Suck and Blow

by John Popper

  That whole incident highlighted the distinctions between him and me. I was dying to do the “Star-Spangled Banner”; he was pissed he had to do it. He was hiding from people, and I was high fiving everybody. That’ll tell you who sold more records. Clearly, him.

  So we made it back to DC, and a few hours after Blues Traveler performed at RFK Stadium the Bulls won the championship in Utah. But it still haunts me. What a “Banner” I would have done for Michael Jordan.

  22

  FOUR PLAY

  The response to four really felt like the culmination of a decade’s work.

  In early January 1996 we learned that we had been nominated for a Grammy. “Run-Around” was up for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the ceremony, which would take place on February 28, 1996, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. A&M Records, which was also based in LA, invited us to come over the morning of the Grammys, where they laid out a new contract in which each band member received a million bucks. It was quite a start to the day.

  From there we all got into our limos to head over. Brendan and I took our dates to the Grammys in one limo, and Chan and Bob took their dates in another limo. When they called our category, which was pretty early, Brendan and I had made it inside, but we didn’t know where Chan and Bob were.

  To my mind it didn’t matter so much because we were up against Dave Matthews Band’s “What Would You Say”—you’ll remember, I had played on that song—which I thought was going to win. Still, as they announced the nominees, I was trying to calculate the fortitude and the logistical planning needed to run up on stage when they won to accept the Grammy with them. This was years before the soy bomb bullshit and Kanye. They were nice guys, so I figured they wouldn’t punch me; all I had to do was stay away from LeRoi. They were about to announce the winner, and I was jumping up, expecting to hear, “‘What Would You Say,’ Dave Matthews Band,” when they called out “‘Run-Around,’ Blues Traveler.” I was in midjump and so stunned that I popped my knee. I couldn’t walk on it, so I had to hop on one leg to the stage.

  Meanwhile Chan and Bob were in the other limo “parking,” which I took as some thinly veined metaphor for drugs. I don’t know whether they were smoking it or snorting it, but they were late. They missed their entire Grammys speech. Brendan and I went up there, and I was hopping on one leg in blinding knee pain; Brendan was the only one with any reasonable composure. I was supposed to thank Howard Stern because I vowed I would, along with my teachers and all these other people. But I didn’t really prepare a speech because I didn’t think I was going to win. So I asked Brendan, “Who should we thank?” He answered, “I don’t know—our parents?” So we thanked our parents, half the band, and then we sat down. This was when Chan and Bobby showed up—“You guys missed it! We won! We totally won!” Bobby immediately wanted to leave—“Oh fuck this!”—and he did. I think eventually Chan did too, but Brendan and I watched the rest of the show with our dates.

  So it was win a million in the morning, win a Grammy at night. You work for ten years to get a day like that.

  The punch line came when we were walking outside afterward, being all hot shits, and this little girl who was playing in the parking lot looked up at me and asked, “Weren’t you in that movie Tommy Boy?” And that was awesome because it deflated me in the best way. My ego had been so puffed up. Then I tried to sing “Run-Around” for her and she said, “Nope, never heard it.” And there’s the reality of it.

  Although she didn’t recognize us, our profile was on the rise, which led to some really cool new opportunities.

  Dolly Parton wanted me to come and record with her. Dolly didn’t ask me to play harmonica either; she just wanted me to share vocals with her on a Merle Haggard tune. This was for her comeback album at the beginning of the new country music. I think she asked me because I was this rock-and-roll guy and it would represent a connection to something new. I was grateful because she still had the voice I had heard for so long, and it still melted raw steel.

  I had my puppy with me, Cice, a blue heeler who was a terror back then. (I named her after a Magyar she-warrior who saved her master from the Mongol hordes.) Cice promptly trotted into Dolly’s vocal booth and took a watery diarrhea shit all over the carpeting. Dolly’s response was “Bless her heart.” Now, how sweet was that? You can’t top it. Poor Dolly, though; it wasn’t the scented candle that I later learned Chris Robinson preferred.

  Paul Simon was someone else from this period who only wanted me for my voice. When he made a demo of The Capeman, the musical he was working on for Broadway, he had me come in and play the role of the redneck. He was one of the hardest taskmasters I’ve ever worked for. He wasn’t a dick; he just knew exactly what he wanted and would not be persuaded otherwise.

  A couple of years later he had me back in again, this time to record harmonica for his album You’re the One. That was hard too because he was the one guy who would not fall for my trick of “Let me blow all over and you can trim and use what you want.” When I did that for Paul, he said, “Yeah, the problem with that is it makes more work for me later, so I’d prefer you do exactly what I’m thinking.”

  In defense of my approach, I really do think it can be the best way to get the most out of me. There was a time when I’d say that every harmonica solo I did was the best harmonica solo ever. Now I’m quite willing to allow someone to let me blow through something a few times, and then they can cut it and link it to another take—they always fit like Lego blocks on beat one. I can understand Paul’s reaction, though. I can’t say I blame him.

  Still, he was asking quite a bit of me. It was some melody he heard in which I had to arpeggiate like I was a guitar; I worked for hours. Eventually I got it done, but he ended up not using it and instead he went with Howard Levy. I got Levied. If anybody was going to trump me, it would be Howard Levy. Not only can he sight read but he can also play chromatic scales, which I can’t do. Eventually I figured out I would need a few harps, but it wouldn’t sound smooth. Howard Levy was the right musical choice—he was the one guy who could do it. To expect that out of a harmonica is pretty insane anyway. When you’ve got a harmonica part that only one man in America can play, that’s an ambitious harmonica part—“We need Albert Einstein to figure out this little math problem.” Howard Levy’s the mad scientist, so between the two of us, I’d give it to him.

  Around this same time I played on a Hanson album (fifteen years later they would reciprocate on Blues Traveler’s Blow Up the Moon). I had no problem with my solo, but trying to play this one melody for that Hanson song was like working for Paul Simon. I just couldn’t play it for some reason, but Taylor could. So, oddly, I got Taylored. And you pay extra for that.

  Although I no longer believed that my every harmonica solo was the best solo ever, I will say that one of my best harmonica flurries ever is on the opening credits of the Roseanne show. It appeared during the last season—Chan did a little guitar thing and then I did a lovely little flurry like Charlie Parker. It’s just fun every now and then to turn on one of the cable channels and hear an example of a really nice burning harp solo that I did. Once you’ve done that and it’s on national television, I think it eases the constant need to go into sessions and demand that your work can’t be touched because you’ve just laid down the perfect solo.

  We were obsessive Roseanne fans, and at the time she invited us on to her show in 1995, that was our favorite prime-time sitcom. So to get to go on the set and be in that kitchen with Roseanne and Dan Conner in Lanford, Illinois, was surreal. We played Dan’s former band—my name was Stingray Wilson—and he came on stage with us for “Sweet Home Chicago.” We watched that show religiously at a time when we were living hand to mouth. That show really spoke to us, and then we were in the TV.

  Standing in their kitchen, which I’d seen on television so many times, was almost dreamlike. I knew consciously and rationally that I was talking to Roseanne Barr and John Goodman, but they were in costume. I had to ope
n their refrigerator to see what was in that fridge, and sure enough, they had fake bologna. It was made of rubber and looked like real bologna. It was stunt bologna.

  I started to look around after I closed the fridge, and I remember John Goodman’s expression was like He’s going to blow! I nearly had one of those sensory overloads that I hear people have when they’re in a foreign land and don’t quite understand what’s real anymore. For a second my brain told me that maybe I actually was in Lanford, Illinois. But, of course, I wasn’t. It was the stunt bologna that got me because, If the bologna isn’t real, then maybe none of this is real. But then a voice in my head said, Of course none of this is real. You’re in Los Angeles. The overload almost led to a conniption, but I held it together.

  Roseanne was a sweetheart to me. We hit it off like lemurs and pie, and she later played an important role in helping me lose my weight, but she had a fight with John Goodman in between the scenes and yelled at somebody else on the set. She would be ashamed afterward, though. It reminded me of my actress sister, who’s known to have a temper.

  Before the last season she came to me and said, “I’d like you to put words to my theme song.” I was so honored that during the very last scene of her entire series, when she was reminiscing like all of those episodes were part of a book, Phoebe Snow was singing my words a cappella.

  A few years later I would work with John Goodman again on the set of Blues Brothers 2000, which came about through my friendship with Dan Aykroyd. The first time I met Dan Aykroyd was in Los Angeles in early 1995. He was there when I sat in with Steve Vai. That was quite a night because Steve Vai was in Crossroads, a film that also had its hold on me growing up—he duels on behalf of the devil against Ralph Macchio’s character. It’s a draw until the end, when Macchio plays a classical piece, Paganini’s “Caprice No. 5.” I told Steve Vai that I thought he kicked the classical dude’s ass, and he laughed because he actually did both parts.

  But Dan Aykroyd had been my hero for much of my life.

  He was specifically powerful for me because, first of all, he’s funny. Saturday Night Live was the beginning of my rebellion as I tried to break out of my own skin as this young kid in the suburbs. SNL was the first subversive thing I ever got to experience that felt like it was mine, and then, after that, Second City TV. That would be my religion every Saturday: Saturday Night Live and then SCTV. And then these people started making movies, so I started to feel my religion permeating the world’s culture—or at least North American culture.

  Beyond all that, Dan Aykroyd was the guy who got me playing the harmonica. I still wear a black hat to this day because of it—his influence is insurmountable. Our band name is a combination of the Blues Brothers and a scene from Ghostbusters, a film he wrote with Harold Ramis.

  So this guy really affected me in a lot of ways, and meeting him was particularly sweet because he liked the way I played harmonica. A couple of months after seeing him in Los Angeles, Blues Traveler appeared at the House of Blues in New Orleans as part of the Live from the House of Blues series that aired on TBS. He joined us as Elwood Blues on “Rock Me Baby.” Later, when we did the movie, I heard him practicing because I was playing the harmonica parts for the little kid Buster Blues (Evan Bonifant), so we had to duel, and I still can’t describe the honor of hearing him sweat me.

  My favorite part of Blues Brothers 2000 was getting to play “Can’t Turn You Lose” with the Blues Brothers band. You get to hear my harmonica solo, and it was the harmonica solo I had always planned if I ever got to play with the Blues Brothers band. So getting to play that with them and even getting to play the kid’s harmonica parts were like a series of bucket list items, and it has a philosophical importance because technically my sound is the future of the Blues Brothers. I can take a certain pride about my place in that mythology.

  I remember Dan looking at me one night. He was beaming with pride—“Look at what I helped to do”—and I felt really proud that he felt proud.

  One of my less successful would-be film appearances was in Jack Frost. Michael Keaton played a harmonica player in Colorado in a blues band, and he was late for a gig, crashed his car, and died but came back as a snowman to watch over his family. They were going to use Blues Traveler for his band. As an enticement, I was going to play Santa Claus in this little village where the kids were running amok, whipping snowballs at me and just going crazy, so I’d say “Santa’s getting angry, kids!” It was a funny scene, but there was this large, older kid who really enjoyed pelting me with ice. All the other kids were first and second graders, but he was a fifth grader, and he’d whip it in my face, and I’d get really hurt by this kid with every take. So I saved this ice ball when I figured no one was looking and tagged this kid. Bam!

  I hit him really hard, right in the face, just before they said, “Roll ’em!” He cried out, “Nobody does that to me!” and started attacking me. People had to drag him out while I “innocently” asked, “Is he okay? I don’t know what’s wrong with the little guy.” Strangely I didn’t get in the movie. My theory is he was the son or nephew of somebody really high up in the production. So I was supposed to be in that movie, but some little fifth grader stopped me cold. But looking back, I do have to say it was still worth it to tag that little fucker in the face. Santa did get pretty angry.

  While I’m on the subject of movies, in 1995 we all had an opportunity to appear in Kingpin, the Farrelly Brothers Amish bowling film with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray. I heard they really wanted to get Hootie. Although we weren’t quite as famous, we were available. Blues Traveler performs “But Anyway” during the end credits. To this day, if someone hasn’t heard of Blues Traveler, that’s my best shot at getting them to know who I am: I explain that we’re in that Amish bowling movie.

  I also appear in the film as an announcer at a bowling tournament. According to my manager at the time, they said, “We’d really love it if you act.” But according to them, my manager informed them, “He really wants to act.” In December 1995 I flew to Reno to shoot my part.

  My most memorable interactions were with Bill Murray. He had this loose piece of hair that was part of his wardrobe, and he really knew how to animate the thing. He could make his hairpiece spin at will, and it reminded me of the bee costumes from Saturday Night Live. He also instructed his assistant and me on how to build a cooler for several bottles of champagne using a trash bag and a cardboard box because he said he was going on a big drunk.

  The band’s scene at the end of the movie meant lip synching to “But Anyway” for an entire day, from right before sunrise until right after sunset. On the set of Kingpin I discovered that bit parts are the best to do in a movie because there’s no responsibility on you to do anything, but you can yell “Apple box!” or call “That’s lunch!” with impunity. At first they look at you all mad, but eventually they just sigh, shrug, and say, “Oh, you guys!” You’re sort of extras but you’re not extras; you’re sort of stars but you’re not stars.

  That’s also how I would describe our time on the road with the Rolling Stones. During the summer of 1997 we opened nine stadium shows for them. Before the very first night at Soldier Field in Chicago, they bought us a case of champagne. The first thing I did when I met Keith Richards was pull a knife on him. I showed him my cool giant knife because I heard he collected them. I also brought him some moss from my yard and put it in a Tiffany box because I heard that apparently they don’t gather any. He patted me on the head.

  My favorite song of theirs was “Miss You.” The studio version has Sugar Blue, who happened to live in Chicago. So I innocently asked, “Is Sugar Blue going to be here? I could play with you if need help with that.”

  Mick said, “Great, thanks. I’ll let you know.”

  I almost perceived a tone, and what I didn’t realize was that Mick had been playing harp on that song live and fancied himself a harp player. He’s actually not that bad. I’d put him a notch above enthusiast. They’ve been teasing him ab
out it ever since.

  There’s a Rolling Stone article in which they discussed the possibility of my sitting in with them and Mick said, “Fuck off.” He said I’m a good harp player and then added, “too good.” I want to frame that article.

  This was also the summer when we released Straight on till Morning, the follow-up to four, which helped usher in the end of this era. Thompson and Barbiero produced once again, and there was this feeling of tons and tons of money being thrown at it—everything magically cost twice as much because we were the world famous Blues Traveler. I predicted in Rolling Stone that we would sell another 7 million records and win another Grammy. The moral of that is don’t ask me stuff while I’m making a record because I will think it’s pure uranium—although it is still one of my two favorite Blues Traveler albums.

  But when that record didn’t do what four did in terms of sales, we felt like we’d failed the record company. We didn’t appreciate then that records happen in their own little moments of time. They tried “Most Precarious” as a single because it was the most like “Run-Around,” which I thought was a terrible strategy. A band like us can’t go chasing after a single; we need to accidently stumble over a single. If you’re the kind of musician who can work by committee with a team of writers, then you probably can figure out the Aristotelian unities that make a single. But for us that wouldn’t have been honest; we were the Aristotelian unities of ourselves.

  To have lightning strike at all is pretty rare, and to have it strike twice is almost unheard of. But the good part is that we gradually made a fan base, which has allowed us to plug along for decades. And that’s how our career has been—a slow and steady arc in which we’ve created a middle class in rock and roll. When people are having great years, we do okay, and when people are having terrible years, we do okay. That’s sustained us. As long as we get to make the music we want and can pay the bills, I’m happy.