“My wife has enrolled me in a gym, and I have to go lift weights for an hour after this,” chuckles blues guitarist extraordinaire Walter Trout, the 74-year-old survivor of a drug habit and subsequent rehab that would have defeated any lesser man.
Now committed to a healthy lifestyle and pushing through his sixth decade as a sideman and solo artist, Trout is about to release an album, Sign of the Times (it’s just a coincidence, Prince fans), that’s packed with energy and attitude.
This is partly down to Trout’s irritation at some of the more foolish aspects of modern life – smartphones and AI among them – but also down to his determination not just to enjoy his remaining years, but to make them the best of his life.
His sojourns as a member of Canned Heat (1981-84) and with the late John Mayall (1984-89) were productive, but they were marred by drug and booze habits that led to a near-fatal ill-health episode in 2013. Fortunately, a liver transplant saved his life – and Trout is determined to go out fighting.
It looks like you have a full six months of international live dates coming up.
“I’ll be at the grocery store and someone will say, 'Hey, Walter, are you going on tour?' 'Yeah, I am.' 'Where are you going?' 'I don’t know. They told me to be at Los Angeles airport at 10 tomorrow morning, and from there I don’t know shit!'
“But I’m one of the lucky ones, because I actually love being on the road. You couldn’t do almost six years with John Mayall and not learn to love touring, because that guy was ruthless.”
How ruthless?
John would have stayed on the road forever if he could, so you either had to learn to love it or you needed to get a different gig
“We did one tour that was something like 78 cities in 65 days. We’d do doubles on the weekends – play a festival at 2 in the afternoon, then drive 100 miles and play a club at 10 at night. John would have stayed on the road forever if he could, so you either had to learn to love it or you needed to get a different gig. But I was fine.
“I’d get in the van, have a couple of shots and a joint and just keep going. I don’t even know how to start to talk about the love and the respect I have for John, and how he helped me and nurtured me and supported me when I was a drug addict and an alcoholic, and helped me get sober.”
How’s your health these days?
“On July 9, I hit 38 years sober – and I feel great. I’m 74 and I’m on my second liver, but when I go to the liver clinic at UCLA every six months or so, they always tell me I’m in great shape.”
Oh, by the way – Sign of the Times is great.
“Thanks! I’m very pleased with it, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to be received by people because, you know, I did 15 albums with the same producer. This time, my wife Marie – who is my partner in crime, she’s managed my career for 33 years – said, ‘Maybe it’s time to do something different and have it sound different. You need to produce yourself. You don’t need somebody saying to you, “Play the solo over again.” You know if you like the solo or not.’”
Which guitars did you play on the album?
“I did the whole record with my Delaney Walter Trout signature model. It plays beautifully and sounds wonderful. I’m taking it on tour. I also have a Delaney in Europe, and my son Jon will be touring with me, so he’s going to be using that. And I have a sunburst Fender Strat that I’ll take as a spare, as well as a couple of acoustics.”
How old is the Strat?
“It’s from the early ’70s. I’ve retired my old Strat, the one that’s on the cover of all my albums. I told my wife that if somebody offered me 10 million bucks for it, I wouldn’t take it. She goes, ‘Well, we may need to talk about that.’ [Laughs]”
Will you have a pedalboard on stage with you?
“No. I go straight into my Mesa/Boogie. As you know, Mesa Boogies have what they call ‘suggested settings.’ Now, for all the bluesers out there, I’m going to tell you my suggested setting. I have it set for death metal.”
You’re kidding, right?
“I’m serious. If I want to clean it up, I just turn the volume down on the guitar. Between about 5 and 10 on the volume knob, it adds overdrive. Listen to the lead solo on Sign of the Times. That’s the death metal setting with the guitar turned all the way up.”
Do you have happy memories of being in Canned Heat?
“I had a great time with Canned Heat. I love those guys. I love Fito de la Parra, the drummer. He’s like a brother to me, and I had the best time touring with those guys. I will say it was a bit of a crazy time, because I was drinking and taking lots of drugs.”
What was your drug of choice?
“Whatever I could get, but it was normally cocaine or crank. At the time, we were managed by – I can’t say their name in print – a well-known biker organization, and the first gig I did with them, these people handed me a mayonnaise jar full of cocaine and said, ‘Welcome to the band.’ So there was a lot of that.
“It was pretty crazy, but it was really fun. I had a great time. I still love those guys. If they come to your town, they still sound great, so go see them.”
When you listen back to your early recordings, how does the guitar playing stand up?
“I think it sounds really good. I saw John Mayall two years ago, when he came to my gig in LA, and I asked him, ‘How did you put up with my insane behavior when I was so drug addicted and so alcoholic?’ He had two answers.
“His first answer was funny. He said, ‘Well, Walter, there was a certain kind of humor to it,’ meaning I was this doped-up fucking clown. But then his serious answer was, ‘No matter how loaded you got, you always seemed to be able to play the music. If we had come out one night on stage and you couldn’t play my music, I’d have sent you home the next day.’
“So when I listen to those old records I did when I was so fucked up, the playing is still there, but there’s no edge. I’m dull. The edge came when I got sober. And I think on this new album, there’s a whole lot of edge.”
Name your top three most influential guitar players.
“The main reason I grabbed a guitar in the first place – an acoustic – was because my brother brought home The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the album with Blowin’ in the Wind and A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall. At the time, I was going to be a jazz trumpet player; I wanted to be Miles Davis.
“But my brother brought that album home and I heard all this substance and incredible depth with those three chords. So I got a guitar and started learning, because I just wanted to play folk music.
“Then the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. There wasn’t one particular guitar player, but those guys changed everything. So now I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got to get an electric guitar and maybe I could be in a band like that.’
“I got an electric guitar – a Silvertone, the little cheap one with the speaker in the case – and I’m trying to learn Beatles songs. Then my brother comes home with another album and says, ‘I’m going to play this for you, but you have to sit down because when you hear this guy, you’re going to fall over.’
“It was The Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Michael Bloomfield on Born in Chicago and all those songs. Nobody played like that, and that’s when the world opened up to me about what was possible on the guitar. I realized you could play that music with rock ’n’ roll aggression and fire and swagger.”
What are your goals at this point?
People look at my schedule, and they say, ‘We couldn’t do that if we were 20.’ But I’ve always done that, because I wanted to do this from the time I was a little boy
“I still have a purpose. I’m going to create, and I’m going to try to contribute to the world, not sit back on the couch. I hope I’m able to keep going and doing this for a long time, so I push myself.
“People look at my schedule, and they say, ‘We couldn’t do that if we were 20.’ But I’ve always done that, because I wanted to do this from the time I was a little boy. I wanted to be a musician, and I wanted to travel the world and play music.
“It’s a beautiful experience. It nourishes me, sustains me and gives me a sense of purpose. It keeps me young in my brain, because every night I go up there and I try really hard to play something I’ve never played before.”
Any final advice?
“I see a lot of people my age – people I’ve grown up with – who have given up. They’ve lost their joy of life and their wonder. They’ve lost their drive and sense of purpose. Don’t lose those things. Your body can get old, but keep that joy and that wonder of life. Hold on to it to the very end, man. Don’t give up.”
- Sign of the Times is out now via Provogue.
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