A Conversation with Chuck Mead – HuffPost 4.30.12

Mike Ragogna: Chuck Mead, let’s begin by chatting about SXSW. What’s your perspective?

Chuck Mead: SXSW, years ago, when they first started it, it was for bands who hadn’t been signed, for people in the industry, the music labels, managers, and booking agents to see new acts that didn’t have a deal. Now, if you have a record out, you play SXSW. I have a record out, called Back At The Quonset Hut, that I’m promoting, just like Bruce Springsteen.

MR: As in he’s also promoting his new album. Did you catch his keynote?

CM: No, I didn’t catch that, we were riding in from another gig.

MR: It was a great keynote, I’m sure you can find it online, but one of the great things he did was he showed contrast. He basically said to realize that you are the best, kick-ass band or artist ever, and also realize you suck. It seems like that’s the best advice that you can have for an artist, because you need the confidence, but you also have to have the humility.

CM: Well, people are always here to tell you that you suck, but it’s a character builder because even if they tell you that, some people won’t think that you suck. You throw what you have to give artistically out and someone’s going to respond to it, especially if it’s done in a genuine way.

MR: Chuck, let’s go back a little bit to BR549. Looking back at those years, what are your thoughts?

CM: Well, it was kind of crazy how hillbilly music took us all around the world. We thought the lower Broadway there in Nashville where we started was the last stop, and it turned out to be the first start. Here we are 18 years later and I’m still out here doing it and the only way I’m even gainfully employed is in my straight job in the musical theater as a musical director for a Broadway show. So I have dual duties, but that’s what brought me there, it was all those years of BR549. I’ve played SXSW every place from a crappy place up on Guadeloupe to the biggest show out here on 6th street and the big outdoor stage. I have wide, varied experience here at SXSW, but it’s always been fun.

MR: And you’ve been here often, right?

CM: I’ve been playing here ever since the second SXSW, which would have been 1988, so I’m showing my age a little bit. But I can’t even remember how many times we’ve been down here…it’s been over 10, probably.

MR: Let’s talk about the new album.

CM: My new record is called Back At The Quonset Hut. It’s called that because it’s named after this place in Nashville, Tennessee, which was the first studio that was ever on the neighborhood that became Music Row, where all the labels and studios are now. This was the very first one, it was originally a boarding house, and the Bradley Brothers–Owen Bradley and Harold Bradley–very famous there in Nashville, on the ground floor of the music business, they built this studio in this house and later on added this big Quonset house, and some of the greatest music ever was recorded there–“Crazy” by Patsy Cline, numerous R&B and pop, everything from Johnny Wharton to Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel and Bobby Bland in this place. It’s been closed as a studio since 1982 and now, since it was part of Sony Music and Columbia studios, they closed it in 1982, and it just lay dormant for a while. It was the art department for Sony when we were on Sony years ago. But since they moved out of there, Belmont University has moved in with a grant from Mike Curb and they restored it to a studio. I went in, I was the first country artist to go back into the Quonset Hut since 1982 and record a record. I filmed it all, and it’s classic country songs. I have guest stars on it, everyone from Jimmy Johnson, Old Crow Medicine Show, Bobby Bare…

MR: And about the covers…

CM: Well we did some of the songs that were actually done there. We did Johnny Horton “Honky-Tonk Hardwood Floor.” Elizabeth Cook and I did a great version of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn’s “Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries.” The Old Crow Medicine and I did a great Wabash Cannonball. I had some of the A-team pickers from Nashville, the guys that played in all those original records. I had four of them, Buddy Spiker, Harold Bradley, Pig Robbins, who just went into the country music hall of fame, and Bob Moore. They all played in my record, and it was like a big reunion at the Quonset Hut, so that’s what I called itBack At The Quonset Hut.

MR: Now, did you use any of the older equipment, maybe that had been in storage?

CM: It had been completely gutted. Actually, that was the whole thing, I wanted to do a classic country record, it was all live. I didn’t even use headphones when I was singing, we did it as it went down. But, we used Pro Tools. I didn’t want it to be a museum piece, I wanted it to be something that sounds modern, but you know we can use technology for good. We don’t have to push that button just because we have it.

MR: Who produced this project?

CM: Mike Janas and I produced it. Mike Janas is one of the instructors who teachers audio engineering at Belmont, and it just so happened he co-produced the first BR549 records, and a great long-time friend of mine.

MR: Were Belmont students involved in the recording process?

CM: Yes, students helped on this from top to bottom, filming, even, of the documentary, and we did the Old Crow Medicine session during a class, which was great. So it was a nice passing of the torch on a whole bunch of different levels. Not only did it have my band in there with some of the A-team guys. I had a couple of guys who are young guys and they would have been studio pickers, right with all those other guys in the ’50s and ’60s. They are just great musicians, so we felt like there was a multi-generational thing going on with the students and the musicians and me, it was fantastic, all the way up to Bobby Bare.

MR: So then what advice might you have for new artists?

CM: Just do what you do and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it, because then you’ll start thinking you can’t do it.

MR: Is that the advice you would have given yourself?

CM: I had no idea, all I knew is that I wanted to do this, what I’m doing now, which is amazing to me, that I’m standing here and I’m gainfully employed. I’ve always said I’ve worked long and hard not to work long and hard.

MR: I also want to ask you, from all of the songs that are on this album, are there any that you connect with more than others?

CM: Well, the first music I even remember in my life is Hank Williams and The Beatles, so I did a Hank Williams song on this and we tried to do our Hankiest with it, but do our own version of it. The Hank Williams and the Carl Smith tune, Carl Smith was a large figure in country music, the biggest star after Hank Williams. But because he never went to jail or never shot anybody or wasn’t completely strung out or whatever, he’s not an icon. But he was just so badass that everybody in town was scared of him, including Waylon.

MR: Really?

CM: Yeah!

MR: Do you associate with the music’s stories as well?

CM: That’s the best part of country music, it’s the stories. In fact, Charlie Parker, the great jazz saxophonist, after late-night jams, they’d go to diners and eat. He would always sit and throw nickels into jukeboxes and play hillbilly songs. He played country music. They’d always go, “Bird, why are you playing that hillbilly crap.” He’s like, “It’s the stories, man.” That’s what it is, that’s what makes country music unique. It really is a story, you’re really trying to convey honesty, and that’s what it is, sincerity.

Transcribed by Narayana WIndenberger