Lamitschka: Music has many new fans throughout Europe who may be hearing about you for the first time. How would you describe yourself and the music you play to someone who has never seen or heard you?
Tom Huebner: We play original country rock that’s guitar-oriented, with a focus on vocals and vocal harmonies and solid, original songwriting.
Lamitschka: How was the last year for you? What were your highlights?
Tom Huebner: Well, my wife and band partner Dottie Escue and I had a baby about a year and 9 months ago, so our daughter’s been the big highlight. As a result, we’ve stayed pretty close to home here in the San Francisco Bay Area, playing clubs and festivals in Northern California while the baby gets bigger. We’ve got some great players working with us and we get a great response when we play out. Dottie’s got family in Nashville, so we plan to take the music out there next year.
Lamitschka: What is your latest CD and how’s it doing?
Tom Huebner: The name of our most current CD is Highway 43, which was released on the indie Camel Records label. It got a nice review from a website in the UK called americana.uk when it came out that led to interest from radio in England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. At the time, money was tight and the label couldn’t help us with tour support, so we were unable to follow up on that initial interest with a tour. Here in the U.S., the record has gotten some radio play in various localities around the country. I’ve got the songs for a follow-up CD and we’d like to get back in the studio to record, soon. Dottie was not with the band when Highway 43 was recorded and we now have two new original recording that feature her on background vocals. The tunes,
„When Push Comes to Shove,“ and „If Angels Didn’t Fall,“ can be heard on our website, www.tomhuebner.com and at www.myspace.com/tomhuebnerandtherealdeal. , People can also hear a song there that I wrote and recorded with my former band,
Key Lime Pie, called „Lonely Man,“ which was on a album entitled Cookin’.
Lamitschka: How did you choose the title for the CD? Is there a story behind the name?
Tom Huebner: Highway 43 is an imaginary place based on a road I like traveling in the Sierra Nevada foothills called Highway 49. I used to do a lot of road trips with my grandfather when he was alive and the title song, Highway 43, is about those times. He was a great storyteller who loved country roads and the mountains and was also a citrus farmer who grew oranges. I spent a lot of time in his groves with him when I was a boy.
Lamitschka: Do you write the songs yourself? If not, how do you go about finding the songs for your CD?
Tom Huebner: Yes, everything on the CD is my own writing. I’ve been working on the craft for a long time and have lots of tapes and notebooks and things that I keep bits and pieces of ideas in. Sometimes I get a song all at once and sometimes I take an idea I’ve had for ten years in the back of a notebook and put it together with a new idea to get the complete song. I’ve been hugely influenced by the songwriting technique of people like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, both of whom have said that they will always and without fail, trust and acknowledge The Muse when they’re writing. Neil has said that he never, ever ignores the call of his creativity and will drop everything to get his ideas down. His songs will draw you in like no one else can, so I strive for that in my writing – not failing to get the water out of the well when it’s rising. I also never, under any circustances, censor the first drafts of my songs. Just turn on the tape machine and let it roll. And I’m really fond of old-school 4-track tape decks for the purpose, altlough I do use Protools at home some. I’ve heard Tom Petty say that the songs always came easy and I’ll bet they do becasuse he doesn’t censor himself at first. I may come back and do many drafts of a song before I get the music and lyrics right, but with the initial ideas, I just want them to flow through me.
Lamitschka: What is the difference between your last CD and your current one?
Tom Huebner: The next CD is definitely going to rock harder. For example, we have one tune called „10 Miles Outta Memphis“ that’s about a guy who’s got a few dangerous compulsions – ie, dangerous women, with dangerous substances and dangerous driving habits, all set to a rockin’ boogie beat. It’s got the musical influences of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis and Johnny Cash all rolled up into it. I’m also big fan of the Rolling Stones and what Keith Richards calls „guitar weaving,“ where the guitar parts weave and play off one another. We love bands like The Black Crowes, and that classic, southern-tinged, bluesy rock, that features great guitar riffs, with some keyboards thrown in. My dad played boogie woogie piano and I guess I’ve just got that in the blood, so to speak, hearing so much of that style of music growing up.
I wanted the first album (Highway 43) to be a bit of an experiment with acoustic instruments and textures associated with country blues and bluegrass – mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar, accordian, upright bass. The songs I was writing at the time sort of called for that treatment. Tunes like „Highway 43,“ „San Antonio Rose,“ „Lafayette Louisiana on a Saturday Night,“ and „Daddy’s Gonna Rock You,“ all have an acoustic feel that has roots in country, cajun/zydico and bluegrass styles. Our next album will definitely be a departure from that and will really rock a lot harder. It’s also going to feature Dottie on lead vocals on at least two songs.
Lamitschka: What will your next single be?
Tom Huebner: I’m not quite sure at this point and I think it will be a collective decision between the band, the label and the producer. Right now, I’m leaning towards releasing „When Push Comes to Shove“ and „If Angels Didn’t Fall“ as a single. We’re currently in the process of re-mixing „When Push Comes to Shove“ so that we can release it in the best possible light. Once we finish the re-mixing process, we’ll put both of these songs on itunes and people will be able to find them there. There’s a couple of other unreleased songs that might be candidates as well. We’ll just have to see.
Lamitschka: If you had the chance to change something about the music industry, what would it be?
Tom Huebner: If I could change one thing, it would be to see the industry return to a time when a new artist was given the opportunity to develop over two or three albums, rather than the current mode of giving an artist one shot to go gold and if you don’t, then you’re gone. Two examples of artists that we might never have heard of had they been trying to make it in today’s industry are John Denver and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom didn’t have great commercial success until their third albums. Imagine if we had never gotten Born To Run from Bruce because his label dropped him after the first record sold poorly. I know that times have changed and filesharing has changed forever the way record sales happen and I think most of us who are „unsigned“ or who are trying to make things happen on our own, or are with a small indie are really struggling to find what the new model for success is going to be. I still think that a label can be very important for an artist, particularly a new one, if the label can offer two things – promotional assistance and tour support. It’s not too hard to make a pretty good record on your own these days, using digital technology. And an artist or band can work the „social networking“ thing, ie, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, ect. on one’s own pretty well, including designing one’s own website. But, pomotion, distribution and tour support are really tough hurdles for a new artist to overcome on his or her own. I’m not sure where the answers to these issues lie and I’m just trying to hang in there long enough to be successfull. For me, the big hope now is that someone else might record one of my songs and thereby create the cash to be able to plough back into the enterprise for touring and promotion. I’ve thought all along, for example, that if an independent artist could get a few good reviews, get some radio and internet exposure and then somehow be able to track just where your listeners are, then you could focus your tour on the places where your audience actually is – and then go there.
Lamitschka: As an artist, you have so many tasks such as recording, touring, interviews. What do you like best, what’s your favorite activity?
Tom Huebner: I love playing live. I always have. There’s just something about getting in the zone with your guitar and having the crowd with you – it’s indescribable and totally addicting! I’ll always be ready to play for as long as I’m allowed in this life. It’s my total passion and I hope I can still do it when I’m eighty. I must say that I really love the studio recording process, though. If you have the right place to be creative and the right people around you, it can be a magic like no other. I was blown away the first time I heard an album I’d worked on in a real recording studio, mixed and then played for us. You read about how the Stones made Exile on Main Street, how they did it in a villa on the French Riviera with a mobile studio, staying up all night for a whole summer, just trying out ideas and getting the right feel and going over it until they had this amazing, rossetta stone of a rock album that we’ll never see the like of again, simply because a record label would never put up with that kind of schedule and the kind of cost it must have taken to record it that way, today. But, there’s a lot we can still do with the right people and the right inspiration. I really love the „live“ studio recordings that Tom Petty has been doing during the last couple of years, both with his old band Mudcrutch and with The Heartbreakers on their album Mojo. These recordings have a warmth and intimacy that’s just beautiful to hear. I’d love to make an record like that – more of a live, in-studio work, in the future – and Dottie would too, so perhaps we will.
Lamitschka: When you get time off, how do you like to relax?
Tom Huebner: I love spending time with my family, visiting friends – jamming just for the fun of it with other musicians. I’ve done a bit of organic gardening over the years. We had a really great one this year with lots of heirloom tomatos, string beans, strawberries, cucumbers, squash and herbs. I’m planting garlic here in a couple of weeks that I’ll harvest next summer. Dottie and I would love to farm if we could. We’d do it like Doc and Merle Watson did – farm in the summer and tour in the winter! The Napa and Sonoma wine country isn’t too far from us – great wines and food up there. I also love surfing and used to do it a lot more before the kids came along. It’s something I’d like to do more of again, when I get the time.
Lamitschka: Many music fans today get their information about artists online. Do you have your own website and what will fans find there?
Tom Huebner: Yes, you can find out more about us, including biographies, pictures, music downloads, ect., by going to www.tomhuebner.com. You can also visit us at www.myspace.com/tomhuebnerandtherealdeal, or follow us on Facebook at Tom Huebner and the Real Deal. The CD Highway 43 can also be purchased at CD Baby.com and at www.camelrecords.net. and songs can be purchased individually on itunes.
Lamitschka: What message would you like to send your European fans?
Tom Huebner: It’s great to see such genuine passion for American music like country, blues and roots-rock there in Europe. We’ve heard about some wonderful music festivals that would be awesome to be a part of – and we’d do some club dates, too. We would love to come over and I hope that we can. If the interest from people is there, then we’ll make it happen.