Suck and Blow

by John Popper

  That was also the year the Rembrandts were on the tour. I said that was okay so long as they didn’t play the theme from Friends. I suspected they would but I wondered how they would respond to that kind of challenge because did the Rembrandts have any other songs? As you can imagine, they wound up playing it anyway. They came with Sheryl Crow, who had jumped on for a few dates—again, there was always an accommodation we had to make for somebody.

  Then 1996 was the year when it really got huge. It was the second year in a row that we outdrew Lollapalooza, and that meant something to us. We had Lenny Kravitz, the Dave Matthews Band, Natalie Merchant, and King Crimson.

  Dave Matthews was on fire but was just an easygoing guy and really easy to work with. One of my favorite moments playing with Dave was a version of “All Along the Watchtower” that we performed acoustically on the Blue Whale Stage. It was so odd to us how somebody we met at the Van Riper’s fest and perhaps Wetlands as an opener become so massively huge, but they were really such an effortless band to play with. Boyd was nothing but optimistic, and LeRoi was the exact opposite, and that combination was in their playing styles—it was so wonderful. Stefan on bass was just so nice and completely conducive to making whatever jam work. Then you have Carter who, in my opinion, is one of the best drummers in the world (I would later nab him for my solo album Zygote, where he would save the day—stay tuned).

  In June 1994 I had joined them in the studio up in Woodstock, New York, to play harmonica on “What Would You Say” (a song that would later be up for a Grammy against Blues Traveler’s “Run-Around”). They sent a crew guy, a runner, to drive me up there in a rented Gremlin, and you should just never drive a rented Gremlin. The car broke down on the highway en route to the studio, and I really needed to head back to catch the only flight remaining that day to England for a tour. So I only had time to lay it down twice. I think Dave went to the bathroom, and when he came out I was done. That became the track they used on the song, so I felt like a badass, but really I just had to go to England.

  Back in those days women were throwing themselves at Dave. My friend Felicia was a huge fan of his, and she and I would get into this argument where I’d say, “Oh, you just think he’s got a great butt.” She was dying to meet him, so of course I introduced her with “This is my friend Felicia—she thinks you’ve got a great butt,” which made her mad at me for the whole following year. Then we went to see Dave Matthews at Madison Square Garden, where I sat in with him, and she reminded me, “I can’t believe that’s how you introduced me to Dave Matthews.” So we were at the after-party, and I said to Dave, “Could you maybe say something nice to my friend Felicia? She feels bad about the way I introduced you.” And a few minutes later Felicia came up to me and reported, “Dave Matthews just made out with me in the bathroom.” And that’s what Dave heard: “Can you make out with my friend Felicia? She feels a little neglected.”

  As for the 1996 H.O.R.D.E., the weather really affected the performances that summer. The heat was brutal in July, and Lenny fainted during the Dallas show, where it was 105 degrees. He simply refused to take off those leather pants. Lenny had a leather outfit and eventually went shirtless but then fainted. Had he worn jeans, he probably would have been okay. Then a couple of weeks later, in Salt Lake City, a dust storm drove him from the stage. I believe lightning struck the stage as well during his set. Another interesting thing about Lenny is he always wanted to make it seem as though he had driven his motor-cycles into a given town, but what really happened was his truck would park outside, they would offload the bikes, and then he would ride into town. That poor bastard worked his ass off that summer. It is not easy being as cool as Lenny Kravitz.

  Meanwhile we were getting used to the headlining slot. We closed over forty shows, all except for one in Austin, where we left that to the Dave Matthews Band. We took nothing for granted, though. In St. Louis I wrote a set list with a record-breaking six-teen-song segue. Audiences really responded to what we were doing and to the bill as a whole—we drew thirty thousand to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and twenty-eight thousand to Chula Vista, with plenty of other crowds topping twenty thousand. I sat in with Lenny, Natalie, and Dave a number of times, while at Randall’s Island in New York City, Bruce Willis and Chris Barron sat in with us.

  We were having a lot of sound trouble on that tour because I wasn’t connecting with my sound guy on what my harp sound was supposed to be. And during this era sometimes I would play with my glasses off. That night at Randall’s Island I knew Bruce Willis was going to sit in at some point, but I wasn’t sure which song it would be, and the sound of the harmonica was terrible. So someone who I thought was my crew guy Greg Hester walked out with a baseball cap on and a big dumb smile and said, “Isn’t this great?” And I couldn’t believe that he came out like he didn’t have a care in the world, asking me, “Isn’t this great?” when the amps sounded terrible. So I looked at him with absolute murder in my eyes and bellowed, “What?” as if “I want to eat your head.” But then as I stared at him I started to realize it wasn’t my sound guy at all; it was Bruce Willis who was so excited, that he ran out a little early. My response had just drained all of the color out of the cheeks of this person who I now realized was Bruce Willis, who suddenly got very scared. He asked me, “Am I supposed to be here?” And I quickly said, “No, no, you’re okay—I thought you were someone else,” and I wrote him a letter about it later.

  We were doing so well that we decided to pay seventy grand for a hot air balloon that we used twice. My fantasy was you’d be in Chicago, let’s say, and open your window, and there’s a giant Blues Traveler cat on a big purple balloon that says H.O.R.D.E. But it turned out you can’t fly them anywhere near cities or telephone lines or if there’s wind that exceeds twelve miles per hour, which is generally all the time. This might explain the decline in the past century of ballooning as a popular sport. So we basically hired a “balloon captain” (yes, there is such an occupation) to lick his finger, stick his finger in the air, say, “Nope,” and then get drunk all day. On top of that, the balloon had to be hauled around on a flatbed truck all tour. That balloon remained in my garage for nearly a decade.

  Many years later, in 2013, we’re playing a balloon festival in New Jersey, and looking up, I was reminded of my folly in trying to create a H.O.R.D.E air force and that $70,000 balloon that sat in my garage for about ten years before I could sell it for six grand. Or, as I like to call it, my $64,000 loss. And sure enough, as I’m thinking about it, I look around, and what do I see but that very same balloon that someone in the know probably bought from me and sold to someone else for sixty grand. There it was, looking brand-spanking new, and instantly I stopped the show and told this story. So if you’ve been to the balloon fest in Readington, New Jersey, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Curse you, balloons.

  By 1997, even though H.O.R.D.E. continued, Blues Traveler decided not to do it. All our compatriots were getting huge and doing their own summer things—Dave Matthews, Phish, Widespread Panic. But what we ended up doing was going to Europe and trying to break into that market, which wasn’t exactly the same.

  So our headliners were Neil Young and Primus. The only problem was that although each of them loved the other band, they were also worried about the other band’s fans messing with their fans—“Could you keep Primus on the bill but not have their fans come?” Well, I guess we could, but that would defeat the purpose of having Primus on the bill. To us the answer was telling them, “Let’s try to build a solution, but until then, let’s go along as though you want to work together, which is what you’re saying, right?”

  We had to get Neil a bus covered with inlaid wood so he could carve it. His house is exactly like that as well; it’s like a Hobbit hole, only a little more above ground. Every hallway is ornately carved. It’s just beautiful. His son needs sunlight because of his cerebral palsy, so Neil created a room that was all colored glass in a bubble—wherever you are in the room, there’s sunlig
ht.

  I saw Neil’s place in 1997 when we went out to do the Bridge School Benefit. I hung out in a teepee in his backyard with Marilyn Manson. That’s what gave me the idea to get a teepee and put it in my own yard, but this was right when the Blair Witch Project came out so then I was suddenly too scared to go out and sleep in it. I’ve got more guns than Fort Knox and I was literally twenty feet away from my house, but I heard those Blair Witch noises in the woods and said, “Fuck this, I’m going inside. Why am I out here? I’ve got a perfectly nice house right over there.”

  Before I walked onstage the first time at the Bridge School show, Nigel James, who was doing the production and had worked with us on H.O.R.D.E., whispered in my ear, “Go sing to the kids.” They sat behind the musicians, facing the audience, and they all had cerebral palsy in one form or another. So I tried it, thinking it was a pretty good idea, and it was overwhelming, people started to cry, and then after us, everybody started doing it. To turn your back on fifteen thousand people to sing to these fifteen kids was more powerful than I thought it would be. In fact, I got choked up. I really have to credit Nigel—it was such a coup. It affected everyone and elevated our show. It worked so well, I felt a little guilty about it.

  I also remember Chelsea Clinton being there, and all her Secret Service men were dressed like hippies with tie-dyed shirts.

  Back to Neil and his tour bus. He was an incessant carver. Neil was working throughout the tour, and by the end, the van looked like something out of Tolkien. It was a work of art.

  In August we joined H.O.R.D.E. for a few dates, but we clearly had miscalculated. The tour ended up being perfectly fine, although people really missed us. We didn’t quite catch on that we were a necessary part of it.

  We also had a problem when we played a show in New Jersey on August 11. This was our first performance in the Northeast since New Year’s Eve, and A&M had released Straight on till Morning a month earlier. We were contracted to play five songs with the Paramus Symphony Orchestra. Medeski Martin & Wood and Me’Shell Ndegéocello also appeared, both H.O.R.D.E. alumni. But the way it was sold to people in New Jersey was as a regular Blues Traveler show with an orchestra. We didn’t know about that, and there was no time on our schedule to put anything else together and rehearse a full two-hour show with the orchestra. Classical orchestras are not known for their improvisation.

  So we did our five songs, and it was clear that people were unhappy, so we did another and then we came out for an unplanned encore. There was some gap we didn’t catch with our audience in which they wanted a big, long show out of us, and we weren’t giving that to them. We thought we were done, but people were chanting “Attica!” in the parking lot and a riot started. What this actually had to do with Attica, I have no idea, but I’ll admit I thought it was pretty funny, so I have to get part of the credit for the riot to Al Pacino.

  By 1998 it became much more difficult to plan H.O.R.D.E. With the Lilith Fair and Smokin’ Grooves tours, it seemed bands increasingly were being divided into whatever category they seemed to occupy. Then radio stations became involved and started putting on multiband concerts, telling groups, “If you play our summer jam, then we’ll put you in heavy rotation.” We had nothing comparable to offer them that was remotely on that level, so it was kind of doomed.

  That year we put together a package with Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Barenaked Ladies, and Alana Davis on all of the shows, with plenty of other acts rotating in and out like Gov’t Mule, Galactic, and Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

  There were some good nights, but I was getting a little weary of the politics, and Blues Traveler had been on the road nearly nonstop for a decade. The guys kept reminding me that so many of the bands who had been a major part of H.O.R.D.E.’s success had moved on to their own careers and their own summer tours. So, going into it, we had a strong sense this would be our last H.O.R.D.E. Our scene was in full flower, but what happens to a flower after it blooms? It was blooming, so we felt like we wanted to get out.

  At one point during the tour I approached Steven Page from the Barenaked Ladies and asked him whether they would be interested in taking it over. He seemed almost horrified and said “No! I guess they wanted to do their own thing. So I decided, Okay, that’s enough for me. I’m not going to offer that to anyone else. I’m going to keep it and just retire with a balloon in my garage.

  I went out in style, though. Every year I sat in with every band on every stage. That was a big thing for me. I looked at H.O.R.D.E. as a way for me to play with so many different artists who I never played with before. And the entire last day I would be on a golf cart to see whether I could do it. It was a full-day affair, making the rounds every hour, pulling up to each of the three stages. I really loved doing it, and that was where I felt the most useful.

  Over the years, through luck or timing, we ran into an immense amount of really talented bands. From 311 to David Garza, each of them had something different to offer. The Smashing Pumpkins were not a band we’d normally play with, but we got them on the bill—it was such a great an opportunity for us to play with so many different people. Again, I liken it to our desire to play more states than anyone else and get around and see more: you get an incredible view when you experience all sorts of different bands and play in their musical fields. It makes you a stronger band, and we keep coming back to that conclusion, as evidenced by our most recent record. The thing I feel grateful for is that people attribute such a heritage to H.O.R.D.E. We’re honored that we could do that, but basically it was trying to solve a survival problem with playing in sheds. All the rest of it was paths of least resistance. I think if we had tried to make H.O.R.D.E. as cool as it became, we never would have succeeded.

  When we started, the term neo-hippie was thrown around, and a few years in, people talked about the jam band scene. H.O.R.D.E was probably a reflection of that. Chris Barron once told me that he thought we all had shaped a generation, but I’m not sure I agree. There’s always that debate—“Are you doing the shaping or are you being shaped by your generation?” And it’s really hard to tell.

  15

  THE RACE TO 430

  I was always a fat kid as far back as I can remember. I think that makes a person seek to be funny as a solution. To me, that was the identity I had even in my own family. I wasn’t the only fat one, but I was fat and that was my thing. That was also the perception in school as well as my identity there—as a kid, you get tagged with an identity.

  As I got older and went out into the world, I still saw myself that way, even if people saw me as talented and weren’t really looking at that.

  When I got really obese, it had to do with the motorcycle wreck. I spent a year in a wheelchair and gained a lot of weight. I wasn’t moving around. You’re kind of like a frog on a hot plate when you get that obese. I was past four hundred pounds and didn’t notice it, especially when everybody was helping me out of chairs. Then I had four guys helping me out of a chair, and I just got used to that. Then I got used to not walking very well, and this gradually became how I saw myself.

  I won’t go so far as to call it a mixed blessing because it’s bad to be that unhealthy. I think everyone in the band had some sort of addiction, whether it was drugs or alcohol. For me it was food. That was the thing I was used to, a continuation from when I was a kid. After I got fatter, it became something for my friends to focus on, telling me I needed help. Well, of course I needed help, because there was this hopeless feeling. I think I perpetuated it and got used to being alone that way.

  I used to torture the flight attendants who would discreetly hand me the belt extender when I got on a plane. Their “discretion” would piss me off, so I would always say very loudly, “Stewardess, I’m sorry I’m so big and fat, but I need the super-fatty-fat belt extender for extra-fat, fat people. I’m sure you weren’t counting on me being so big and fat. I’m sorry I’m so big and fat.” I’ve never seen a woman run so fast to get a belt extender just to shut me the hell up.
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  There was always this feeling that being fat or famous was something to hide behind, so it wasn’t my fault if I wasn’t connecting with people or being rejected by them. That was always a weird thing for me because I went from fat to famous, so there was always a reason to be isolated on one level or another.

  It’s weird being famous when you’re 436 pounds. I think perception-wise, the crowd was rooting for me because I was that fat guy they knew, but I was also talented. And in some ways it sort of helped us because we were that band you rooted for. But I also said that if I had Dave Matthews’s ass back then, I would have gotten laid a lot more.

  I recently looked at some pictures of the band from 1992. Brendan had shaved his sideburns completely off, as was his custom at that time—he had kind of a Euro look with a Clash T-Shirt. Chan was the lady killer—he had the long metal hair and was wearing a vest like he was Richie Sambora (he also knew how to smell good—at first it was patchouli, but he was quickly learning his fragrances). Bobby knew how to wear a baseball hat and could always go to the Deadhead thing, so he pretty much looked like someone who was on his way to a party, which was accurate more often than not.

  And then there was me. I’d be wearing overalls, and it wasn’t that I was making a statement about overalls; it was, “Hey, these things fit me. I’ll put them on so I won’t be naked.” Which is about as much thought as I put into it.

  Or instead of a belt I’d tie my belt loops together with a piece of rope—“Hey, my belt’s broken. I guess I’ll use this rope.” I wasn’t thinking that was fashionable; I was literally in my room, and there happened to be some rope there.

  In all the pictures, the shirts I’m wearing, you can see the buttons hanging on for dear life, and it’s because I didn’t know when a shirt was too tight or too small, and the shirt was invariably some form of horizontal stripe or vertical stripe to make me look like Charlie Brown.