INTERVIEW: Blues Traveler’s Ben Wilson gets ready for December tour

Ben Wilson, keyboardist for Blues Traveler, is ready to take the stage in a couple of weeks for the band’s short and sweet Northeast tour. Playing New York State Dec. 26 and 27, plus a New Jersey stop at the State Theatre in New Brunswick on Dec. 29, the band is gearing up for a big year in 2015. Wilson shared with Hollywood Soapbox that a new album is in the works.

“We’ve been pretty much laid low for the fall, which is kind of good because we are also in the process of mixing a new record that we did with a bunch of different artists, a big collaboration, that we’re hoping to get out in March or April,” Wilson said recently during a phone interview. “I think we’ll all be pretty excited to get on the road even though it’s just a short little run between Christmas and New Year’s and, you know, just get back to doing what we do best, which is playing for the fans.”

Although Wilson didn’t divulge many details about the new record, he did allow that a collaboration with the ’90s pop group Hanson went well.

For Wilson, whose most recent solo effort was called Throwing Wrenches, his love for touring and recording ebbs and flows. “When you’re in the third month of a three-month run where you’ve only been home for a week, you start thinking maybe the studio is a little nicer,” he said. “But when you’ve been sitting in the studio listening to the 15^th pass on the guitar … or I’m trying to just work out the minutiae of a particular keyboard line, as much as I enjoy that part of the process, that can get tedious as well. And then you sort of long for the spontaneity and the sort of right-now-ness of playing live.”

Blues Traveler offers a legendary live act in the spirit of the great jam bands of the past. When everything is running smoothly, they can average 250 concerts per year. At first, when he first joined the band almost 15 years ago, the group’s touring schedule was a little daunting for Wilson.

“For me, it was very difficult for a while to get into the groove of playing live and being able to sort of let mistakes or minor things that I didn’t play exactly the way I want to pass by without kind of bumming me out. As in the live situation, if you make a boo-boo, it’s over and done, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So why dwell on it? But that was sort of a difficult thing for me to sort of figure out how to do well, but now you can just really dig into what’s happening now on stage and just really let yourself get into the moment. It’s sort of a zen practice for somebody who can be a little bit anal about their playing, which is what I tend to be.”

Wilson had some nervousness in the early days of joining the band. He said he was confident in his ability but still insecure. He didn’t want to be only a good keyboard player; he wanted to be a good keyboard player for Blues Traveler.

“Joining Blues Traveler was this sort of amazing life change, and it’s something that, despite some of the headaches that come with any ‘job’ … the opportunity to play music and make a reasonable living is something that I had always wanted,” he said. “I just think the suddenness of going from playing in bars and sort of fighting for respect to oh, you’re the keyboard player in Blues Traveler, I was just the same guy, but all of a sudden it’s just a whole different level of respect and different way of being viewed even though there was nothing changed at all.”

The December tour promises a well-oiled Blues Traveler machine. Wilson said that to prepare the band often places the rehearsal gear in the dressing rooms backstage.

“Say John [Popper, lead singer] comes in and wants to do a song that we haven’t done in a long time. If we don’t know it cold, we can listen to it and as a collective sort of figure out how it goes,” Wilson said. “So, you know, it makes it kind of fun and could be challenging in sort of a different kind of way that’s exciting.”

During the concerts, Wilson loves a “good keyboard solo.” However, he admitted that a few minutes to himself on stage can be a double-edge sword. Sometimes a musician has great nights, where the solos come fast and easy, while other nights, a musician is not feeling the inspiration.

“One thing you’ve got to be careful on stage is judging how something went because it’s such a subjective thing, and the crowd is going to have a totally different feeling than you did,” he said. “I remember once reading a quote, the Europe ’72 tour the Grateful Dead did and then made a record of, apparently Jerry [Garcia] came on stage one night and threw Phil [Lesh] down the stairs because of how sh***y he thought the night went. And when they went back and listened to the tapes, they picked almost three songs from that very show. It was just kind of a lesson in be careful how you’re judging how something is going because you don’t know. You can be so wrapped up in your own head and your own mind and be so deep into your own thoughts that you lose perspective.”

Blues Traveler has been going strong for more than 25 years. The band’s most recognizable hits — “Run-Around,” “Hook” and “But Anyway” — are modern blues classics. The group’s early album, Four, with its screeching “cool cat” cover, is the stuff of legend. Blues Traveler’s latest release is Suzie Cracks the Whip, featuring tunes “You Don’t Have to Love Me,” “All Things Are Possible” and “Cara Let the Moon.”

Today’s lineup includes Wilson on keyboards, Popper on vocals and harmonica, Chan Kinchla on guitars, Tad Kinchla on bass and Brendan Hill on drums and percussion. Original bassist Bobby Sheehan died tragically in 1999 at the age of 31. Tad Kinchla and Wilson joined the band shortly thereafter.

“I think it’s very collaborative,” Wilson said. “John obviously has a large input. There’s no Blues Traveler without John Popper. As good as the rest of us are, he sort of takes it to that sort of unique place. He’s a unique performer. He has his own voice, and then with his harmonica obviously just takes it to a different level altogether. But as far as how the band operates, it’s very democratic in the sense of how we work songs out and everybody. We try very hard. I think one of the reasons there’s been longevity is we try very hard for everybody to have a voice.”

He added: “It usually takes less time to try the idea than it does to argue about whether we should even try it. We kind of learned to just try the idea, and usually it becomes pretty clear right away.”

Wilson predicted that Blues Traveler will keep going strong. He doesn’t see any reason why any member would retire from the band.

“We have so many great fans, and we have such luck with our hits that they’ve reached so many people that’s it’s hard to imagine a time when it’s just going to be nobody coming out to see us anymore,” Wilson said. “I hope this thing goes on.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Blues Traveler will visit Seneca Allegany Casino in Salamanca, N.Y., on Dec. 26; the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, N.Y., on Dec. 27; and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J., on Dec. 29. Click here for more information.