Alastair Greene at Lizzie Rose on April 30
by Danny Coleman
originally published on Rock On! This Week’s Sound Bites (NewJerseyStage.com)
“I’m doing good man, what’s happening?” Laughed a very energized Alastair Greene as he discussed his upcoming April 30 show at Tuckerton’s Lizzie Rose Music Room and his new EP, “Live in Sin City” as well as his thoughts on touring overseas.
“Live in Sin City” was recorded while on the road opening for George Thorogood in Las Vegas and this Lizzie Rose show will be a prelude to him reuniting for more shows with the Delaware Destroyer once again
“This will be at the beginning of the tour. We’re doing a couple of gigs and then we’re gonna jump on a tour opening some shows for George Thorogood. So, we’ll be doing some shows with him and then some shows with just my band; we’ll be out for about two-and-one-half weeks at the end of April going into May. We opened about a dozen shows for him last year and he’s amazing. He’s in top form, there’s a reason why he’s a legend (Laughs). He’s a living legend and he’s out there still doing it, it’s pretty amazing.”
Thorogood is one of those artists that can be just as at home in a dive bar setting as well as performing at a large festival and as an opener for him and given the Lizzie Rose’s intimate confines, Greene says he feels it all to be the same as long as he’s playing.
“I’ve played every single gig imaginable. I’ve played small, tiny little places and I’ve opened some shows for George and played some big festivals and as long as I’m playing my guitar I’m happy.”
Greene is a student of many types of music but has gravitated towards the blues for various reasons and although he may wander off from his own unit on occasion, he understands the importance of what blues music has meant to rock ‘n’ roll as well as many other forms of music in general.
“I did “Whipping Post” as a single a few years ago. I always loved that song and I wanted to give it a little bit of a different spin. That’s the thing, sometimes it takes rock ‘n’ roll to get you into blues. I started out a hard rock kid, I started playing guitar in the mid to late eighties when Van Halen and bands like that were all the rage. I still love a lot of that music but a friend of my dad’s loaned me some records because he knew I was playing guitar and it was BB King, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Allman Brothers, Johnny Winter and I immediately just resonated with all these things because a lot of things then kind of made sense. A lot of the hard rock players that I loved were influenced by blues and blues rock and so everything kind of made sense and that’s when I got into blues, blues rock and you can consider the Allman Brothers southern rock if you will; I got into a lot of other kinds of music as well but for the way I write songs, play guitar and sing, that tends to be where I feel the most confident. I’ve done a lot of other things, I played with Alan Parsons for seven years, I played with Starship featuring Mickey Thomas and I’ve played with Sugaray Rayford who is more of a funk and R&B player but I’ve always come back to my band and what I do. I just really resonate with the power trio as they call it and just kind of figured out how to adapt to that number of people, lineup and instrumentation and kind of running with it ever since. I’ve had my own band since the late ’90s and just kind of dipped in and out of being a side man for some other things but it’s just music that I love. I still love listening to traditional blues, still love listening to blues rock, hard rock and everything in between.”
When asked if he had a favorite blues artist or guitar player, someone he may have emulated, be it stylistically or lyrically, he couldn’t, as he said, “Nail it down.”
“That’s a really good question,” he said with slight inquisitiveness in his voice. “I got into a lot of different players when I got into blues. I hesitate to use the word phase but I definitely kind of went through some phases when I was first turned onto blues. Stevie Ray Vaughn was kind of the gateway artist for a lot of the people of my generation. So, he was kind of one of my first heroes but I quickly got into people he talked about; Buddy Guy, Albert King and whatnot. I think I can relate to as far as approach; Johnny Winter has been really inspirational for me, Rory Gallagher has been inspirational; although, I don’t think I sound anything like him but I find his approach to things pretty amazing. Also, the Allman Brothers, guys who just loved blues but grew up on rock ‘n’ roll and kind of combined those two elements; I’m really nailing it down (Laughs). Nailing it down to one player would be pretty difficult. I can talk about my favorite guitar players and musicians all day long. I could talk about BB King for hours. His style just kept changing and morphing and was involved in so many different kinds of music and then he started getting involved with some rock ‘n’ roll musicians and it was unbelievable the career that he had and the influence he had. Early on he was playing very jazzy with a lot more notes and then he started simplifying some things; you can listen to any era of BB King and learn something.”
April 30 sees his return to The Lizzie Rose Music Room and he is very excited about returning because its smaller dimensions actually allows him to expand his repertoire.
“I played there a couple of years ago and it is a great intimate venue. When it’s something like that, I try not to talk too much but I also like to talk a little bit about songs and that is intimate enough where I can also play some things at a little bit lower volume and get into some songs that I play that are a little bit more sensitive so to speak and then we’ll do our blues rock thing. We swing for the fences every time we play no matter what size the room is or volume that we are at, we bring our “A” game every single time and I’m really happy to be coming back. I spent a little bit of time in New Jersey; I went to school in Boston for a couple of years at Berklee College of Music and my roommates were both from New Jersey and I went down there a couple of times to hang out for Thanksgiving or Spring break and I’m looking forward to coming back.”
“Live in Sin City” has thus far only been released digitally and Greene is thrilled with how it came about and how it has gone over with his fan base to this point. The recordings have a bright, crisp live sound and one can almost audibly visualize the fun he and his band mates are having onstage.
It’s actually out, it’s a live EP that came out at the very end of last year. We recorded it actually in Las Vegas when we were opening for George Thorogood. That’s definitely a funny thing, it was one of those things where Thorgood’s crew recorded some of the shows and our stuff for us and we were like, man, let’s just mix some of the songs and put it out as a digital EP. so, it’s on iTunes and Spotify, we haven’t pressed up any copies of it, we just kind of wanted to get it out there. It’s just a lot of fun, it’s raw, it’s rockin’, we’re playing in front of a bunch of people opening for Thorogood so the energy was definitely there. The technology exists now and Thorogood’s sound engineers had it mic’d up properly and it was recorded properly so I could send it off to the guy that mixes for the record label I’m on; I’ve been on Ruf Records for a couple of years and the guy who does a lot of the mixing is a brilliant mixer and he did a great job with it.”
Like many other American artists, particularly in the blues genre, they at times find more success or warmer audiences than here in America. Greene is well aware of the differences as he will be returning to the UK shortly, something he does a couple of times a year.
“After this run, I’m going to be going back to England in June for a little over a week for some shows. I’ve been going to England now a couple of times a year for the last three or four years and it has been really great and then we have some other stuff that we’re cooking up for the summer in The States; yeah, we’re just trying to keep the train on the track and moving down the line as they say. I think it’s the kind of music, I think there is still a stronghold of blues and blues rock fans in a lot of those countries, England, Germany and others. I think, obviously there are other kinds of music that people are into but here in the United States it seems that there is so much going on all of the time that it’s hard to get people’s attention. I have found that going overseas as an American artist playing what is American music for the most part; I’ll tell you this, when I go to England, so much of what has become influential in blues and blues rock is from England. So, that’s actually a special place for me to go because so many of my heroes are from there. England put out so many great musicians and music and things that came back and influenced the Americans, you know?”
To discover more about Alastair Greene and his tour schedule including the April 30 Tuckerton show, please visit https://www.alastairgreene.com/