Preacher Boy has always been an artist who refuses to be confined by genre or expectation. From the early days of his career, his raw, emotive voice and distinctive slide guitar playing have left an indelible mark on the world of Americana and blues. With his latest album, Ghost Notes, Preacher Boy takes listeners on a journey that is as much about the spaces between the notes as the music itself.
This album is not just a collection of songs, it’s a reflection of a restless soul constantly searching for something deeper. With 18 tracks that explore themes of loss, resilience, and transformation, Ghost Notes is an album born from a life lived at full volume. In this conversation, we dive into the making of the album, the twists and turns of his career, and how Preacher Boy has managed to stay true to his voice while always moving forward.
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Looking back at your career, from your Blind Pig Records debut to Ghost Notes, what do you see as the defining moments of your musical journey?
Well, all of them, I suppose. But since you mentioned Blind Pig Records, I can start there. Way back when I was still in my teens, I was utterly and completely under the spell of country blues giants like Son House, Bukka White, Fred McDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, and so many more. And I was really doing everything I could to learn how to capture those sounds, and that passion was so intense and beautiful, but it was also a source of stabbing despair, because the idea of ever being able to make a career out of those influences seemed absolutely impossible. And I felt a bit cursed, you know? Like, why won’t the world make a place for me? But somewhere doing those years of musical exploration, I tumbled onto a cassette by a cat named Roy Rogers. The album was called “Chops not Chops,” and he was playing slide guitar and doing all these country blues tunes, and I thought, damn, if he can do it, maybe, just maybe, I could, too. You have to remember, just about nobody was playing that kind of music back then—at least, not in any mainstream or even semi-mainstream kind of way. There was no Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues. There was no Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. There was no Fantastic Negrito winning Grammys. Well, anyhow, on the back of that cassette, I found the record label’s name, and it was Blind Pig Records, and I told myself if I ever felt ready to go for it and try to make it in music, I’d find that label. Well, fast forward to the early 90s in San Francisco, when I was first playing under the Preacher Boy name, and I found out that Blind Pig Records had expanded from its origin city in Michigan and had opened an office in San Francisco! I tracked them down, and pretty much begged them for two years to come and listen to me play, and they finally came, and they said maybe, and I begged again, and they came again, and they said maybe again, and this went on for a while, but finally, they decided to offer me a contract, and I remember signing it on a table top in a closed restaurant in North Beach, and boy, I thought I had it made! I didn’t, as it turned out, but that’s how the journey started!
You’ve been called “the godfather of alt blues” and compared to legends like Howlin’ Wolf and Tom Waits. How do you personally define your sound within the Americana and blues landscape?
Well, I must say, I rather like the phrase “the godfather of alt blues!” I think I’ll stick with that …
You’ve drawn comparisons to a diverse range of artists — from Bob Dylan to Dr. John. Are there specific influences that shaped your distinct vocal and playing style?
Well, those two, certainly! High praise, indeed, and I’ll happily take it. And as I said earlier, the country blues legends are absolutely the foundation of everything for me—Son House, Bukka White, Charley Patton, Sleepy John Estes, Mance Lipscomb, Blind Willie McTell, Fred McDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, Robert Pete Williams, and so many more. Instrumentally, certainly, but vocally as well. I never sung growing up, and the few times I tried—in music class in school or something—I got made fun of. So, ironically, I just tried to sing really quietly. Which meant it was all coming from my nose—no power, no tone, no pitch. Just awful sounding. But those blues guys, man, they howled! And when I discovered Captain Beefheart and Dave Van Ronk, well, that inspired me to just start trying to do the same. Imitating Blind Willie Johnson just seemed impossible—ludicrous. But Van Ronk felt like a closer target. But really, it wasn’t until I actually tried to start singing live that I realized the reality of what I was facing. It was either, start shouting, or get drowned out. And what I found out was that the harder I sung, the more comfortable I became. One reviewer, writing about my very first album, wrote something to the effect of, imagine Motorhead’s Lemmy singing the blues. I thought that was about the greatest thing I’d ever heard, and that’s pretty much the sound I’ve been after ever since. A lot of folks say my voice is kind of an acquired taste, and I get that, but at the end of the day, believe it or not, I actually feel fortunate, because it turned out I had the kind of voice I wanted, and the voice that was right for the kind of songs I wanted to write.
How did your time living and recording in Europe shape your creative output? Did those years broaden your artistic perspective?
Well, my missus and I living in rural Ireland definitely had a profound effect on me. My album “The Devil’s Buttermilk” was largely composed while we lived there, and the photos in the artwork are from the 200-year-old stone house we lived in while we were there. It was a couple miles outside this little fishing village in the Burren, in County Clare, and it was heated entirely by peat stoves, and it was truly magical. That album was a real turning point for me, and for my songwriting. I think I just became a better storyteller, you know? And I had the time and the space to just think, and to walk, and to sit, and to write, and that area is just so bloody musical, and a bit desolate, as well. And to this day, some of my favorite of my own songs were either written there, or were inspired by our time there. And I listened to so much Irish music, and it’s such a great tradition for story songs and storytellers, and those lilting minor tonalities were so close in character to so many country blues melodies; I mean, if you think of Skip James doing “Hardtime Killing Floor Blues,” it’s not all that different melodically from something like “Galway Races.” And there were great voices there, too. Like Sean Tyrell, who lived in our village, and who had this brilliant, creakingly beautiful, rough and rustic voice, and he’d make a whole pub weep when he sang. And the songs are so lyrical, and you think about a writer like Luke Kelly or Christy Moore—just so good with empathy and humanity and the ways they captured both the country and the city. I think living in Ireland was probably what helped me first bring the country into my writing. A song like “February,” from Estate Bottled Blues—I could never have written that if it hadn’t been for our time there.
The San Francisco Guardian once called you “the Charlie Musselwhite for the Lollapalooza Generation.” What does that description mean to you?
Well, you know, I toured as the opening act for Charlie Musselwhite for several weeks, many years after that quote came out, and it was a pretty funny experience, telling him about it. It got to be quite a running joke for us. But in all seriousness, I, of course, loved the quote, because Charle’s a bloody legend, right? As to what it meant to me, well, I felt like it was actually a pretty great description—I mean, here I was, this twenty-something in San Francisco, making my bones by opening up for everyone from Cracker and Chris Isaak to Uncle Tupelo and X, and yet I was getting over with reinterpretations of tunes by Fred McDowell and Son House! So I felt proud to be understood as someone who was bringing beautiful older music to newer ears.
Can you reflect on your experience co-writing and recording with Eagle-Eye Cherry and Rick Rubin? How did those collaborations influence your own creative path?
Well, working with Eagle-Eye was an absolute blessing. He’s just a beautiful cat in every way, and I love him as a person and as an artist, and I know he really took a risk by bringing me on tour with him, and it was entirely at his request that I came to write with him in New York, and that it should lead to writing so many songs, and getting to record them with Rick Rubin—well, I’m just very, very grateful. Working with Eagle-Eye, maybe above all else, really taught me about the importance of phrasing. He is such a natural and gifted vocalist, and his phrasing is unbelievably sophisticated, but he’s very particular about it. Me, I’d always considered the words to be the boss, and if that meant changing phrasing line-by-line in order to accommodate the words, well, that was just how it had to be. But with Eagle-Eye, he’d find phrasing and a melody that he loved, and that was that, either the lyrics fit into that, or you had to rewrite them. I remember on one song, he had this pattern where he’d hum and phrase these three-line verse patterns, and the first line ended with a single syllable, the second with two syllables, and the third with three syllables—and I had to write to that! It was such a fantastic challenge. As to Rick Rubin, well, I’ll tell you a quick story to give you an idea of what it was like to work with him. We had this one song, and he was convinced it should have this very sixties folk-rock sound. So, he locked us in the studio, turned out the lights, and made us listen to Donovan records for about four hours before he let us track the thing.
Your time spent living in Jack Kerouac’s former home sounds fascinating. How did that period of poetry-focused reflection inform your return to music?
I think it really helped me form the parameters of my approach to improvisation, to being in the moment, to capturing that zen state of immediacy and resonance. Immersing in his world helped me discover what it meant to obsessively learn the rules, only to tirelessly break them in the service of something transcendent. And it taught me alot about process and bravery; about having a willingness to stick to your artistic guns even as you’re getting heat from all around. I brought a number of my old manual typewriters to work on when I was there, and I had this process where I’d start a poem on a typewriter, and I wouldn’t stop revising until I could type through an entire draft without wanting to change any words or lines. Sometimes I’d get to just the second or third line, and I’d already be changing things. I’d draft and draft and draft, and finally, I’d be able to type the poem top to bottom with no changes. That’s when I knew I had a proper version of the poem. When that happened, I’d tape the draft to an open space on the wall. By the time my time was up there, the whole place was pretty much wall-papered with poems. I was quite literally living inside my own head. I think I’ve managed to preserve versions of that approach ever since—particularly as I’ve come to understand that both a manual typewriter and an acoustic guitar are, in fact, instruments that make you work in very specific ways.
You’ve released multiple albums in rapid succession in recent years. What drives your current pace of creativity?
Fear? Anger? Desperation? Love? I don’t know, I just feel driven to create, and create, and create. I’m a dad now, you know, so I swapped out liquor for caffeine, so I don’t really sleep much! And I want to be something special for my daughter, and I want my missus to always be moved by me, and to believe in me as a man, and as a husband, and as a father. And I don’t know, my brain just goes and goes, all the time. I think it’s kind of the curse of having sort of trained myself to just always be “on” as a writer—I don’t want to miss anything. But it means I’m kind of in auto-consume mode all the time. I’m just trying to devour everything around me all the time, get it inside me, so I can make something of it, you know? There’s a reason “process” is both a noun and a verb, dig?
From gritty blues clubs to recording studios around the world, what has been the most memorable performance or recording experience of your career?
Man, there’s been so many, but if I had to pick one, I’d say it was supporting Shane MacGowan in London on my 30th birthday. So many of my heroes were gone before I ever had the chance to meet them; so many of those country blues guys had already passed on. But Shane was a living, breathing hero, and to earn a spot on the same bill with him—it was just a peak moment I never thought I’d attain. I still can’t quite believe it even happened. It was a tough show. Shane’s fans REALLY wanted Shane (I know, because they chanted “We want Shane” and threw beer cans at me while I was playing!). But I won over enough of them that it ended up being a success, and then afterwards, my missus and I got to stand in the curtains stage left while Shane sang Fairytale of New York to about 2000 Londoners, and Kirsty MacColl was still alive then, and she went out and sang it with him, and it was heartbreaking and beautiful and sad and gorgeous and magic and tragic and glorious and I’ll probably never forget it.
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