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[00:00:02] Random I mean, complete random. I mean, that kind of stuff doesn't historically happen to someone like me. You know, so it's not like well just, well they're touring again, you know the phone should be ringing any minute now. Yeah I'm just gonna get Mick a ring and...
[00:00:29] I just, you know, stir Mick and see what dates he wants us to do. You know, that doesn't happen. And I remember I was in the lobby of the hotel in Paris and we were about to head over to the gig
[00:00:42] and my manager was traveling with us that week. He comes down and he goes listen, I know it's your month off. Would you have any interest in opening up for the Rolling Stones in Seattle on May 15th? And I'm like yeah!
[00:00:56] It's all a band! Yeah, we'll do it. It was great, they were super great to all... I mean like to our... Again, it's top down. You know how organizations run, it's top down. I mean it's from Mick and Keith and Ronnie to the stage manager.
[00:01:13] They're all just super pro, you know, and super nice people. They're not the Rolling Stones for nothing. They didn't get there by accident. And they invented it, you know? I mean like all those... You know, anybody who's touring now at that level
[00:01:29] or even slightly smaller, the way they do their production and everything, they invented it. And you know, because they've been doing it for so long at that level that they've come up with these things that are now industry standard but they've been doing it for 50 years.
[00:01:46] Do they kind of keep to themselves or is there intermingling happening? I was... They were gracious enough to invite me up on stage after soundcheck. I met them all. I met Mick, Keith, Ronnie, I mean I know Bernard,
[00:01:58] I know Daryl and Chuck and some of the support players that are in the band. And so I knew all those guys, but you know like, you don't go up to Mick Jagger, you're like, hey man, thanks for having me.
[00:02:11] You know, it's like, there's a lot of work for me. You can do that with me if you're opening up for me. You can say, hey, there's Eddie Van Amassa, you know? But no, it was super nice.
[00:02:24] But they set up, I mean like, they set up their own world. I mean it's a city. I mean every pass has very specific areas which you can go, which you can't go. There's very few triple A's out there, you know,
[00:02:37] access all areas, which is for those who are not familiar with the industry terms. But it was really interesting because, you know, even some of the people that were in charge of the stage weren't allowed in certain areas of the backstage, you know?
[00:02:55] And it's, I don't think I've seen that many semis in my life. I think we counted 50 and I think they have 100 trucks that should, that drag it all around. And you know, I bitch in moan about three trucks and four buses.
[00:03:10] I'm like, I'll never do that again, you know? I know you have a tendency to be a little self-deprecating, but I really want to isolate. You said things like this don't happen to someone like me. What does someone like me? They don't. I mean,
[00:03:26] What is someone like you? I'm 35 years in the business, okay? So anytime the traditional mainstream music business knocks on our door, it's a surprise. It really is a surprise because we've, you know, we've made our own weather system. You know, we do everything in-house.
[00:03:47] We do our own promotion. I mean, you talk to our publicist, you know? And like that's like one of the few outside things that we do. You talk to John, you know? But he's one of the few people that don't work in the office, you know?
[00:03:59] And you know, things like just random normal things that you would think someone who has sold as many records as I have and been around and done what I've done, you would think it would be like an everyday occurrence. It just doesn't happen.
[00:04:15] Like, for some reason, they forget my number or something. It just never happened, you know? So, and we just go on our merry way and keep going. And it's been great and very successful. So when we get things like this or, you know,
[00:04:35] like a hip festival will call us and be like, are you interested in playing? We have to double check and go, you know, you're calling the office of Joe Bonamassa here. Like would you like a sizzle reel to look at?
[00:04:46] I mean, just make sure you're talking about the right people. Because it never, it doesn't really happen. And it's not a self-deprecating thing. It's a fucking fact, okay? You may have to bleep me out. But it's a fact and that's fine.
[00:05:01] You know, I mean, I've had the most number one blues albums in the history of the Billboard charts. Asked me how many times my band has been asked to play and to promote a record on the Tonight Show. Zero. Never asked.
[00:05:15] I've sat in with the band, but I've never been on the Tonight Show. I mean, I've done them all. I've sat in with the band, but they've never asked us to like do a song. You know, so if they ever, the only person that ever have us on,
[00:05:27] God bless him is Conan O'Brien. And you know, but that's just, you know, so when you say it's like why is it a surprise? Because it is a surprise. And if they called tomorrow and said, hey listen, you want to play your new song with the Widdly Widdlies
[00:05:40] on the Tonight Show, I'd be like, are you sure you're calling the right guy? Because we're 35 years into this thing and it never happens. Conan is a guitar guy, so he's got a special affinity for what you do, I would assume. And a super nice guy.
[00:05:56] I mean, and very, very appreciative of, you know, I mean the life he's led and you know, as a Simpsons fan, I mean to meet him you need to go monorail. I mean, you have to, I mean he wrote that episode
[00:06:10] and he was one of the OGs in the room writing those classic season one through five or seven, you know, I mean really the first ten seasons were just, you know, high-water, perfect, perfect. And so, you know, I mean,
[00:06:27] and then how I got the gig on the late show and then how, you know, the whole story and everything else. And during the pandemic and during that whole time when he was without gig, you know, he took care of all of his people,
[00:06:41] all the people that moved out from New York to LA. I mean, you have to respect, I mean, he's such a top tier guy in this business which, you know, not a lot of people are like that, you know?
[00:06:52] I mean it's not, you know, he has my, you know, always will have my respect for that. What's your sense of why there isn't a more interest in that world? Is it a blues thing? Is it a you thing? It's a me thing.
[00:07:09] Sometimes you just have to accept that. It's not a blues thing, because other blues acts get invited. It's a me thing and that's fine. I'm totally fine with it. I swear to God, I'm totally fine with it because A, we work so much
[00:07:26] and we do so much of these things and I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I mean, I mean at best an E, F or G level celebrity, okay? If I go into a guitar shop, maybe I'll be recognized, maybe, okay?
[00:07:45] But I'm not getting recognized on the street and people are not, you know, very, very rarely does that happen and I'm so cool with that because that's not why I do this. I'm a guitar nerd that's done well for himself
[00:07:57] and, you know, I'm probably as famous for my guitar collections as I am for my music and that's, I'm totally fine. I mean like, I wouldn't change a thing about my life and I know people that have Grammys and all that other shit
[00:08:10] that would really, really trade it all to fill the Albert Hall two nights in a row, you know what I mean? And so you can't even look at it as the grass is always greener. You just look at it as you're a lucky SOB and just keep going
[00:08:26] and if you're doing what you love, how you love it and how... And for the right reasons and happy to not participate in the other stuff. You get a lot of shit online. Why is that? It's me. It's totally me. And it goes back to school.
[00:08:48] I have an easy name to make fun of and that's totally okay because I will say this and I'll get more shit online when this airs. I'm going to tell you this right now and I tell this to my friends.
[00:09:00] What keeps it all sane is when someone on social media wants to take a shot or something like that, that's totally fine. And then if you want to go down those rabbit holes of who that person is they at some point think that their opinion means something
[00:09:20] in the grand scheme of things while they armchair quarterback and not participate in the game. And I always look at them and say, listen man, you can say what you want but we're not peers. We are not peers. Okay? I've been doing this since I was 11, okay?
[00:09:40] Internationally. And we're not peers. If you have an opinion about my music that's great. If you want to get in a cheap shot, that's great. While you're doing that I'll be working on furthering my career and enjoying my fucking great life that I built for myself.
[00:10:00] So you want to waste time on that making fun of my name or blah, blah, blah or trying to overanalyze. My favorite constant is like I went to Joe's show and he went on late and ended early. You never were there. You were never there.
[00:10:17] You can ask the millions of fans that come. What's the biggest complaint sometimes? And what's the one thing that they respect most about the gig? They go, Bon Amos starts on time like eight o'clock. I don't care. I don't care if the building's on fire.
[00:10:36] We're on it eight o'clock. Okay? And we play two hours and ten minutes regardless if I have the flu or not. And so when people say that kind of stuff, they're engaging this kind of communal mob mentality just to make them feel like they're part of something
[00:10:55] which they're making it up. And the ones that say I'm an arrogant asshole never met me. Absolutely. Okay? But generally the people who know me and who've met me go he's a down to earth whatever. And that's fine. But we're not peers because
[00:11:17] you don't participate in the game. You comment on the game. It's much different on the other side of the fence and it's much harder to get to the other side of the fence. All of them want to get there but just don't have the wherewithal,
[00:11:33] the talent or the hutzpah to take a chance on themselves. A lot of people are very talented. I don't want to say they don't have talent but I'm just saying a lot of people just don't want to take a chance on themselves.
[00:11:44] And that's a really... it's a career killer. I've been writing online for a long time. My job job as a journalist and the one cardinal rule that they always tell you is don't engage. Never read the comment section.
[00:11:59] And there was a period it seemed like 2022 I think when you went offline. You know, when they threaten to burn your house down and they threaten to come up and actually do harm where I have to respond then I'm out. It's supposed to be fun.
[00:12:19] It's supposed to be fun. Music is supposed to be enjoyed. It's not supposed to be argued about. There's people that are very successful, more successful than I am. The music doesn't do it for me but I will never tell them.
[00:12:33] And not one of them have ever said anything to my face. Ever. Not a single person has come up and said I don't like you for X, Y and Z reasons. Not a single person. And that tells you the keyboard warriors
[00:12:47] and this couple with some liquid courage sometimes it turns people into not who they really are because they're probably very nice people that tend to just have a chip on their shoulder about what they don't have or what they don't.
[00:13:05] You know, it's like the guitar collecting thing is another one. It's like you would do the same thing if you could. So don't piss out my creative campfire because you're jealous. And I don't have to apologize for the hard work
[00:13:25] and sweat equity that I put into this to get this far. I will never, ever, ever. I'll apologize for a lot of things. My overplaying, my pitchy vocals, apologize for it all but I won't apologize for the hard work
[00:13:40] because that's what it takes and it still takes that. There's no days off. That's another thing that I've noticed with you is you're incredibly self-critical. You are in a lot of ways your own biggest critic it seems. I can't listen to myself. Bless their heart.
[00:13:56] I'll hear myself on, I host a show on Sirius XM and like I'll have it on in the car and one of my songs come on. Bless them, thank you for playing me Sirius XM. I really appreciate it.
[00:14:07] I have to turn it off. I can't listen to it. It's just... Well, it's probably not easy for anyone to listen to themselves, I assume. Yes and no. There are people that go, when they listen to themselves, they go, oh my God, that's the greatest.
[00:14:23] They just get this well of self-congratulation. Just crying at your own songs? Oh yeah. You can just feel it. I can't stand it. I cannot stand myself. But I also can't question it because somebody likes it. So what I've done, it hits a nerve with some people.
[00:14:51] Not all, but it does. And so, you know, you have to be hypocritical to get better. If you just go, oh, we're great. It doesn't matter. You know, you're going to plateau and you're going to be very... let's just say, you're going to be making records for one
[00:15:11] and that's you. And you don't want to do that. You bring up a really good point which is, and it's something that I've tried to get better at myself. My impulse when somebody says they like something that I did is to be self-effacing and, you know,
[00:15:27] oh, you like that wasn't my best thing. Why is that the thing you like? But I think an important part of maturing is learning how to take it. Compliment. Yes, and I always say thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
[00:15:43] You always have to be very conscious of... Like I said, I'm an E, F or G level celebrity but you do get recognized and sometimes in random places the mechanic or the clerk at Walgreens and when you get a card and you get the receipt
[00:16:03] back and they're like, oh I really like that song Slow Gin. And you go, oh, okay, thank you. You know, what else can you say? You know, I'm not going to go into a diatribe about like, oh, you got to listen to the new version.
[00:16:15] I sing it much better than I did and it's like none of that. It obviously hit a nerve and it means something to someone and I'm so thrilled that anybody even knows what's going on with me. It goes back to that first question
[00:16:33] like, why are you surprised people call it? Because they didn't and they still don't. Maybe that's the perfect level of fame where in each time somebody comes up to you and says something nice it's like a nice surprise. It always is. It always is a nice surprise.
[00:16:51] You know, it's... It still blows me away being recognized randomly throughout the globe. Like in other countries you're like I'm from Utica, New York, you know. Population 50,000 and to come out of that kind of depressed area in upstate New York The world-famous steamed hams are from, right?
[00:17:19] Yes, yes. It's an Albany thing though. It's an Albany term. It's a Superintendent Chalmers is from Utica. Principal Skinner is from Albany according to that episode. Which is a classic episode. It's the take on the Pulp Fiction. But, yeah, the steamed hams
[00:17:39] are, you know, it's a regional dialect. It's an Albany expression. Yeah, exactly. One thing you said previously that jumped out at me is, you know, it sounds almost like your operation is albeit a smaller scale version of what the stones are doing in that you've almost had to
[00:17:57] build up this own industry for yourself. I would suggest that model for anybody. I would suggest investing in yourself, believing in yourself, not in an arrogant way. But if you don't believe in what you're doing it's hard to convince others to believe in it.
[00:18:21] You know, you can't waffle. You can't, you know, like, some kid hands me a demo and says, okay, I like track one and don't listen to track two, but track three is really good and don't listen to track one. Why are you doing this?
[00:18:37] Be proud of everything you put on that CD. You know? And don't put an asterisk on anything because sometimes your least favorite track is the hit. I've seen it happen in my own records. The songs that I don't want on the album, take it off,
[00:18:53] don't hate it are the fans' favorite. So what do I know? I'm not Clive Davis. I'm not an A&R guy. You know what I mean? So you have to believe in yourself and we do everything in house. We are our own record company.
[00:19:09] We are our own touring company. Promotion, marketing, everything comes out of a little office on the beach floor. And it's because of that independence that we can do anything we want when we want. It's the difference between trying to steer a cruise ship down a canal
[00:19:31] or a racing boat. You know what I mean? You're much more nimble and able to pivot and react and do things as opposed to if you have to go through this litigious machine that's available or big management and they have to have a meeting about the meeting
[00:19:51] and then another meeting to sum up what the first meeting was about and then in the fourth meeting to remind everybody what they're talking about and which artist you are. And by the time they have all those meetings the opportunity is coming gone or there's just,
[00:20:07] it's not the way I like to do it because if we want to, there's no, sure, we're going to lose a boatload of money. Sure. Okay. No problem. And we'll do it again. You know? You lost money on the Stones gigs? Oh yeah. 90% pay cut. But it's fine.
[00:20:29] It's fine. Everybody gets the same. Everybody gets the same. And that's it. And you know why? Because they don't need us. You are window dressing. It doesn't matter who you think you are. You're window dressing. When they come out, they open up and start me up.
[00:20:51] You are forgotten. I don't care what you do. We got a standing ovation. Okay? We are forgotten. They're like, who's that guy? Whatever. Who cares? They're just making key. In hearing you describe the process of putting blues deluxe out into the world you mentioned
[00:21:07] that it came on the heels of being by two majors and you described it as being your last shot. Is that hyperbolic in a sense? We needed something to connect. We needed proof of concept. And my first record connected a little bit.
[00:21:27] The live thing that we did connected more. Because our second record had a free DVD in it from a place called Pierre's in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The only place I could draw a crowd except for Austin, Texas. That connected. And I was like, hmm
[00:21:49] why are they like that more than the Slicker production? So we made blues deluxe which is basically an extension plus four of an average, you know, a live gig that we would have been doing in like Des Moines, Iowa. It was almost like a recorded version.
[00:22:07] I'm not comparing the two, but it was the same kind of concept that was like what Stevie Ray Vaughan did with Al Macambo. If you ask Chris Lane, he's like that was our gig. That was a gig in Toronto, okay? They just happened to be this magical
[00:22:21] capture of them at peak, you know three piece and everybody went oh my god one of the best ever and it's because they had you know they had 200 shows on that on those songs. And that's kind of what we did with Blues Deluxe.
[00:22:39] We had 200 shows on Blues Deluxe, the song. We played it once in the studio it's a live version. There was no like well what do you want to do? It's like start it, you know we got seven days and ten grand to make this thing
[00:22:53] and mix it, you know. So it was it was just a capture of most of our live show and other songs that we recorded and it connected because it was exactly who I was at the time. There was no well we need short triple A poppy things
[00:23:15] that's going to come hopefully they'll play you know next to other artists in the triple A format and I'm like triple like I listen to this stuff on triple I'm like that's not who I am edgier than that.
[00:23:31] And so we just made the record we wanted to make and next thing you know we started selling it out of the back of our van at shows and we got a little distribution company out of South Florida called Alliance Entertainment to put it out
[00:23:43] and next thing you know we sold a lot of records and we're like holy crap look how much money you can make selling these by yourself and then we did another one and now we own 50 titles in our catalog and it's it's okay I'm always curious when people
[00:24:05] have success early on you know for some people it's a good thing for others maybe not so much and you had you know you were out there about as early as anyone gets 11, yeah I was 11 years old and playing you know obviously in plenty of careers
[00:24:21] playing with BB King would be like Apex for a lot of people that sort of level of success and excitement ultimately was that beneficial for your career or did it work against you? No I don't think anything worked against me I think there's
[00:24:41] I always say this when you're a child that has a special skill set I wouldn't say I was a prodigy I would say I was good from my age I could hang and there was like three or four of us that were all kind of the same age
[00:24:55] there was you know Derek Trucks he was a few years younger than me and then there was Eric Gales a few years older than me I was like the 12, 13 year old and there was a kid from Australia named Nathan Cavallieri who's still
[00:25:13] around and he had some real headwinds because he had cancer as a kid and beat it and then the next thing you know there he is and but this is pre-internet so it was all word of mouth
[00:25:25] there was a kid up north, kid in Memphis, kid in Jacksonville and then a couple years later there was people like Kenny Wing Shepherd and Johnny Lang and they were like 16 coming out killing it and all of that gets you ready when you turn 18 because when you turn 18
[00:25:45] you're just an adult playing in a very adult world you're not good for a kid you're not the kid, you're an adult and now you're competing against the whole world you're not like you're not precocious anymore no and you're not a borderline novelty act and it's
[00:26:05] very, very difficult to tread the line and become a legit artist when you're in 12 years old because it's hard I think Michael Jackson was one of the few people that were legit artists and he was in 12 and he had no other he had no problems after that
[00:26:23] I mean it's very stable it's very stable very challenging but being a showbiz kid I was always told and I always understood that when I turned 18 it's you against the world nobody cares you just have to make them care and that was really what happened
[00:26:45] I didn't have anything going on and my career could have been over or I could have just moved to Nashville and started playing with other people Psygigs but I decided to learn how to sing and become a solo artist that was it that decision and that took time
[00:27:09] it took 3-4 years for it to get going luckily Michael Kaplan signed me to Epic Records and introduced me to a guy named Tom Dowd and in the late 90s, 98-99 and we worked for almost 3 years together before the record came out and then boom
[00:27:27] there it was my first album and then I got dropped again and then we started our own company because I'm not going to drop myself you know as critical as you are of yourself you're not going to drop yourself from a label in 21 years that's a good run
[00:27:45] being on the same label for 21 years it's a good run but nevertheless I like those odds is that nepotism technically? everything's nepotism come on you're a journalist okay you know you know how the Grammys work I just meant you owning your own label it's a lot of
[00:28:15] yeah of course if people go how do I get on your cruise I'm like nepotism I'm like why is this person on the cruise and I had a hard time because they're our friend my friend Joanne and she's great it's somebody that I don't mind being
[00:28:35] like holed up in a boat with for several years I get everybody on and there's more requests than there are slots because I run out of I have a certain amount of slots and I have a certain amount of rooms that I can allocate for the bands
[00:28:51] so if you want to bring your 14 piece blues orchestra get ready to bunk up because I don't got the rooms for you you know well but I'm not saying we don't need a one man band but I'm just saying so it the music business is nepotism
[00:29:11] show business is nepotism I mean it's you cannot deny that if you think it's all just an even playing field and it's let the better person win okay the most talented people yes are they going to rise to the top eventually absolutely but do they
[00:29:33] do they get an even shelf no way it's delusional if you think that way because life is like that there's no that period when it sounds like in the lead up to blues deluxe that your career and perhaps your life was at a crossroads was there ever
[00:29:55] a moment when you thought maybe you'd have to do something else I tell this to people and I'm serious about it I never had a B plan so when you're back is against the brick wall you and rents do and everything else
[00:30:13] you have no other option other than to go forward and that's why I had two chips on my shoulders back in those days you know I've been working on myself I got like a half a chip left but when you're
[00:30:27] your back is against the wall and then you see your peers become successful and oh my god I gotta figure something out here I'm happy for my friends not so happy for me when your back is against the brick wall
[00:30:39] you have no other option than to go forward if you're leaning up against a pillow top, ceiling post-repedic and you have some backup plan or another revenue stream you're not gonna work as hard just because there's a little thing in the back of your mind going I'm good
[00:31:07] but when it's like homeless or hard work that's what you gotta do
