Oteil and the Peacemakers
Interview with Oteil Burbridge
Words: Shawn Kyle

Appearing:
January 17, 2008
Common Grounds, Gainesville

January 18, 2008
The Bamboo Room, Lake Worth

January 19, 2008
Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa

Oteil Burbridge made the decision to live a life of music at a young age. Now he is on tour as the band leader for Oteil and the Peacemakers, with their solid mix of jazz, funk, soul and gospel rhythms and melodies. You may also be familiar with his work as bassist for the Allman Brothers, and as a founding member of the influential improvisational group Aquarium Rescue Unit.  Through countless hours on the road with his joyful and soul filled playing, he has become one of the most recognized bass players of the last decade. REAX had a spirited talk with Oteil about the difficulties of making a living as a musician, the joys and dangers of motorcycle ownership while being in the Allman Brothers band, and the difference between jam band and improvisation.

REAX:  At what age did you decide you were going to go out and make a living at music?
Oteil Burbridge:  At seventeen years old, I left home. It was tough.

REAX:  What do you think was the biggest challenge when you started on the path to making a lifelong career as a musician?
OB:  Trying to eat! (laughter) At the beginning I was in a Top 40 band at nineteen years old and had a house gig. But when I moved to Atlanta, I starved my ass off trying to make ends meet. The music business is very tough. Try to keep your spirits up and keep your faith. I have never worked another job, because when the times were lean, they were really lean, but I couldn’t get another job because, what if I got a call? I have done it, and made it through, and the last ten years have been peachy (laughter) since I have been in the Allman Brothers.

REAX:  Aquarium Rescue Unit was one of the first bands you were in to achieve notoriety. How did that come about?
OB:  Well, that happened because of the guys in the group. We were starving and not having fun playing music. A lot of the really great musicians in Atlanta, when they got frustrated with music, they would go play with this guy named Bruce Hampton. He invited us to play with him; it was just magic. The last thing we expected to happen was to get signed to a record deal. In the last ten years since, the band has achieved some sort of cult status, but there are no plans to reform.

REAX:  What drove you to start your own group in 2000?
OB:  I think that every man should have something that makes him feel like a kid again. I wasn’t riding motorcycles back then. When I was younger, I played music a lot more just for therapeutic reasons, or fun. When I go out with my own group it’s like my own Allman Brothers band, but well, minus the fame and money.

REAX:  Are you an avid motorcyclist?
OB:  Oh yeah!  I got a Triumph Bonneville. I wanted to do something purely for fun. One of the best things I have ever seen was in a motorcycle magazine. It said: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” Life is great, and you have to be a bit intentional about the fun part of it. I lived in Birmingham, Alabama for the last sixteen years, and I have just now discovered how beautiful it is by going down all these back roads.

REAX:  There is a history of back road riding in the Allman Brothers, some of it tragic. (Both legendary guitarist Duane Allman and original bassist Barry Oakley died in motorcycle accidents).
OB:  When I first got my bike, Greg (Allman) said that they all had those back in the early days, and some people said that I was crazy. But then again, I just read that last year more pedestrians were killed by cars on average than motorcycle riders, so it’s safer than walking! (laughter)

REAX:  You’re someone that could be viewed as part of the newer generation of improvisational musicians, having played with recently influential bands and fathers of that genre also, where do you think the jam band concept will go next?
OB:  If you talk to the Allmans, and the Grateful Dead or guys like that, they don’t consider themselves jam bands. One of the coolest things that Bob Weir (Grateful Dead vocalist / guitarist) ever said is that the first jam bands were the old jazz guys and blues, country or bluegrass guys too... Listen to Duke Ellington, Flat and Scruggs, these guys were jamming forever ago. Improvisational music has a long history. I feel very insecure about my spot in all of that. I hope to make a contribution, but when I compare myself with Charlie Christian, and Miles – all of them – I approach that list and tremble.  I just don’t make that list, I think. There are so many giants in American improvisational music, and I feel like I’m an ant.

REAX:  With all the processed and programmed music that has taken over popular music, what do you think it will take to have a resurgence of more freeform organic and improvisational music?
OB:  This music hasn’t gone anywhere, there’s no need for resurgence. What needs to happen is people need to pay attention to what’s going on around them. It’s like all the blues guys in the USA in the 60s. No one here cared about them.  They had to go to the UK to get the attention they deserved, and then the young white kids came back over to the US with that music and became millionaires. Sure, there were sociological issues that were going on here back then, but you still had renegades like Greg and Duane Allman who went to the other side of the tracks. Even though there were those issues, they rebelled against those taboos and did it anyway because they felt that was where the music was happening. I have an enormous amount of respect for that. The Blues, Jazz, and Bluegrass guys have been doing it forever and are still doing it. When will the public give them the attention they deserve? The resurgence needs to happen within the public. These guys are still out there making this great music and starving, and it’s right under the American public’s nose. It is a similar situation with Oteil and the Peacemakers. We play these smaller venues for little crowds. I hope that maybe one day before or after I am gone, people might say, “… hey check out that cat Oteil, listen to what he was doing with his band, no one knows about him because he wasn’t on TV and not on the radio, but listen to that music!”

oteil.net