t, I'm Beverly Howell, your host tonight, and joining us tonight is Tone-Cool Recording Artist Mike Welch!
Hi, Mike, welcome to Blues Chat!

MikeWelch: Hi! How ya doin'?

Hippielady: Great, Mike, thanks for taking time out to join your friends and fans online tonight!

MikeWelch: No problem!

Hippielady: Well, here we are, two days before the official release of "Catch Me!" Congratulations on another great release; Tone-Cool forwarded us the advance. Would you tell folks a bit about it?

MikeWelch: I think it's the best CD we've ever done! It's probably the widest stylistic range we've ever done - there's more than just the 4 core band members. It just stands head and shoulders above everything we've ever done!

Hippielady: Folks, it will be hitting the shelves on June 9, so be sure to get to your CD stores early this week before they sell out.

MikeWelch: That'd be nice!

Hippielady: Your fans are here with some questions for you, so we're gonna
get right to it, OK?

MikeWelch: Okay! Great!

MrTupelo: Are there any artists you consider your teachers?

MikeWelch: All of them! The entire history of the blues so far! hehe! Let's see, especially the Boston blues scene. Tim Garren from the Toni Lynn Washington band was literally a teacher, Matt Woodburn, a local Boston musician was a huge influence early on, and Johnny Copeland was a major influence - singing, songwriting and presentation... Guitar playing as well!

Steve007: What guitarists did you listen to as a child that influenced you to play the blues?

MikeWelch: Albert King was a huge influence, Freddie King, Magic Sam, Otis Rush. Whenever I start naming influences I really DO start listing everything in the history of recorded blues-based music! So everyone you can think of in this genre, I've probably checked them out!

JoyceBlues: When did you first become interested in playing the blues?

MikeWelch: I'd like to say there was one moment of epiphany, but there wasn't really. Probably about a year or so after I started playing guitar, I started paying attention to the blues-based records in my father's collection. I got into music on my own through the Beatles, which you can still hear in my music, especially on the new CD.

MikeWelch: My dad had one Howlin' Wolf record, one BB King record, y'know? So that's what became interesting to me at that time - I was probably about 9 or 10 at that time, and I remained a blues purist until the beginning of high school, about 14 years old, and then I started looking at R & B, rock and roll, etc. My tastes are pretty eclectic, but blues hold sway.

BabyBlue: How would you describe your style?

MikeWelch: It's an interesting hybrid at this point. I mean, the influences are everything from the Beatles to Otis Redding to Freddie King and everything in between and things that weren't even necessarily in between! There are a lot of different influences, but if you call it Rhythm and Blues or blues-rock, those things aren't too far off. We're trying to find a balance but I think this CD really nails it!

MistyBlue: Have you been able to play as much as you like since you've been at Stanford?

MikeWelch: Well it wasn't Stanford, it was Berkeley - and it's was, not is. College was a failure, but not because of academics. I loved it, but I wasn't able to play music as much as I'd like, so I quit and now I'm getting to play quite a bit!

bawdy_blonde: By starting so early in life. Do you feel like you missed out on anything in your adolescence? Would you do anything differently?

MikeWelch: Absolutely not! I did go to high school 5 days a week, and I think for music I maybe missed 10 days of high school - kids miss more than that for head colds. I was constantly surrounded by everything other kids were, so in a way I feel like I gained, I mean, how many kids get to be treated as an equal by adults? I think I'm just as mature - no, just as immature - as anyone I know! hehe! The organ player in the band, Jack Hamilton, is actually my age, and I went to school with him. He turned me onto Motown. So I feel like my Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lives are finally coming together.

JoyceBlues: Mike, where did you get the nickname, "Monster"?

MikeWelch: I played the opening of the first HOB in Boston, MA, with the Blues Brothers and many other luminaries, and the nickname was given to me by Dan Ackroyd. It never really felt like it fit and so now I'm choosing to give it back. This CD, the music's more personal, so I decided to give up the pretenses.

eMBlues: Lately you're being billed as just Mike Welch. Have you tired of the nickname, "Monster"?

MikeWelch: Yes! It wasn't something I ever identified with in the first place. The music we're playing these days is more personal these days, so it feels right to drop the pretense and just go by my own name! If my nickname were Howlin' Wolf I probably would've kept it, but it wasn't!

walrus: Mike, are you doing any festivals this summer? If so, where?

MikeWelch: Not too many. We're doing on July 19th in Long Beach, CA, and Santa Barbara, CA July 12th. This next Saturday we're playing Falmouth, MA, near Cape Cod, then Friday, July 31st we're playing Newburyport, MA. We're playing the Taylor, MI Festival on August 22nd, and that's right near Detriot. Though to tell you the truth, a young, white kid doesn't always fit into a blues fest's usual lineup, but we do well with clubs, so it's sort of a trade off! We tend to do more festivals in Europe than America. 
I guess in Europe if you're an American, that's all the authenticity they need! hehe!

bluzchik: Hello from a fellow Bostonian!!!! Can you tell us how the Shemekia Copeland gig came together for you?

MikeWelch: Hello!  That's a long story! I've known Shemekia for a long time now, I met her through her father. We've gotten closer and closer over the months and it seems that it was a natural playing with her. She's a great musician, it's great playing with her onstage, with her band or mine, and we're playing August 14th and 15th in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, we're playing together! Anyone out there, make sure to come out - those should be GREAT shows!

morTone: Will you be playing any other venues around the Southern California area when in Long Beach, Mike?

MikeWelch: Go to http://www.tonecool.com Those tour dates tend to be pretty accurate! But yes, we're in California most of July, and the last part of July, we're in southern California!

walrus: Mike, tell us about your guitar rig, what do you use?

MikeWelch: Fender Stratocaster put together from parts - a Frankenstrat - through a blackface Fender amplifier with no effects except reverb on the amp! There are other guitars I use, just the Strat sees the most stage and studio time, and the strings GHF 10s.

bawdy_blonde: How has your music changed/grown/evolved since your first CD "These Blues are Mine" aside from the size of the band?

MikeWelch: The song writing is more developed, the influences aren't quite as genre-defined, it's not quite as strictly blues defined. I've been listening to a lot of classic rock, Elvis Costello, Motown, Stax, etc. So the palette of influences are much broader, everything's fair game, and the singing's much stronger. That's the biggest change. I actually like being in front of a microphone, and that's important because it takes up a lot of my time, and over the past year I've been really comfortable with the way I'm singing - I feel like I can make the sound I wanna hear!

Hippielady: Mike, I noticed on this great new CD, "Catch Me," that you are quite a songwriter. Have you been writing songs as long as you've been playing, or have you moved into song writing the last few years?

MikeWelch: As soon as I knew three chords on the guitar, I think I wrote a song with three chords in it! Some of the songs on the first record I wrote when I was 11 years old. I've always written, stories and essays and writing - either with a pen or in front of the computer, so lyrics were a natural for me. I think my writing has drastically improved, and we've really got songs of our own and that keeps us from sounding like everyone else.

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: If you could change one thing about your career, what would it be?

MikeWelch: Well, I'd like to make some more money! hehe! But I'm not going to change my music for the money. There's the old joke about the difference between a musician and a pizza, the difference being that a pizza feeds a family of four. But I'm not going to change my music to reflect that. I'd also like more people to hear the music than have heard it in the past, too. When you come up with music that means something to you, it's nice to know people hear it... it's hard to do that when you release a CD in the blues scene. A small group appreciates it and that's GREAT, but it'd be nice to get that exposure on a wider level!

MrTupelo: What is it like, playing with artists like Ronnie Earl?

MikeWelch: Absolutely incredible! To get respect and acknowledgment from a guitar player of that caliber is a wonderfully justifying feeling. I've been lucky enough to play with some great ones. The trick is not to make it a competition because you get a guitar player who's as good as Ronnie and there's going to be moments when any guitar player will fall short, so you just have to enjoy the moment and learn from it.

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: When you're not playing, who do you listen to?

MikeWelch: Everything. I mean, my tastes are pretty broad. A lot of the time blues, rock and roll, pop, jazz, soul. You know, I can appreciate any music. What's taking my time up these days? Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Elvis Costello, Freddie King, Johnny Little John - I'd never heard of it and it's nice to know there's still blues out there that I haven't heard and can inspire me. Robert Johnson for the first time in a long time, and I recently heard King of the Delta Blues Players and that record is PERFECT.
I mean Robert Johnson as a songwriter was able to synthesize everything that came before him and came out with these perfect songs... That's really inspiring for a song writing. Besides that his guitar playing and singing are absolutely scary!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: Do you have a favorite gig nightmare you could share?

MikeWelch: One of the first times I played the HOB in Boston under my own name, the place was absolutely packed, one of the best I'd ever had. The curtain goes up, we come out, count off the band, and realize my guitar's not plugged in! That was pretty embarrassing - strumming as hard as I could and nothing coming back! Or there was a recent gig in France where the sound guy thought we should be 5 times louder than we should have been.
That's pretty bad, when for reasons above and beyond your control, the audience doesn't like you!  I guess it's just as bad when it IS in your control, but we've been lucky enough to avoid that. And despite moments like that, I love being on stage and I don't know what I'd do without it!

Hippielady: Mike, thanks for being with us tonight. Any closing comments for your online fans and friends?

MikeWelch: It's really nice to know I HAVE online friends and fans! Thanks for logging on and thanks for having me!

Hippielady: Thank you for taking time out for us! and thanks to ToneCool Records for helping us coordinate tonight's visit. Once again, a reminder that Mike's new album, CATCH ME, on the Tone-Cool label, releases in just TWO days, so make plans to get to your cd store early this week!

MikeWelch: Goodnight everybody out there in computer land!

Hippielady: Be sure to join us tomorrow night for Blues Trivia, at 10 PM Eastern, right here in the Auditorium for a chance to win some great CDs! Next Sunday, be sure to join us when our guest will be Blind Pig Recording Artist Tommy Castro at 10 PM Eastern.

Hippielady: Thanks for joining us, goodnight from HPI Blues Chat!

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Copyright © 1998 Howell Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.