JPG: There’s a more rock ‘n’ roll flair to it. So you started listening to music at 11 and then put together a version of Back Door Slam at 16?
DK: I started playing every weekend from when I was about 12. I got right out there, but it was always with people older than me. I just went around various kinds of blues bands around the island. I had a little band and we played at an annual blues festival. Stuff like that. Really kind of got going then. It was pretty much about a year before I first started gigging.
With Back Door Slam we just pulled out of school to do something for the battle of the bands. I was playing a lot with people and I wanted to start singing. It was that kind of thing.
JPG: You were so determined creatively, and then it took off so quickly. Were your parents musically inclined or was is this some recessive gene in your family tree that exploded?
DK: My dad played guitar. He finger-paints. He was into that, but not professionally. He was a deep sea diver and my mum was a teacher. There wasn’t a huge musical thing there. Music was always about though.
JPG: Do you have any idea where you got it from?
DK: Absolutely no idea. My sister is a wonderful, wonderful artist. It must have been a recessive gene. She can do pencil drawings you swear were photos. Wonderful with oils too and she’s really cool. We both don’t really know where it came from.
JPG: During those early days did your parents travel with you, did you have a guardian or were you mostly on your own?
DK: Well, we were gigging on the Isle of Man at 16, so we could gig in the pubs and it would be fine. Then, it was pretty awful. We lost our rhythm guitar player, another one of friends in a car crash. He was 17. That put things on hold for awhile. Really, that spurred me on to take it a little bit more seriously. After high school I moved out and over on to the mainland at 18 with my manager who I had met at 16. I moved over to England and stayed there for awhile. Then, that bass player left. He decided it wasn’t for him. That’s when we got Adam Jones in. He was the original in the band that we took over to the states.
JPG: I know that other guitarists such as Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks, when they were younger they were accompanied by one or both of their parents just to make sure that they weren’t taken advantage of.
DK: I have a manager who I have known since I was 16. And when I started touring at 19, absolutely I had that. He’s like a second father to me. He’s wonderful. I was lucky to get involved with the right people early on.
It’s funny you say that about Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang and what have you, everyone started young. Actually, the blues has this misconception that it’s old man’s music. Listen to Eric Clapton, when he was doing stuff with John Mayall he was 20, 21. When he was in the Yardbirds he was younger than that. Buddy Guy, when he was a session musician for Chess records and the Chicago scene, he was a teenager. The blues has always been something that people have started out with young from a long time ago. Robert Johnson died when he was, what, 27? It’s got a bit of a misconception that…it’s not a novelty anymore for young people to play the blues or it shouldn’t be.
JPG: Probably, at the time that they came up, the blues; most famous artists – Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy to name a few –were adults. Then, a new breed came in and everybody was like, ‘What?!?’
DK: Absolutely. That’s probably how Muddy Waters felt when Eric Clapton was coming out, Peter Green and what have you.
JPG: Speaking of one generation to the next, on your second album, Coming Up for Air, you were produced by and co-wrote with Peter Frampton. I read that it was simply a matter that you put the word out that you were willing to work on material with him.
DK: We have a mutual friend in Nashville. He was like, ‘Peter’s about town and co-writes. I thought I’d stick your name in the hat.’ ‘Absolutely great, I’d love to.’ Not expecting to hear anything. And then probably six months to a year later probably, I got a phone call from Peter saying he checked out my stuff and he really liked it and would I like to work on some songs. It was just incredible. I didn’t think that was going to happen. When we got in the room together, it was interesting; it was just a wonderful connection. He’s such a wonderful guy and we got on personally so well. The songs just really came out. We wrote three songs together, two of which went on the album. It was just wonderful. Really wonderful.
We wrote “Keep on Searchin’” and “You Can’t Take This Back” together. I was really stoked about that. We’re both guitar geeks. We were talking about sounds and I was thinking, ‘This guy’s describing how I want my album to sound.’ So, I asked him if he’d be up to producing. He jumped at it. It was wonderful. Really came together great.
JPG: Working with him was a great time for you on an artistic level, but on a personal level, he’s somebody that for years, you listened to his material and see how he plays, and it’s obvious that he was somebody who just wanted to just play guitar. Suddenly, his career exploded with Frampton Comes Alive and having to deal with not only that but a commercial downturn afterwards. Did you offer any advice or did you pick up on anything from him?
DK: Just being in the same room as Peter was a lot of an education. He’s been through an awful lot and then he’s a wonderful person for it as well. He’s a really nice guy. I think one of the biggest things he said that a lot of the mistakes that happened with his career were because he was listening to other people when he probably should have been listening to himself. He was very keen to say, ‘Make sure you do what feels right and not what people breathing down your neck….’ Trust your instincts.
JPG: When you worked with Frampton you were living in Los Angeles. Are you still there?
DK: I live in Chicago. Pretty soon after we finished the album, I moved there. I love it. I much prefer it there. L.A., it works for some people but it didn’t work for me. I wanted to move there because it was so glitzy and so far away from what I grew up with, then as soon as I got there I thought, ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ (laughs) I moved to Chicago which is actually where my girlfriend is from, born and bred there. I absolutely adore living there. It’s such a wonderful town.
JPG: I never felt really comfortable in the L.A. area. I’m not much of an LA/Southern California person. I can’t understand English musicians moving there.
DK: I think a lot of it is because it’s so far away from that part of the world, and it’s palm trees, beach, slick, glamour kind of thing. I would say it works for a lot of people and it’s wonderful for a lot of people, but I absolutely hated it. Absolutely didn’t enjoy it one bit.
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