In memory of Butch Trucks, we present this recent conversation with the drummer, which originally ran this past summer.
For 45 years drummer Butch Trucks was known as the Freight Train as he drove the powerful and pioneering Allman Brothers Band. The ABB’s unparalleled improvisation and melding of jazz and blues into a unique and widely influential brand of rock and roll would yield both hits and history, eventually earning the Brothers an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. The Allman Brothers Band may have reached the end of the road in 2014, but Trucks continues to carry the spirit forward in not one, but two groups: the Freight Train Band and Les Brers – the former including his son Vaylor and the latter featuring past members of the Allman Brothers including his longtime drum partner Jaimoe. Trucks spoke to us from his home in France, a few days ahead of returning to the States for a summer tour with Freight Train, and a fall run with Les Brers.
I was at the Lifetime Achievement Awards presented by the Grammys to The Allman Brothers Band in 2012.
You heard that sermon I gave?
Yes, and I thought that award embodied what so many of the fans, including myself, felt for so long; the gratitude for so many years of great music.
I appreciate it. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. (Laughs) Music is 100% selfish. You’re playing it for yourself; to feel all these emotions. You’re only able to do it if you were born with the talent, and then spent many, many, many years developing the skills. Then, you get into a situation where you can actually play music, where you can play something that’s new, that’s original, and not a regurgitation of what everybody else is doing.
Is the legacy of The Allman Brothers Band, a group that broke through with such originality, ever intimidating for you when you play with Freight Train or Les Brers?
No, not at all. I like playing music, and I like playing music with these people. One of the reasons I did this is because I love playing the music that we spent 45 years developing. I like that spontaneity, that improvisation, never knowing what’s going to happen next. In the early days of the Allman Brothers, that’s what we did; we’d just jump off the cliff and see where we’d land. Sometimes we’d splatter all over the ground, and just get right up and take off again, and wind up someplace we’d never thought of before. Other times, we dove off the cliff and soared with eagles. You just never knew. Once the Allman Brothers split up in October of 2014, there was not another band around that’s playing that kind of stuff. I know there are lots of young kids out there that want to hear music like that. And I still want to play music like that.
Have you been getting that feeling from Freight Train?
I’ll finish a two-and-a-half hour set with the Freight Train, and I think it took about 15 minutes. I look down (at the setlist) and say, What did we miss? It’s just fun. I’m having a ball playing with these people. It’s the next step in my life from the Allman Brothers, which quite honestly wasn’t so much fun anymore.
Why wasn’t it as fun?
Toward the end of the Allman Brothers it got a bit tedious, where people were more afraid of making a mistake than they were playing something different. I think because of that it was time to get away from it.
Do you feel you are starting again, in a way? People know you from the Allman Brothers, but a lot of the venues and places you’ll play on tour are not as much the big cities, but more the towns on the periphery.
It’s a brand new band. My name is on the poster, but as soon as we get the Freight Train going big enough, we’ve already decided my name and the word band will come off. I think a much better name is Freight Train. So, what we have to do is like any other band. We have to go out and work to develop that audience.
Is this opportunity to play in smaller venues where fans can have a more intimate experience part of the appeal?
Oh, yeah. All you have to do is take a look at the Allman Brothers and what we did at the Beacon Theatre. We made that decision over 25 years ago. In the early ‘90s, we were big enough to where we could’ve played two nights at Madison Square Garden; go in, do two nights, and go home. But, we played the Beacon Theatre and it was amazing. We sat down and had a big talk about it. 14 shows at the Beacon or two nights at Madison Square Garden? It was no contest. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. With Freight Train, we’ve got to pay our dues. On this tour we’re going back to several clubs that we played last year, and we’re already doing a whole lot better. Some are already completely sold-out. The word is spreading and it’s spreading pretty quick.
Summer tours with the Brothers usually meant playing the amphitheaters, the big sheds. Do you miss that at all?
To be honest, I’m not really all that interested in getting back to playing stadiums and sheds. You’re kind of forced into a position of where you have to do a certain amount of entertaining when you’re playing for crowds that big. You don’t have that back and forth like you do in the Beacon or a small club. There are nights when if I’m not really hitting it, I’ll find somebody in the audience that looks like they are not having as much fun, and my goal that night is to make that person get up on their feet and start screaming. And I always do it. You can’t do that in Madison Square Garden. Everyone is too far away.
This fall you’ll be on the road with Les Brers. Can you contrast Freight Train with Les Brers. Is there a different mindset for you when you are playing with Les Brers?
I go in with my same mindset. Because I’m playing with people that I’ve been playing with for so long, and they have been playing for so long, and we’ve had time to develop that language, it’s a whole lot easier for me and Jaimoe and Marc (Quinones, percussion) and Oteil (Burbridge, bass) and Jack Pearson to dive right into it and take off. We know each other very well. I get up there and play with Jack, who I think, next to Duane Allman, is the best guitar player ever. Music is not a competitive sport. I’m not going to rank people, okay? But I love playing with Jack Pearson. You just never, ever know what he’s going to do, more than anybody I’ve played with, other than Duane Allman. He’s constantly coming up with something different. That’s what I love.
That’s surprising to me that you single out Jack Pearson. Don’t get me wrong, Jack Pearson is a really great player, but you’ve played with so many really great players.
I would imagine if you talked to anyone who played with Jack Pearson, they’d tell you the same thing. Jack is an amazing guitar player and an incredible musician. He’s just so good. Give Bonnie Bramlett a call. Ask Bonnie what she thinks of Jack.
And the Freight Train experience?
In Freight Train, I’m still getting to know Damon Fowler. People know how Berry Oakley played the bass, but they haven’t heard Berry Jr. play it. Even my own son Vaylor; it’s one of the things I love about playing with Freight Train. It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to play with my own son. I want to tell you, he is good. He is out there, kind of in left field somewhere between John McLaughlin and Frank Zappa most of the time. It can really get fun trying to keep up with him. I’m loving watching Heather Gillis go from somebody who blew me away—a girl that pretty who can get up, sing, and play—to these last two tours where I’ve been watching her explode. She works her butt off all day long, sitting and studying up on everybody. That’s really fun. Me and Bruce Katz, who’s also in Les Brers, we’re the old guys.
For this Freight Train tour, you are the sole drummer. Do you play differently when it’s just you, after so many years of being in a band with two drummers?
I don’t play any differently. I tried a couple of tours thinking we needed two sets of drums, especially covering Allman Brothers tunes. I sat down at the end of the last tour and said, “It’s not working.” There’s really only one drummer that I’ve been able to play with and that is Jaimoe. I did a tour with Frankie Toler (with The Allman Brothers Band) but it was really a disaster. Frankie is a great drummer, but we played too much alike. We were always stepping on each other. I don’t ever have to worry about Jaimoe getting in my way. I can drive the rhythm and he plays around it. He’s the only drummer I could do that with. Now on this next Freight Train tour we are going to take out a percussionist—a friend of Berry Oakley’s—and see how that works.
At that Grammy ceremony in 2012, you told a story about Duane Allman pushing you, challenging you, in the middle of a song, and how that moment unlocked your ability to play in that band. Have you ever pushed someone you played with the way Duane did to you that day?
To a certain extent that’s what I’ve been doing with Heather. I’ve been pushing her confidence. She’s pretty strong. The only thing slowing her down at all is herself. She’s got all the talent in the world. It’s wonderful to see how much more confident she is, how much stronger she is playing.
Lastly, you make your home in France, and I’m wondering what perspective that has given you with regard to the United States, especially given that you’ll be on tour here for the next few months at a time of historic political implications for this country and the world.
I’ve always tried to be an optimist, but for a couple decades now I’m getting pretty damn cynical. I read. A lot. I read a lot of writing by Rousseau, the French philosopher. By the time I finished reading him, I was walking around saying, What the hell? He basically laid it out. If you read what he says about what happens to dominant societies, like the United States, it is exactly what is happening. To think we’re going to be different, to me, is naïve. It’s the reason I bought this place. I’m way out in the middle of the country in the southern part of France. The room I’m sitting in was 400 years-old when Columbus landed. We’ve got geothermal. We have our own water. I grow my own food. Every day I read the paper more and more solidifies my opinion; that we’re headed down the tubes and nothing is going to turn us around. People who think the United States is a democracy are not paying attention. It’s an oligarchy already. It’s the reason we get a guy like Donald Trump.
