the song got bumped … but because of the new collaboration with Slightly Stoopid, “Rainbow” has been, which is the song with Jack Johnson from that record which was never a single, has been my number one song on Spotify for the last year.

RRX: Speaking of nostalgia, I am a DJ and started my show last Thursday with “Astronaut.”  Every time I hear it, I think of being in my twenties, and I would just play that on a loop whenever I was on vacation in Cape Cod.

G: Oh sweet. I thought “Astronaut” was going to be my number one song, but then “Rainbow” ended up being my number one song, and I’m cool with that! 

See G. Love and Special Sauce at Universal Preservation Hall on August 15.