On early Friday afternoon, the day after the Allman Brothers Band opened its 2010 New York City run at the United Palace, drummer Butch Trucks set aside some time to answer questions from our readers. This is quite a busy period for Trucks, the founder of Moogis, which is in the midst of streaming all the United Palace dates, with additional plans in the offing as well. In the following conversation, which draws from over 250 reader questions, Butch shares the ABB’s upcoming plans, discusses what he has in the works with Moogis, explains that Bruce Willis is a bit more timid than one might think and muses on his memoirs.
In the wake of your first night at the United Palace, how would describe the energy in the room, as compared with the Beacon?
One thing I noticed when we first did the walk through, is that the building is constructed much better for acoustics. Now I have headphones on when we’re playing, so when we were on stage last night I couldn’t really tell. But Derek and Warren were real pleased with the sound and they each remarked on that to me.
A number of people asked about the rehearsal process before this United Palace run. How much time did you guys put in and what did you focus on during that time?
This year we came in and worked for four days. We started in the early afternoon and continued well into the evening.
We have about 12 new songs ready to go. Not new original songs because our songwriters have their own albums coming out this year but new covers and older material we haven’t played for a while. Last night we played “Kind of Bird.” We also have a Delaney and Bonnie song we’d work up for last year and plenty of others as well.
“In terms of Moogis, what did you learn last year at the Beacon which you can apply to this year’s shows at the United Palace?” Ted V.
The one thing that happened last year was we had some problems with the LED lights that we were using on stage. We’ve taken care of that this year.
After last night’s show ended, though, I discovered that some people were having problems. It seemed to clear up during the second set but I understand that there was some disappointment. I want to make sure we can make it up to everyone. Obviously they’ll never get the show back but we want to do right by them. So one thing we’re going to do is leave up last year’s run for some time. We were going to take it down but we’re going to continue to make it available.
“Beyond this year’s United Palace run, can you give us some insight into what other plans are in the works for Moogis? Are there any specific shows or events you can share with us, or perhaps even just hint at?” Craig F.
Well we don’t have particular shows I can tell you about but we do have a great team down in Florida ready with the technology to make this go. We’re going to place it in venues throughout the country and whatever show is taking place, people will be able to tune in. This is something we’ve been working towards for a while and at this point we’re real close to making it happen. When I get home in April after the shows I’m going to keep moving forward with that.
Here is the most popular question that people sent in. Many folks wanted to know if there is another Allman Brothers Band studio album in the works?
No, there isn’t and I don’t think we’ll see one. That’s just never been one of the strengths of the Allman Brothers Band. I don’t think we’ve really been ever able to use the studio to great effect. Not only do the versions of the songs fall a bit flat but it hasn’t been cost effective for us, especially in this day and age.
However, what we do record every show and we have new material that we’ve written since Hittin’ The Note. Oteil has his song “Egypt,” and Derek has a song so new it doesn’t even have a name yet. So what I would expect we’ll do, is once we have an album worth of material, we’ll put together the best versions from the live recordings and release that.
Here’s the second most asked question: Why didn’t the ABB play Georgia during the 40th anniversary tour?
Wow, we took a lot of heat for that. The truth is that our booking agent made that decision and we didn’t even realize it right away. We toured with Widespread Panic last summer and apparently we were offered two nights in Charlotte, so we ended up doing that instead of Georgia. Sometimes that’s how these things go and it wasn’t until we were into the tour that we realized, “What happened to Georgia?” So one thing we said to Bert, our manager, is that even though we’re not going to do as many dates as we did in the past few years, we have to play Georgia. So that’s what we’re going to do next month.
A number of people also asked a variation of this one: “The Allman Brothers have said they will scale back on touring this year? Is this scale back permanent or just for the year? Do you plan to tour at all this summer?”
The summer details are all being worked out. What happened is that last year for the 40th anniversary we ended up being quite busy and so we promised Warren and Derek that this year we would scale things back quite a bit. Derek has a young family and a new band he’s putting together with Susan, that’s also going to feature Oteil and Kofi. They’ve been writing new material in Florida, getting all that ready.
So while I expect that next year we’ll ramp it up again, this year we won’t be doing that much. Maybe in August or September we’ll go out for a couple weeks at a time but all that’s still being determined.
“Butch, In the late 70’s, you had a band called Trucks that featured Jim Graves. It was a fantastic combo and I only missed one set from one night of your many performances in Atlanta. The music was fresh and energetic. I thought it was better than what Sea Level was doing at the time. Will we ever see any music made available to the hardcore fans from Trucks, either commercially as an archival release or as a download on the bit torrent sites?” Neil B.
Wow. Now that was a good band. I haven’t thought about that for a while. I do remember that we went into the studio at one point but I’m not quite sure what happened to that. I’ll have to get back to you.
What about BHLT [An early 80’s group that also included Dickey Betts, Jimmy Hall and Chuck Leavell, the B,H and L]?
We called that the sandwich band. We had everything except a good name. Yeah, that was a fine group as well. I know we did a television show that is out there and circulates but beyond that I’m really not sure.
Dickey Betts was in that band so clearly whatever issues you have with him today, you can separate those from the music you made together. So I guess it’s fair to say that any rancor doesn’t color your memories of the music you made together, particularly early on?
So much happened during that during those first two and a half years. I’m still amazed when I look back at that period how short it all was. It felt so much longer at the time and looking back even more so. That era was incredibly special and always will be special to me.
What happened later is we all had some problems and there were some clashes and after a while we all said enough is enough. Dickey had just become this dark storm on the stage. And frankly sometimes there are people you just don’t get along with and as for Dickey Betts, I’ve heard he’s retired and I wish him the best, I really do, but what’s done is done, the past is the past.
I’m just ecstatic about what we’re doing now, though. Last night the first set was supposed to last about an hour but once we were out there and everything was flowing and firing, it ended up being an hour and a half. And that’s about all that needs to be said. It’s a real good sign about everyone’s energy and commitment.
Back to Dickey for one more moment, a number of people were curious to know how close he came to joining you last year at the Beacon for the 40th anniversary run?
I really have no idea. I can tell you that an offer was extended to him to join us and pay tribute to Duane. His manager said that he was thinking about it and that there was a chance he’d accept. Now that really surprised me. But then when it didn’t happen, I can’t say I was surprised at all.
Back to the early years of the ABB, a number of people asked about the state of archival releases and whether you still uncover any music from that initial period?
We definitely have tapes and our plan has been to offer up a couple of those each year. It does seem to me that maybe we haven’t done as much with lately and I have to look into it. But to get to the other half of the questions, yeah stuff still surfaces. I’ve seen some film recently of that era and we do still come across music.
A few folks also asked about your favorite moments on stage with moe. at the Roseland WHY benefit in late January.
That was really fun. I’m not sure I can pick one a single moment but all in all it was a fun night. They asked me to play the benefit and I was happy to do it. It turned out that it was about the time of year when I’d do a walkthrough of the venue, so I worked that in as well. But I really enjoyed myself. Their drummer, he’s great, so I was real pleased with that night.
“Even though you’re moving uptown will this year’s New York City run still feature guests, like in years past?” Don C.
Of course. It’s New York City…I think you can expect the Juke horns will come down…Beyond that it’ll certainly happen. We have at least one real surprising guest that appears to be the works and we’ll see how that plays out. But of course they’ll be guests. Some of them we work out in advance and some are last minute.
How last minute is last minute? How close to show time will you extend an invitation?
Sometimes it’ll happen right there during a show. We’ll see someone and ask. Roy Haynes, the first time he sat in, he was on the side of the stage just watching and it was his first rock show and we invited him to come out. He was pretty nervous about it. I stepped off because I wasn’t going to get in his way.
I also remember that Bruce Willis came to two or three shows, I said, “I think that guy looks familiar,” before he worked up the nerve to ask if he could sit in and he was great.
Let’s close out with this one, “When is your memoir going to come out?” Gerard V.
You know I been spending a lot of time thinking about that. I definitely want to tell the story of Duane. I think I owe that to him. But as far as a strict history of what happened, I’m not sure. Everything that happened would be colored by my lenses so while I definitely want to write that book and maybe even a series of books I’m not altogether sure how I’d handle it. But I can tell you that I have a place in France that I plan to retire to one day and that’s when I’ll begin.
