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ROCKWiRED iNTERViEWS BLUES GONE SOUTH

SOUL SURViVOR
PAPA JEFF STEEL OF BLUES GONE SOUTH
TALKS TO ROCKWiRED
ABOUT THEiR CD GOTTA KEEP MOViN'
MAKiNG AUDiENCES A PART OF THE SHOW
AND KEEPiN' ON KEEPiN ONhttp://www.rockwired.com/gonesouth.jpg
iNTERViEWED BY BRiAN LUSH
Blues music is the music of survival. It’s about weathering the hard times and coming out of them being able to say ‘Good God that’s what I did!’ In speaking with ‘PAPA’ JEFF STEEL of the Southern California-based BLUES GONE SOUTH, surviving is only part of the story. As the sole original member of BLUES GONE SOUTH, STEEL is back on the stage again with a brand new incarnation of the band that he founded fourteen years earlier. For STEEL, it is more important to keep forging ahead as opposed to getting lost in the past – a strange predicament seeing as how BLUES GONE SOUTH’s latest release GOTTA KEEP MOVIN’(SIGNATURE SERIES) is not much of a “latest” release but a re-tooled re-release from 2002. At the moment, the band is hitting the Southern California circuit with a vengeance despite hesitation from club owners that would rather book a VAN HALEN cover band. “There are not a lot of really good blues clubs here.” Says STEEL “They either want the classic rock or they want a tribute band but we’re getting there. We’re building our fan base to where we can get clubs to give us spots because we’ve got a strong fan base. For most clubs, it’s all about how many people you can bring in.”

ROCKWIRED spoke with ‘PAPA’ JEFF STEEL over the phone. Here is how it went.

GOTTA KEEP MOVIN’ is a great CD. Now that it’s out there for everybody to hear, how do you feel about the finished product?
I’m actually very excited. This is kind of a re-release of a CD we put out a little while ago. This time around, we’ve added a couple of tunes and re-did a few things and the energy is a lot better. We’ve kind of grown through this re-release. It’s kind of cool.

How far back was the original release?
Oh, the original release was probably back in 2002 or something like that. We kind of had a hiatus after a while. I actually had a guitarist that passed away so we took a little time off. It took me a little while to find all of the right players again. Now, I’m at that point where I feel like we’ve got all of the right players.

How would you say that the new material is different from the older stuff?
It’s just a lot more mature. It’s very mature. The new material is more rooted in the blues and at the same time more of what I’d like to call the BLUES GONE SOUTH sound. We go back and forth between this jazz thing and this sort of straight up roots blues sound.

Who are the new members of this band? What do you think each of them brings to the table both musically and personality-wise.
We’ve got KOFI BAKER who is the son of GINGER BAKER from CREAM. He brings a whole different feel to the blues. He was for a very long time a big fusion guy. He brings a more Latin/polyrhythmic feel to what we are doing. We have PAT HURLEY on guitar who is just phenomenal. I don’t have the words to describe him. He just plays the thing. Sometimes he plays very minimally but he is always just right on the spot. We have BOB SECKENDORF on bass and he and KOFI work very well together so its kind of a singer’s heaven as far as a rhythm section and then I have TOMMY SEBASTIEN on keyboards and he sort of brings this kind of Broadway element into our blues sound.

Talk about what got you into music in the beginning?
Oh my goodness! I really don’t know. I’ve been doing this for forever. I sang in front of people since the time I was fourteen. I went through all of the changes of THE BEATLES and THE ROLLING STONES and ROD STEWART. As far as the blues is concerned, TAJ MAJAL is probably my biggest influence because of how he does things differently every time he comes out with something new. He’s never boring and with the stuff I write, I try to make it lively, upbeat and a lot of fun.

Where are from?
I was born in Los Angeles. L.A. County General to be exact. You can’t get any more L.A. than that. I spent a lot of my youth raised in South Central before there was a South Central. I lived down on 35th and Central and I grew up listening to BOBBY BLAND and RAY CHARLES and the old, great rhythm and blues guys and I try to bring that soul thing into how I sing the blues.

You say that you’ve been singing in front of people since you were fourteen, but at what point did it become a vocation?
BLUES GONE SOUTH has been around for about fourteen years so we’ve been playing and we’ve gotten to this level where we really think that we need to be out there in front of people now. As far as a vocation, this has always been my life’s dream. When I get onstage is when I feel the best. It’s just a lot of fun for me.

Off of this CD of yours, what songs stand out for you and why?
NO TIME FOR FOOLING AROUND is a song that I really like to sing. It’s actually written by the guitar player that passed away. It’s got a lot of soul and it’s got a lot of feeling. LITTLE HEAD is another fun song and it’s just real as far as how life is sometimes.

Talk about the beginning of this band.
As I’ve said, this band started about fourteen years ago and I’m actually the only original left. I’ve gotten better over the fourteen years and the players have progressed with me. I had this goal in my mind to keep the blues where its at and not try to do to much with it and make it very rooted in the blues and that is how I write the stuff. That’s my goal. It’s what I feel. It is what I am.

And that sort of falls into my next question. Explain how the songwriting process works for you.
After all of this time it’s actually getting easier. Sometimes I’ll pick up little hook lines just from talking to people and I’ll pick up on this one little line that actually makes a lot of sense in one way or the other and I try to write something around that little hook. That’s how GOTTA MOVE ON got started an I’ve got a couple of new ones that will getting released on the next CD. My wife gave me an idea for a song once. She was doing thing and she said something to me about not peaking and I said ‘If I stop peaking, I should die or something!’ so I wrote a whole song around that little line. You can see where I’m going, right?

Absolutely!
So I wrote a song around which goes ‘If I stop peaking/ It’s time to stop seeking/ That great big legend in the sky!’.

I noticed a 714 area code on the phone when you called. Where are you calling from?
Orange County.

What town?
I’m in Garden Grove.

How is the new album coming along?
It’s going good. We’ve got about six tunes down and I’m trying to find the time to sit down and write the other four here. I want to get a good ten, twelve-song CD out. We should be trying to get something down and finished off by the end of this summer.

How easy or difficult was it getting back into the swing of things with this band which is comprised of all new members with the exception of you?
It was very difficult for a little while because I could never get the same feeling that I had with the old band, but now that I’ve got the people that I’ve got now, we are actually doing very well. Writing with this group of people is actually very easy because they pretty much think on the same level that I am at. So when I tell them what I want to do with a particular song, they kind of go ‘okay’, and then we do it. I get them all together for a rehearsal and I present my idea, which is a vocal line and a melody line and then we work around that. It’s a lot of fun actually.

How are live shows going?
They are going great. We just did a HOUSE OF BLUES show that we actually produced. It’s kind of funny that they still call that place the HOUSE OF BLUES because when you look on their schedule –

It’s mostly rock acts.
Yes. I’m really trying to get the talent buyers over there to give us a real blues show for once a quarter. We’d like them to bring blues music back on a more regular basis.

How easy is it to be a blues band in Orange County of all places? Do you run into problems with venues not being as warm to the idea of blues band doing a show as they would a rock band or a hip-hop group?
Absolutely we do. Especially in Orange County for some reason. There are not a lot of really good blues clubs here. They either want the classic rock or they want a tribute band but we’re getting there. We’re building our fan base to where we can get clubs to give us spots because we’ve got strong fan base. For most clubs, it’s all about how many people you can bring in.

I lived in Orange County for a little bit and it can be a little dull like white bread.
Exactly.

When I lived there, I personally preferred going to places like L.A. and Long Beach.
Yeah, Long Beach and Redondo Beach both had really nice blues spots that you could play at. Believe it or not the B.B. KING’s at Universal City just got bought out and now it’s a comedy club. So now that’s not even available anymore.

People don’t go out for music like they used to anymore it seems.
What I’m finding, believe it or not, with this recession that people are going out a tiny bit more. It’s fairly cheap to got out and see a couple of bands and have a couple of drinks. It’s like going to the movies but different.

You’d think that with the slump that the country is in that blues music would be all of the rage.
I know man. We’re working that one really hard.

What would you like a person to come away with after they’ve heard this re-release?
I’d like for people to think that we’re a lot of fun. Most people that hear us and see us live find that we’re not a typical blues band. We’re not just a band that’s going to be up there that plays and expects you to like us because we are there. We put on a show. I’m very into the show. I dress for the show and my members dress for the show. It’s al about entertaining the audience and making them a part of the show. I talk a lot on stage and I try to get them involved. People actually enjoy that part of us. We do things onstage that give people the impression that we are just having a good time and then they get off on that and then they have a good time. It’s not a job for us. It’s just a lot of fun.