ION INDIE MAGAZINE September 2015, Volume 16 | Page 61

beautiful new bus playing for thousands of people all over the world--or anywhere in between. We
believe in our music, we believe in each other, and we believe in the brotherhood. You get little success
along the way, you go back to, say, Denver, Colorado, and there are twice as many people than there were
the last time. Or we come up here to Ringle and we are almost sold out this time. That’s a success, that
what we live on. We live on the great acoustic performance we just did for the VIP people…that literally
fuels our souls. Or even writing a new song, every little things that opens a new possibility on the
umbrella, we thrive on that.

CW: What do you like out in the music scene these days?
Phil: Some of our favorite, or me personally? There are a couple favorite bands out there. I am the kind of
guy that listens to the same thing for, like, 3 months straight…one record…I just wear it out. Right now,
BLACKBERRY SMOKE. I just fucking love that! I have been wearing it out. I have a lot of respect for them, I
got to meet them and hang with them at Sturgis last year. JOHN MAYER--his last two records really
moved me and influenced my playing. BUTCH WALKER is a song writer out of Atlanta that Dean
mentioned. He’s written a lot of songs for some big artists like PINK and WEEZER, but he does his very
own solo stuff that’s VERY inspiring. We kind of like the stuff that’s not on the radio, to be honest. We feel
real lucky that we have music that is played on the radio, but we didn’t plan it that way. We just happened
to write songs that got there, but we really weren’t trying. We don’t really give a shit one way or another.
Like I said, we would be doing it anyway, and that’s kinda what I like about Blackberry Smoke. They’re
somewhere between Country and Rock n Roll and they don’t give a shit. We’ve had to learn that over the
years--that anytime you try and compromise, you don’t sound REAL. You just sound fucking stupid, and
that last thing you wanna do is end up in a pile of bands that all sound the same. It’s not us…we’re not the
same.