Savoy Brown

(continued from previous page) were recording this last album?

Garnet Grimm: Well that’s a good question, because… that’s a really good question. As long as I had been with Kim… I first met Kim back in 1999 in person. I was well aware of his history. A mutual friend of our introduced us and I was invited to play on a studio date that had nothing to do with Savoy Brown. It was a solo project that he was doing and we became friends throughout this time, but it wasn’t until about 2009 that I joined Savoy Brown. The whole time that I have known Kim, we always recorded live as a band. We always recorded live. This one is different because Kim wasn’t feeling 100%, so we had to figure out how could we do this record because there was no way he could spend long hours a day in the studio. So, what he did was… He sent all of us, Pat DeSalvo, the bass player, myself, and Ron Keck, the engineer at Subcat Studios… He sent us all demos and said, “This is what I’m interested in doing.” So, Kim went in first and laid down some tracks, vocal tracks over the demos. Pat and myself went in and I think it took us a couple of days to go through the songs and lay down our tracks. Kim came in the second day of our recording, gave us some advice and added some keyboard parts. I think he added some harmonica that day. I guess my point is we had to build the album from the ground up, which is much different from anything that I had ever done with Kim. It was always very straightforward. We would always rehearse the songs. Many times Kim would rehearse the songs on the road when we were touring. We would start to rehearse them at sound checks and then we would continue to rehearse them when we were off the road, but we would go in live and play them live. So this one was very different the way we approached it. I was a little… I don’t know if I was apprehensive… I was just a little anxious because I thought, ‘we’ve never done it this way’, but it worked beautifully. It came off really good I think. Kim had to add a little more time the next week or so of the recording to do slide, some vocal parts that he went over… some stuff like that. I added percussion parts, so it was a cool way to do it because you did get to listen a bit as it was being built rather than you would play and listen back. It was a little bit of a different way, it was kind of neat, but that’s how that one went.

Rock And Blues International: How was the recording emotionally for you and Pat?

Garnet Grimm: I think that we hit a little on that earlier. I’m very grateful that it came out, but it is hard to hear Kim sing and play and know that he’s not here to support the record. That gives me a little bit of sadness, especially because the recording is doing quite well. Pre-sales were very strong, for example today, we peaked at #6 for Blues Sales on Amazon and I believer we’re #4 for the second week in a row on Billboard for Blues. So, ahead of us is Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Edgar Winter, and then Savoy Brown. That’s a pretty good showing. Those are some tough people up there at the top. Two of them won Grammys™ recently. I think that Kim would be very, very pleased with the way the recording is going. It’s just that emotionally I’m a little bummed out and feeling sad that we can’t tour to support this, but very grateful that it’s out… very grateful.

Rock And Blues International: Well you say that you won’t be able to tour to support this album. What about a listening tour where you and could go out and play the recorded music and then comment on the songs and the experience with the recording of this album? You could still do somewhat of a listening tour. You could even talk about your years of involvement with Savoy Brown. That could be quite interesting. And it would still be a tour.

Garnet Grimm: You know what… That’s a cool idea! I don’t think that’s been brought up yet. I’m going to bring that up and give you credit.

Rock And Blues International: Okay! It’s a shame to have a new album out and not be able to do something like that. It would even be easier to do a short little tour where you did talk about those things… You and Pat, and maybe even get Ron Keck to go out with you.

Garnet Grimm: Right, right, that is an excellent idea. It would be cool to get out and do something like that. You’ve just given me ideas that would work. Thank you!

Rock And Blues International: On the writing of the songs, did Kim do all the writing, or were there contributions from you and Pat?

Garnet Grimm: No, I have to tell you, Kim was almost always the primary songwriter, especially during the time we were in the band. That’s the way it was always, but he did have people that would come in with songs at different times during different versions of the band, but our time as a trio it was all Kim. I will tell you that he was very good with Pat and I continued on next page