P.B.S. (Porter Batiste Stoltz) is finally getting the opportunity to cool their heels a bit after an extended West coast tour that took them to cities large and small. Along the way in Portland Oregon, Glide had the opportunity to sit down with George Porter Jr., Russell Batiste Jr., and Brian Stoltz to talk about the rigors and realities of life on the road, the inspirational process of creating music together, and George Porter Jr.’s obsession with the internet.
If you were going to describe to someone what PBS sounded like to someone who had never heard you, how would you describe your sound?
R.B. It is basically every type of music you can think of with a New Orleans flavor. I mean every type of music that you can think of…
J.G. Like adding a little Cajun spice.
R.B. Yeah…
I was wondering if you guys could describe what it was like the first time playing together?
G.P. Were still working on that. The fact is this is an experiment in development, and experiment in progress. We haven’t been together so long that we think that this is the shit…that this is it. There is a lot more out of us…to learn, to write better. All three of us come from totally different musical schools. We bring all of these different musical styles to the center of the table, and using the knowledge of music to make music.
Do you enjoy playing more in a free flowing improv groove or more within highly structured musical pieces?
R.B. There is not one song that we play the same way…never! There is not one song that we ever play the same arrangement the same way every time. It will never happen cause first of all, Jack Daniels effects me a different way every night. (Laughs)
G.P. We are definitely a song writing jam band. We have real songs, but we are a jamband in the true sense of the word…
I like to hear that because a lot of bands shrug off that title because they are worried about being pigeon holed by it…
B.S. We were a jamband years and years and years before anyone ever heard of that word.
Like injecting jazz into any genre of music
G.P. Exactly. There were jambands in New Orleans in the 1930’s.
How has the advancement of technology and specifically the music industry’s use of the internet changed the business?
B.S. (The internet) for us is everything. Without a major label behind us the only way to get the music out there is through those things.
G.P. The internet has the same pitfalls that cassettes had for vinyl you know…So if a guy got vinyl he could get a copy of it. Then everyone in the neighborhood would have a copy of what they like to listen to.
B.S. We’ve got the record on a million sites that sell downloads and that’s how you get it out there. People see it, get curious about it, check it out and hopefully buy it. Then hopefully they will tell someone else about it, before emailing it to their friends. Bands used to go on the road to sell records, now they give away records to get them to go to the show. People give away CDs like it is their calling cards.
Are there any other musicians out there that you guys want to have the opportunity to play with?
B.S. One of the things that we are trying to press is we are a musical power trio, that’s not missing any parts. This is an entity in itself. The three of us sing, the three of us play, the three of us write music, and we don’t need a horn. It has kind of eased up. A lot of different club owners tried to push other elements on us because they couldn’t get the idea that it was a three piece. But they are getting used to it now because we stood our ground.
I’m curious how the aftermath of hurricane Katrina has affected the music scene in New Orleans?
R.B. It doesn’t change. Everything is always the same. Less people doing it and less music. Still kids grow up in the streets with their horn…they still got brass bands and all that stuff; there is just less of them.
What would you say is the biggest difference between touring with a larger act like the Meters vs. a smaller crew here with P.B.S.?
G.P. Life on the road, there is no real difference between being a little bit comfortable staying at a five star hotel vs. a star hotel. Maybe riding a tour bus vs. the sprinter (is different)…I kind of like the sprinter with the high speed internet. I’m so freaked out about not being able to get online these days that people think I am losing my mind sometimes. We can stay in a hotel where the roaches don’t want to stay in the room and I am more concerned about where is the internet. They all look at me and say what is wrong with you. The truth of the matter is when you are on the road, no matter if you are in a big tour bus, or an airport or even day one, that shit is work. It don’t matter if you are eating at a five star restaurant or Popeye’s chicken.
B.S. It really doesn’t matter. To me it’s all the same as long as I’m not in bed sleeping with my wife it is work.
R.B. Not to mention that I am a newly wed.
G.P. It is a part of the lifestyle. The guys who make careers out of this…knew we weren’t going to be playing on Bourbon Street all our lives. We knew there was something more than that and when I started recording with the Meters we really didn’t think of it when it was going down, that it was a lot more involved, that there was a business that we didn’t know a damn thing about. We just were musicians.
35-40 years later with PBS all of us have a clearer vision of the business part of the music much better than we had 40 years ago. I was just a naive kid who said wow we are going on the road. You know we were in a 65 Chevrolet or a Ford van station wagon and it was the shit man…It was rough. We were traveling in busses and all that shit, it still is the road. You know you are still away from home. This is what we decided to do.
So there were sacrifices?
G.P. This is the first Valentines Day that I am away from my wife in 41 years. I missed my first Mardi Gras this year in 59 years. I’ve been to every Mardi Gras they ever had, except for the two they canceled, and even those two that they canceled I was at Mardi gras canceled parties.
There is a lot more to this shit than you see in the audience looking up at the stage.
You look up and see three guys enjoying themselves and having fun and playing. Then every now and then we do shit that makes everyone fall out laughing at each other because we are enjoying ourselves. At the same time what you don’t see is the seven hours in a van from one city to the next city and the two-three hours in that van on the phone talking to a manager in another state.
That’s what we do for a living, that’s it…
