DB- I would assume that the Dregs meet that standard as well. You were young when you joined that group, right?
TL- Twenty-two. I was in college studying music. They were there. They were seniors when I was a freshman, and I became a fan and just started stalking them right away. As music students we judged music by how much we liked it, not by how much it sold. We didn’t look at the charts, at Billboard. So they were a happening thing to me, and when they called me up, I quit college in my senior year to join. I have no regrets. I could have finished the year and gotten the diploma and then gone to New York or LA and waved the diploma and said, ‘Hire me, I’m good.” But no one would have cared about that.
DB- And next month, again, more than twenty years later you’ll be playing with Dregs again. How did that come about and how hard was it to bring together?
TL- Well Steve Morse has been doing Deep Purple for three or four years now and they’re big-time over in other countries, so I guess it’s a little harder than it used to be to say, “Hey Steve let’s go play some funky bars.” But we’re all lifelong friends. They’re like my brothers. Rod [Morgenstein] plays in Jazz Is Dead now, and Andy West and Dave Larue and Jerry Goodman, it’s sort of a brotherhood. Well last summer the stars aligned and we were able to do a handful of dates, and we recorded three nights at the Roxy. Then Zebra said they wanted to release it. In fact I just received my test pressing and it sounds really good. Our manager in the Dregs co-manages Dream Theatre, and it turns out they’re fans. We’re so old they listened to us when they were kids (laughs). So they said, “Dixie Dregs, we ought to take them out with us.” We’re going to do a whole month in the States. They’re going to present us, and hopefully their fans will say, “Damn, those old guys were good. What was their name again?” (laughs)
DB- What was it like picking up with the Dregs again?
TL- I tell you it was awesome. We recorded at the Roxy in LA for three nights. This was the same place I played with them when I was 22 in 79. So here we were, and I was looking across the stage. We actually had Alan Sloan our original violinist as a guest. So at one point I was looking across the stage at Rod, Steve, Andy and Alan, and my thought was, ‘Wow, the audience got young.”
DB- Along these lines how has your performance style evolved over time? Jumping back, what will you bring to the Justice League?
TL- I went to school and I learned from an early age about chops and reading and all that stuff. But the more you play on the road, you become what I guess they call seasoned or something like that. You start thinking about playing not only for yourself and the other musicians but also for the people who come to hear the band. You try to think about what they enjoy. On that level playing fast just to play fast isn’t happening. The same holds true for playing avant guard or weird which some jam bands do, when, no offense, they don’t know what they’re doing. I can hear it. Of course some bands like Aquarium Rescue Unit and hopefully us, when they’re out on a limb, they still have a clue what’s going on harmonically or rhythmically.
DB- So what can people expect when they come out to see Justice League?
TL- I would think that anybody who’s into music will know Aquarium Rescue Unit, the Dregs, Little Feat and Jazz Is Dead, and they can just surmise that the level of playing is going to be good. Based on what I’ve seen at rehearsal it’s going to be a blast, the kind of thing where you’re smiling while you’re playing. It’s like, “Wow, this sounds good, this is fun.” And I think when it comes from the heart people in the audience can feel that too. We’re not going to be humping mike stands or looking in the mirror too much. It’s kind of music for art’s sake. It’s like Jimmy said, “This is for no other reason but for fun.”
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