I first met Davy Knowles on a rainy night in Portland, Oregon. He and his band, Back Door Slam were about to play to a pretty full room and he was very excited. In the previous couple of days the high school pals from the Isle of Man had been going through the right of passage for an up and coming band, touring the States in a van. They had their first snowball fight, were gifted a magnificent vintage amplifier and were relegated to sitting in the basement green room of the club they played due to the fact that they were all below the legal drinking age of 21. They had recently released their first full length LP, Roll Away and were well received and then some throughout the entire tour.
[Photo by Mike Itchue]
Onstage, BDS tore the roof off the joint, delivering ninety minutes of swaggering, swearing, deep seated blues that belied their youthfulness. Davy Knowles sang and played guitar with a passion and voice that transcended his young age, evoking Stevie, Jimi, Muddy and a slew of blues legends.
Now flash forward to present day. The band is now Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam, the original rhythm section (Ross and Adam) having split to pursue different paths. Knowles’ second album is produced and partially co-written with Peter Frampton. The list of bands that DK&BDS have toured with as opening act are all “A-listers”: Gov’t Mule, Chickenfoot, Jeff Beck to name a few. Davy was asked to jam nightly and learned the art of improvisation by following the likes of Joe Satriani and Warren Haynes.
Knowles was recently asked to join the latest incarnation of the Rhythm Devils for this summer’s tour season. So, add learning the Dead catalogue, the Rhythm Devils material to the education of Davy Knowles. He has been busily learning the new material, flashing off MP3-filled emails to Mickey Hart as frequently as they are critiqued and returned, working the initial rehearsals out via the internet.
I caught up with Davy via the phone as he was packing up to play at Daytona International Speedway as part of the Nascar Sprint Cup Series prior to the Saturday night race…
AJ Crandall: Let’s chat. In the last couple of years since we spoke, you had an album produced and partially co-written with Peter Frampton, you were personally picked to open for Gov’t Mule and got to jam with Warren Haynes every night, you toured with Chickenfoot, you toured with Jeff Beck, all in the last year or so. Now you are going to be playing every night with a chunk of the Grateful Dead, Obviously the music industry has taken notice of Davy Knowles. Are you surprised by all the attention over these last couple of years?
Davy Knowles: Oh my gosh. Funny, but when it’s happening, it doesn’t really strike you like that. Like when the Jeff Beck thing came up or the Chickenfoot thing came up, I felt I should just keep my head down and learn as much as I can and play as much as I can. You know, do my job. But when people say it back to you like that, it kind of makes you stop and think, ‘I’m Just incredibly lucky.’
READ ON for more of AJ’s chat with Davy Knowles…
