Bryan Bassett of Foghat

8 Days On The Road with Bryan Bassett of FOGHAT

Interview by Ken Morton Live Photo by Jack Lue

Legendary and multi-Platinum rockers FOGHAT -- Roger Earl (founding member/drums), Bryan Bassett (lead guitar, formerly with Wild Cherry and Molly Hatchet), Charlie Huhn (lead guitar and lead vocals, formerly with Ted Nugent, Gary Moore, Victory, and Humble Pie), and Rodney O’Quinn (bass, formerly with the Pat Travers Band) -- celebrate 50 years of Rock n’ Roll with 8 Days On The Road, a 14-track live performance now available as a double CD/DVD package! Jam-packed with classic Foghat selections such as Slow Ride, Fool For The City and Chevrolet as well as a raging cover of the Wild Cherry mega-hit Play That Funky Music, 8 Days On The Road was recorded on November 17, 2019 at Daryl’s House Club in Pawling, NY.

Highwire Daze recently interviewed longtime guitarist Bryan Bassett to discuss the just unleashed 8 Days On The Road, the epic Foghat 50 year and counting legacy, his time spent within the ranks of Molly Hatchet and Wild Cherry, and a whole lot more! Read on...

First of all, let’s talk about the new live album 8 Days On The Road. How did the 8 Days On The Road album come about and where did you guys record it?

It came about at the end of our tour last year; we had been playing all year long. We try to do a live recording every couple of years – it sort of sets a marker in our timeline – just something for our fans that have seen us over the course of the year to maybe have a recollection of the shows that we did. And we happened to play Daryl Hall’s nightclub, which is Daryl’s House Shows – which is a fantastic TV show – but this is also a nightclub that he has. And he has an on staff recording team that are just excellent – and it’s a smaller venue which we don’t get the opportunity to play much anymore – so it was very intimate. And just because of the staff on hand and the care they took with sound proofing the building – and they had a video crew there – it just seemed like a great way to end the year and get a product out for our fans.

Foghat is celebrating their 50th Anniversary as a band this year. What goes through your mind knowing that Foghat is now 50 years old, and you’ve been in it for half the time?

Well, I’m going on 22 years and I’m still the new guy. I’m like Ronnie Wood – just been here for a long time. It’s just quite a legacy for Roger Earl particularly – he’s been there from day one. Of course, him, Dave Peverett and Tony Stevens came out of Savoy Brown and added Rod Price and had a fabulous career through the 70’s and 80’s. And to carry on the legacy of the music is fantastic! I met Dave in the late 80’s when he relocated to Orlando, Florida and we became great friends. When Rod retired, he asked me to join the band – and he became my best friend. We had a mutual love of old blues music. Dave was practically a historian – he had all of these 78’s in really great packaging and was quite a collector. So, it was a great turn in my life. I was working in a studio at the time and had a small blues band in Orlando, Florida. And we started jamming and eventually I ended up in the band. They reformed between 92-99 – all the original members got back together for a time, and I spent 7 years in Molly Hatchet. So, when Rod retired, Dave asked me to

come back, and I’ve been here since 2000.

One of the songs from 8 Days On The Road is a cover of Play That Funky Music – and of course you were in Wild Cherry on the original recording of that song. What does the mean to you that Foghat is paying tribute to your music roots on that song?

It was just something nice that the guys wanted to do. When they would introduce me on the stage, I would do a little one-minute bit of the song. And at one point, Roger said, “Hey, why don’t we just play that?” It’s a big song, and when we play it in the encore, people get a big kick out of it. It was really for fun more than anything. The crowd seems to like it toward the end of the show – so it’s just a nice little tribute to my past and it’s one of those songs that seems to hang around – so the crowd really likes it.

When you look back now on your time spent with Wild Cherry and the albums you did with them, what do you think of it now in retrospect?

Well first of all, we got to play with some of the greatest artists from that era. We were on mostly rhythm and blues tours. We toured with the Jackson 5 – we did some shows on their last tour. We did a few shows on the Earth Wind & Fire That’s The Way of The World Tour. We did extensive touring with The Commodores. The fantastic Average White Band – we did a lot of touring with them. So, to see those artists in their prime – mostly we opened the shows of course. But we also played with Santana, early Journey pre-Steve Perry. Just to see those great musicians – when I met Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder introduced me to him – it was one of those brushes with greatness. And to me as a young 20-something and have a song blow up like that, and then all of a sudden be on these great tours was really exciting.

Let’s go on to your time spent with Molly Hatchet. First of all, how did you wind up in Molly Hatchet?

One of the last tours I did with Dave (and his vesion of Foghat) was in Europe and we did it with Molly Hatchet. I got to know them pretty well. Bobby Ingram’s guitar got broken on the flight over from the US to Europe, so he borrowed my Les Paul for the lion’s share of that tour. And we became friends – I became friends with Danny Joe – and we hung out together being Americans in Europe – after shows we would go to bars and drink some beers. So, Danny Joe and I became good friends as well. And when we returned to the States – that was right in the end of ’92, and Dave was getting to reform with Roger and the original guys (of Foghat). We did a show – I think it was somewhere up in the Midwest with Molly Hatchet. And Danny Joe asked me to come on his bus – which I did. And he said “I know you’re going to need a job pretty soon. Would you like to join our band?” And it was like “Yes sir, I would!” So, I basically got off the Foghat bus and got on the Molly Hatchet bus.

And this is a funny story. We drove all the way to Maine for my first show with Molly Hatchet – and it happened to be with the newly reformed Foghat. So, my first show with Molly Hatchet is with Foghat! So, I walked into the arena and went into the wrong dressing room – after years of going into the Foghat dressing room. And Roger was in there and he goes “Wrong dressing room mate!” (Much laughter)

While you were in Molly Hatchet, the band put out what I think were three of their most underrated albums – Devil’s Canyon, Silent Reign Of Heroes, and Kingdom of XII. Looking back on those three albums in particular, what do you think of them now?

I particularly love the first one Devil’s Canyon. I thought we had some great songs on there – and Bobby Ingram and I had a real great connection guitar wise – and all the guitar harmonies that are part of the Molly Hatchet sound. Plus, we did a lot of touring in Europe which was fun from just a tourist’s standpoint to be travelling all over the country and playing. But that was a very strong band. At the beginning when I first joined, Banner Thomas the original bass player and Danny Joe were still in the band. Banner eventually left and then Danny Joe eventually retired and then passed away. Those early years in Molly Hatchet were great and I thought we had a great band. And I think they are underrated – of course all the original albums are classics, but to carry on the

guitar harmony tradition was really fantastic. From a guitar playing standpoint, it was difficult, but very rewarding, to learn and play those parts live.

So now you are back in Foghat around the year 2000. Let’s talk about that very first album you did with Foghat Family Joules – what do you think of that album and going in to record with them for the first time?

It was great, I think. We had good material on there. I engineered – I engineer most of most of the Foghat record’s these days. But that was my first experience. I had just come out of 15 years working with King Snake Records as an engineer/producer. And so I bought a digital recording setup, and we had a big giant warehouse in Central Florida that a friend of ours owned – it was a massive, cavernous building – and we just set up there live and I set up a recording studio right off to the side all in the same room – and we just starting tracking and putting some songs on. So, I thought it was great. It was really great to do some original music with new guys. Which is why we still record now and why we continue to keep doing new albums of original material. We’re always going to play the hits, but just for our own creative need really, we still like to write and record.

Your previous studio album Under The Influence was absolutely amazing. Will there be any new studio Foghat albums coming out soon?

We have one in the planning now – in fact, I just bought a new board. We have a studio called Boogie Motel South in Central Florida – it’s a big 10-acre ranch, and we setup the same way we setup the live band in the same room with the recording gear. I think it will be very much like Under The Influence – which is of course tongue and cheek for under the musical influence and not so much under the influence of party stuff. But it’s going to be similar to Under The Influence – we’re going to pull in some old blues songs which is something Foghat has done over the years and rock them up a little bit. And try to get a couple new originals in there and record. We do it at our leisure – we have our own record label so there’s no time pressure. We’re going to start recording very soon and maybe next summer do a release if all things go well.

And do you have any messages for Foghat fans who are reading this right now?

I’d say come on out and rock and roll with us! I think we’re getting to the point now where the venues feel safe, and the musicians feel comfortable. So, it’s time to get our rock and roll back on!

http://www.foghat.com/