A Conversation with Dave Mason – HuffPost 5.2.14

Mike Ragogna: Let’s jump into Future’s Past. It’s all things Traffc right now for you, what got you in that place?

Dave Mason: Why not? I mean really. I’ve never done it and it’s part of my catalog, so to speak, so why not? I’ve been thinking about it for five, six, seven years.

MR: How do you look at the period you spent with Traffic?

DM: It was great. I was just nineteen years old, so it was wide open, and the time was awesome. It was great and I wish it had been able to develop further with the four of us. I was just learning. The first song that I ever wrote was sort of a fantasy thing called “Hole In My Shoe” which was their biggest hit. I was just trying to find out what I could and couldn’t do basically. I’m just self taught! There’s no training, I don’t read or write music, so I’m flying without a net most of the time. Unfortunately things just didn’t work out with the four of us. Basically whatever I was doing needed to breathe and whatever Jim was doing needed to breathe. Frankly the differences were what made it interesting, but that was not to be. I’ve let it go for years and years. Hey, it’s what it is. A lot of the tunes that I’m doing in the Traffic section, frankly I didn’t even write them. They’re just cool Traffic tunes. I took one song because it’s so Traffic iconic I thought it was irrelevant if I was there or not, “The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys,” but I do it as a slow blues. It’s nothing like how they do it, and that’s cool to do that. In “Dear Mr. Fantasy” I re-wrote the chords for that tune. It’s the same melody but I made it a little more moody. I could refresh it that way. It’s not old.

MR: Music is transient. It isn’t a canvas painting, and I don’t understand why people get annoyed when an artist “isn’t playing it how it goes.”

DM: I have to make a comment about that, though. To me, when people come to listen to me they want to hear certain things. For the most part it’s not exactly the song, it’s taking them to a whole place, wherever it was they were or whatever it was they were doing. I have to say, I don’t appreciate somebody fucking with a song to the point where I can’t hardly recognize it. If you’re going to redo it, do it so you say, “Wow, that’s cool,” not “What in the hell fucking song is that?” It’s one thing with music and stuff like that, but when you’re talking about a song I’m a little more traditional in that sense.

MR: I understand, but I think people have to realize that the artist has to grow.

DM: Right. That’s fine, as long as the new version they’re doing is cool.

MR: You’re also doing songs like “Feeling All Right.”

DM: Of course I do that! But see we do the show in two parts, with an intermission and then the last hour is basically my stuff, and part of my stuff is “Feeling All Right.” So I keep that to the end of the show.

MR: I’m imagining you’re performing “Dear Mr. Fantasy” during the Traffic Jam, right?

DM: We do that, we do “Medicated Goo,” “Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Stew,” “Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys,” “You Can All Join In,” and “Pearly Queen.” Basically, I picked those because I actually went looking to see in the People poll “What are the top twenty Traffic tunes?” and those were in there. I’ve also got to pick stuff that, no matter whether it’s my stuff or Traffic stuff, I have to pick stuff that’s going to be fun to play four or five nights of the week.

MR: Yeah. Your touring schedule is very tight, huh?

DM: Yeah, other than a couple of months off we have dates to the end of November.

MR: Are you surprised at how beloved Traffic ended up being?

DM: I’m surprised that what I’ve done there and what I’ve done solo has lasted this long. It’s a nice surprise.

MR: Your albums like Alone Together, Headkeeper, Let It Flow, Certified Live… You have an amazing catalog. What are some of your favorite songs that you still love to play?

DM: Well pretty much whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it because I like doing it. There might be times I’ve sung “We Just Disagree” but it’s a great song. I didn’t write it. And of course “Feeling All Right,” which everybody and their grand mother has probably done.

MR: [laughs] You’ve also got “Only You Know And I Know,” which is great.

DM: That’s usually in the show.

MR: What was the recording process like for this album?

DM: The way things are, I put something out, it was a pretty good album about seven or eight years ago. The problem is that putting out a CD these days is like an exercise in futility. It’s not so much about the sales or how many people buy it, because it’s important, it’s not my craft or my art, it’s my living, just like anybody else. It’s more of the fact that there’s no format anymore for playing new stuff by artists like me on a mass thing. Sirius XM will do it, but what are they? Six million members out of a population of three hundred and sixty five million? There’s no drive time anymore for us. Terrestrial radio’s still really powerful and there’s no format there for us anymore. “Hey! Here’s Dave Mason! Go check him out at DaveMason.com!” That’s what’s really missing. It’s hard to get out there to people that there’s something new there, which is basically what I’m having to do. I’m like knocking on people’s doors, “Hey, it’s me, Dave Mason!” That’s what it’s become. You’re basically having to self-promote, with the aid of whatever people are working with or for me. So that’s the process now. Like I said, there’s no drive time anymore, there’s no DJ. There’s no real exposure to get it out there and say, “Hey, here it is!” You might have noticed on radio they don’t even tell you who the hell it is half the time. Anyway, that’s where it’s been a little frustrating from my perspective. The labels, they’re just delivery systems. That’s what the beauty of the internet is, “Here! It’s right here, athttp://www.davemasonmusic.com,” you don’t have to go anywhere, it’s right there if you want to get it. The point is the exposure, and having people go, “Man, I love that tune, who is that? Where can I find that?”

MR: Yeah, it’s more about the social media for people with independent projects these days.

DM: Well it has to be. It’s hard to get exposure otherwise.

MR: Let’s talk about the cover of this album, too. What a beautiful shot Graham did!

DM: Yeah, he’s got this art exhibition, I think he did one in New York and San Francisco and probably LA, but he’s been doing it for a long time, he takes these photographs and paints over them. So yeah, it’s a picture of me from probably in the seventies at his house in Kauai. He sent me a few of these paintings and I said, “Man, that’s cool, can I use that?” He said, “Yeah, absolutely go ahead, use it for the album cover.” It also fit in with the title, why I called it Future’s Past, because it’s got my past in there in terms of songs, but they’re treated in a different way. Like any good song they’re still relevant.

MR: Plus you have the new one, “That’s Freedom.” Do you want to give a thought or two on that one?

DM: Yeah! Basically it’s my take on the state of the Union.

MR: But from the perspective of, “Oh well, that’s freedom?” or…?

DM: Take it however you want.

MR: [laughs] I knew you’d say that.

DM: Everybody’s got to put their own interpretation on it.

MR: So your tour logo reads, “Dave Mason’s Traffic Jam World Tour 1967.” We’re in 2014. That’s one hell of a long ass tour.

DM: That’s about it, that’s why I did it. [laughs]

MR: Dave, what advice do you have for new artists?

DM: Well, first off, like anything, you’d better have some good friends around you to tell you that you’re full of shit when you get carried away. At least have some business accumen. It’s a crapshoot, it’s a total crapshoot. You’d better have a lot of faith in what you’re doing, because it’s a crapshoot.

MR: Has it always been a crapshoot in one way or another?

DM: Yeah, there’s no guarantees. All us musicians take on a role in a place where there’s no insurance, no life insurance, no medical policies, nothing. We don’t have all of that stuff, we just go out there on faith, basically.

MR: What keeps you doing it after all these years?

DM: I’m too old to change jobs now, unless someone wants to give me something really nice and high-paying.

MR: Do you see yourself in this career for the rest of your life?

DM: Oh yeah, I’ll be doing this till I drop! Don’t want to miss the last show.

MR: [laughs] Do you remember your Delaney & Bonnie days?

DM: Yeah, yeah, they were great. I knew them back in ’67 through Gram Parsons. They were great. Delaney and Bonnie and Bobby Whitlock singing together was very cool. There’s a video on YouTube of me, Eric Clapton and Bobby and Delaney and Bonnie singing “Poor Elijah.”

MR: And you were friends with George Harrison as well, right?

DM: Yeah.

MR: You were friends with everyone!

DM: [laughs] No, I got lucky in the sense that our paths crossed a lot, but part of that is that in England, unlike America where there are a number of music scenes, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, LA, there were a lot of music places, but in England everybody just ended up in one place, London, so you were invariably going to run into pretty much everybody in a studio, in a club, or in a restaurant. It was a very small clique concentrated in one place, so the opportunities to have that happen were a lot easier to come by.

MR: Do you understand the impact you’ve had on music history as a solo artist?

DM: My solo career is a lot longer than my career with Traffic, that’s for sure. I’ve got some stuff out there.

MR: [laughs] Thank you so much Dave, I really appreciate it.

DM: You’re welcome! Thank you.

Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne