By Ray Hogan

Had George Porter Jr. walked away from music when the Meters, one of the most grooving New Orleans exports of the last 30 years, originally broke up, his stature as the architect of funky bass would have been firmly cemented. Meters' songs such as "Cissy Strut", "Look-Ka Py Py", "Hey Pocky A-Way" and "People Say"have become standards not only during Carnival and Jazz Fest time in the band's home city but to a whole legion of musicians and fans who realize that sometimes a song's strength and beauty lie in the fat, greasy grooves that propel it.

However, instead of resting on his reputation when the original Meters (Porter, Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli and Joseph Zigaboo Modeliste) imploded in the late 1970s, he began the next chapter of his life. Porter got clean, formed George Porter Jr. and the Runnin' Pardners in 1987 and slowly saw an impromptu jam of the Meters morph into today's wildly popular funky Meters, a band consisting of Porter, Neville, guitarist Brian Stoltz and drummer Russell Batiste. Both groups tour regularly and the Runnin' Pardners have recently released the independent CD, "Funk N Go Nuts,"which is currently available only at www.louisianamusicfactory.com. Today the group not only stands as a major influence on artists like Galactic, Ben Harper and many others, but also an equal force on the touring circuit.

This interview was originally scheduled for last month but Porter's hectic schedule (combined with a phone outage in Louisiana) during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (known throughout the world simply as Jazz Fest) didn't allow for that. So we waited for post-Jazz Fest dust to settle and called him at his New Orleans tri-plex under calmer circumstances.

Q: You have said that many of the Meters best instrumentals came out of a live setting where once a song was done you'd improvise in a new direction until another song came out of it. Do you think that the Meters were a jam band before the term "jam band"even existed?

A: I think so. We were definitely a jam band. The reason why I say that is because when we first left New Orleans to go out and support this "Sophisticated Cissy,""Cissy Strut"album, all we had in our arsenal of music of our own songs was only 12 songs. So we would go out and play those 12 songs for all of 46 minutes back then. So we started jamming - this was in the middle of '68. I'm thinking that very first album had to be 40-some-odd minutes. The songs back in those days was like two minutes long.

Q: So in that live setting, it was kind of a sink or swim situation?

A: Correct. Either you stopped and did a totally new song or you went off and did something. We went off and did something. Basically that's what we do is go out and jam. A lot of our own original songs - we worked our songs into playing "Up, Up and Away"by the Fifth Dimension and things like that. We did a couple Booker T and the MGs songs and we recorded "Hang Em High."So sometimes our tunes would jam their way into cover songs.

Q: Speeding up along to the year 2000, someone on the funky Meters message board once said something like "seeing the funky meters is like spending $25 to see their favorite band rehearse. And then when they left, they felt like it was the best they'd ever done."Is the informal and loose vibe you strive for in your performances?

A: We don't strive for anything. We try to go out and walk off the stage and feel good about it what we've done. We don't go to a soundcheck and say this is a golden set, we just go out and play. We don't rehearse so whatever we play is just playing off each other's intuition in taking that two minute song and turning it into something else and keeping it useful.

Q: What's the size of your repertoire right now?

A: It depends on how long the set is.

Q: I mean overall.

A: We probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 35 songs that we pick from. I guess the best to see how big our set list actually is to see us more than one night in a row because generally we play the same room two or three nights. If we do a two-night run, you'll probably only hear us repeat "Cissy Strut,""Africa"and "Fire on the Bayou,"but "Fire on the Bayou"we don't always play. So there's only three or four songs - "Funky Miracle"might be repeated. The rest of the night is playing all those other songs that we don't play. You know "Pungee,"I can name any of them.

Q: It's easy to see that you're usually having a great time on stage and Art is often caught smiling during your performances. After 30 years of playing with Art Neville, what keeps your musical conversation fun and exciting?

A: Just the fact that we're doing it. I think, man, what's exciting is the fact that it's an adventure every night because it's not a planned thing and I think the exciting thing is that it happens and it happens well. But we've played plenty of nights that were a train wreck and we all end up in different places and sometimes Art laughs a comment over the microphone about it. We pay attention to each other and most of the time if anyone gets left out in the cold it's usually Art because we may make a move and he don't hear us as well as the other three of us hear each other in our monitors we have a better mix of each other than Art has because his rig behind him is bigger than his monitor. His keyboard rig is usually the loudest thing he hears so he doesn't hear us as well as we'd like to have him hear us. That's just because he has the great keyboard rig behind him. Sometimes we do things that might catch him unaware that we're making a move and usually he lets us know that he didn't like that we moved without him knowing.

Q: At this point the funky Meters have together for almost a decade. When can we expect a CD of new music?

A: Well, we're in that process right now: We've gotten approval from Art's record label to do a project and we've been in the studio recording demos and trying out some songwriting things. I would hope some time real soon.

Q: Is there a label you've been talking to yet?

A: There are several labels that have said, 'send us something,' you know? At this point those will probably be the labels that we won't send anything to.

Q: You play with Zigaboo sporadically, late last year Art Neville came out and played with you and Zig at a Super Jam and most recently, a couple issues ago in Offbeat magazine, Leo Nocentelli said that an original members Meters reunion is likely. Is there anything in the works?

A: No, there's absolutely nothing that's on anyone's table saying that it's going to happen. I never say that anything won't happen but there's no confirmation saying something like that will happen. In other words, if that happens it's not on anyone's table right now.

Q: What do you think it is about the Meters' music that has made it so appealing to the hip-hop acts that sample it?

A: There are good grooves, there's great pockets waiting for something to go there. A lot of those songs don't have real melodies they were just really nice, strong pockets and there was just an organ or a solo on top of a really strong pocket. The fact that it's a great reservoir to the rappers is because there are really so many hellacious grooves there that they can rap on top of.

Q: What kind of outlets does the Runnin' Pardners allow you that you don't find in the funky Meters?

A: I guess that I can take more bass solos (laughing). Well I think Runnin' Pardners, at this point right now in my life, allows me more writing - the chance to play more music that I actually wrote then the funky Meters and/or Meters because in the original band there was only two songs that I wrote. A bunch of stuff that was done in the late '60s - the first three albums - there was a great deal of band collaboration but a lot of stuff that was done in the Warner Bros. years was guys bringing in songs that were pretty much prepared so there wasn't a whole lot of collaboration. Ninety percent of the bass lines during the Warner Bros. records weren't my own bass lines. Some one would tell me to play this bass line.

Q: What do you think the new disc, "Funk N Go Nuts,"says about the Runnin' Pardners at this point in time? The first switch many people have noticed is the switch from a horn section to dual keyboards?

A: What does it say? Um, I'm hoping it's saying that two keyboards is an acceptable thing. There was a good stretch in time when the two-keyboard concept wasn't doing as well as I was hoping. Our audiences are starting to grow back up to the numbers we had horn players. The musician who replaced the horn section in this band is no longer there to replace horns. The stuff I am writing is being written for the keyboards not for a keyboard player to replace horns. This is the first project that we were focussing with two keyboard players in mind. This is a two keyboard band. And I'm not saying that I won't ever use horns again. I think if there's a piece of music that presents itself to horns being played - I might not ever tour section again but that's not to say they wouldn't cut the song.

Q: I notice that with the Runnin' Pardners these days, especially live and on the disc, that you seem to give all the players a lot of room. Does that come from being a bass player who's done sessions for other musicians?

A: I think so. I guess there's a lot more that a bass player or I can do but that's majorly not what I'm about. Musically I've always been part of a rhythm section. It's never been a thing where I thought the all the music has to be generated and the bassist has to play the melody and be the pin. Although I think some of my bass lines are very strong and very dominant in the actual mix of the music. The other three guys in the band or the other melody makers, it's their job to keep the melody and it's my job lock in with the drummer and to keep the groove. That's what I think my job is and hopefully my vocals will help me be the front man.

Q: You use Russell Batiste in both the Runnin' Pardners and with the funky Meters, is it safe to assume that he's one of your favorite younger drummers?

A: By all means. Russell Batiste is a tremendous wealth of talent and he does well as a sideman. He's a bandleader also now. He has a solo album out of his own material that he's been writing. As a member of the funky Meters and Runnin' Pardners and as a bass player that has to play with the drummer the person that has to play with me and be the closest related is the drummer so I feel fortunate enough to have him in both bands and I'm very comfortable with him.

Q: Is it true that you were a guitarist before you were a bass player?

A: Yes, correct. Actually, I played piano before I was a guitarist. I wasn't really a good piano player, I was a fairly decent rhythm guitar player.

Q: What brought you around to playing bass?

A: I think Viet Nam, most of the bass players in town got drafted. There was a serious void of electric bass players in New Orleans because of the Viet Nam War. I was a year-and-a-half too young for the draft that was going on. I was a guitar player at the time and there were less gigs available. I had been playing bass. I left from studying classical guitar to just studying guitar with a guy on the street named Benjamin Francis, his nickname was Popi. We would play a song and then he would teach me how to play the song on guitar and then he would turn around and teach me how to play that same song on bass. So I learned to play bass and guitar pretty much at the same time on the street with Popi. I was a sponge when I was kid man. I mean this guy would be playing anything his grandfather would be playing and I would just be into it: all the movements and the melodies in my head. I would go home and just practice and practice and practice.

Q: Aside from him, who are some of the other earliest musicians you remember as influences or those that you tried to pattern yourself after?

A: As a person I patterned myself behind a great deal of other New Orleans musicians that had influences - they were bigger than life. Chuck Badie, there was another bass player named Richie Payne who were just great people. I knew that somehow I would always want to be a good person. Even when I got crazy in the drug days and all that kind of stuff, I always hoped that I remained a good person and that the only person that I was hurting during all of my drug binges was myself. Of course, I was probably wrong about that. My father listened to a lot of keyboard players and organists - Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith and he loved Stanley Turrentine. That was the only music I heard in the house. Around the city of New Orleans, there weren't that many guys that I was getting out to see. I was still young and wasn't going to a bunch of places. And by the time I got to go to the Drew Drop Inn, that era of music was dying off. I was 16-years-old and that was already in its 'going out of business' stage.

Q: Is that the golden era of New Orleans R&B you're referring to?

A: Yes, it was considered the golden era of late-night jam sessions. That was the ending of that. There was a family called the Lastie family - David Lastie, Walter Lastie and their sister Betty Ann - that I played with a great deal on the street. I think those people were great influences on me again, more as a person. They were just beautiful people. They were in this business we call music which didn't all the time be very beautiful. There wasn't much prettiness in how we were getting it done. If you got through a gig and didn't die in the process of getting home afterwards or playing on the street and having to walk to your vehicle with a pocket full of change, then you done accomplished something. You actually got home with your money and that was a good thing.

Q: I wanted to ask you how you originally met Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli and Zigaboo Modeliste?

A: O.k., Zigaboo Modeliste is my little cousin. I met him when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. His brother Clinton Joshua was our piano teacher when I was eight and Zig was 7. That was a very short-lived situation because there just was not enough community between two Capricorns learning how to play piano from his older brother. His mom kind of stopped because she saw there was too much competition going on. That was the end of my piano lessons and that point I started studying classical guitar.

I didn't meet Leo Nocentelli until Art brought us together as a band. But I had been talking to Leo Nocentelli on the phone - I had a friend of mine named Herbert Wing who was a guitar player (Popi played in Herbert Wing's band called the Royal Knights). I moved around the corner from Herbert's house and Popi told me about Herbert so I got to go over and introduce myself. We got to be tight and got to be friends. Herbert knew Leo. Herbert used to call Leo and they'd be on the telephone - Herbert would set the telephone down, put a microphone next to the speaker and we would ask Leo questions about chord forms and stuff and Leo would tell Herbert about those chord forms over the telephone, which was amplified over the room so I heard Leo's comments. I never knew what Leo looked like I had just heard his voice over the phone. This was probably six or seven years before I actually got to meet him.

I met Art Neville, again, through Herbert Wing. Herbert was a guy who knew different musicians like Earl King and Benny Spellman, who would call Herbert if they needed a musician. Herbert could play bass, saxophone, guitar, piano and drums so he would get called for a lot of different gigs. If he couldn't make one of these gigs he would send someone else to play the gig. I got to luck into playing with Earl King, Benny Spellman, Ernie K-Doe and Art Neville. So it was through a sub gig that Herbert Wing couldn't make. The very first time I played with Art I played as a guitar player and that didn't go very well because both Art and myself - I wasn't a lead guitar and Art wasn't a lead piano player. The set kind of suffered - I played two gigs with him - because nobody would take solos. So Art thought I sucked as a guitar player, which I'll admit because I was a rhythm guitar player not a lead guitar player. And then several years later, right during the Viet Nam thing, the guy who played bass with Art got drafted in the Marine Corps so Art called Herbert up again looking for a bass player. I got the phone call from Herbert and showed up at the gig and the first thing Art does is look up at me and say, "Oh, you again?"But he was a lot more pleased with my bass playing because after he came back off the road with his brother - playing piano and tour managing Aaron on the "Tell It Like It Is"project - he went around looking for musicians to put together his own band, which eventually became the beginning of the of the Meters a year-and-a-half or two years later.

Q: And you were originally called Art Neville and the Neville Sounds?

A: That was originally called Art Neville and the Neville Sounds and there was only one Neville brother in that band.

Q: Sobriety has obviously played a huge in fulfilling your long-term musical vision. What advice could you lend to younger musicians and do you think they'd even listen?

A: (Laughs). I did a session a couple of weeks ago with a group of young musicians who were all sober. It was a great honor to be around these guys. They were basically a garage band - songwriters recording a couple of sessions and they called me up and asked if I'd consider doing it. This is five days after Jazz Fest. I said, "I ain't got nothing to do this weekend"so I went up there to do the thing. It was good songs and all these guys were sober and I was encouraged by the fact that not all musicians are thinking that the glamour of the music world is the drugs or alcohol. So I was real pleased to see that. Although I think that any young player that comes up thinking that drugs is how it's going to work and how it's going to happen is seriously mistaken. It may work for a few years and may last 20 years like it did with me. It was 22 years before I decided I had to get out of it and made a change. The last two years of it was like working my way into the bottom or working my way through the bottom because I had already been down there for a couple of hours.

Q: Any last words?

A: Well, you know what? It's great. I'm loving it. I'm playing right now with two very good bands that are a great deal of fun. I'm recording with one and hopefully the other will be recording very soon and give something to the world