By Peter Lindblad
Going for a walk down memory lane, Chad Kinchla found himself back in Brooklyn recently, revisiting his old haunts.
The area where he and his Blues Traveler bandmates lived in the ‘80s has tamed considerably, with gentrification making it less gritty and dangerous. Some of the romance is gone, too.
“I mean, New York is nice now,” said the guitarist, who toured the apartments where they resided, taking videos that can be seen on the band’s Instagram page. “It was late ‘80s New York … it was wild. It was fun, but it was just the Wild West. Now it’s just … it’s really cool, but it’s not really that wild. I don’t think any up-and-coming artists can really afford to live in the main part of New York. It’s not funky anymore.”
The funk never left Blues Traveler, the long-running, platinum-selling jam band who celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2022 with a series of shows. They’ll bring their colorful musical stew of influences, infectious grooves and jaw-dropping improvisational wizardry to the Crystal Grand Music Theatre in Wisconsin Dells on Friday, Nov. 3.
Live and onstage, Blues Traveler goes on a journey, throwing away the map and taking unpredictable detours that end up in wonderfully unexpected places. Along with performing iconic classics from their rich, varied catalog, Blues Traveler will give audiences a taste of their latest Grammy-nominated album, Travelers Blues.
“We always try different stuff, and we’ve never stopped playing,” said Kinchla. “We’ve played the whole time, and I think that translates … if you’re comfortable onstage, you’re comfortable playing with each other. We never just sat around for a couple of years … we’ve been touring the whole time.”
Don’t expect, however, to get that little something extra with your ticket that Blues Traveler used to give away.
“We moved to New York in ‘87, and there wasn’t much going on. The first year was pretty bleak,” remembered Kinchla. “We were just like 18, out playing talent nights. But we were go-getters, so we threw a bunch of parties in basements of different bars on the lower east side and gave away free drugs.”
Handing out flyers at downtown New York schools like New York University and The New School, institutions of higher learning attended by its members, Blues Traveler did what they had to do to entice young people to go see them.
“And you’d be surprised how many people show up when there are drugs involved, and so that’s how we started … but we would play six, seven nights a week all over Manhattan, and then occasionally shoot out to play a friend’s frat party, with college friends in that local area. And by ’88, we were packing every little bar in downtown New York,” said Kinchla.
The origin story begins in Princeton, New Jersey, where Blues Traveler materialized as a garage band with singer, guitarist and harmonica player John Popper and drummer Brendan Hill forming The Establishment with Hill’s brother on bass. They later changed the name to Blues Band, with Chan Kinchla – a star athlete, who suffered a knee injury that derailed any hopes of a sports career – eventually settling in as a guitarist. They met in a music area in high school that served as a refuge of sorts for Kinchla.
“I was always in there stoned, skipping school, getting caught playing in one of the little studios, because they had amps in there. I would just sit in there and they were like, why is he always in here?” said Kinchla, with a laugh. “So, I met them, and they had some other guitar players, but they were a little more straightlaced, so I came in and honestly … me, Brendan and John played like two songs together in Brendan’s basement in Princeton, New Jersey, and it was just off the chain. They called their other guitar player and fired him immediately. There was already a good energy, and I think I brought a little of the crazy rock energy. They had a really nice set of things, and John was uber talented, so yeah, and then my buddy Bobby, who was more of a Deadhead in that side of things and frame of mind, saw we had a good thing going and then he jumped in and pushed out the other bass player, who was a classical violinist, actually.”
The chemistry was apparent right away.
“I think we all loved all kinds of music, and so early on, we were kind of blues based originally, but we all wrote songs, and we all had a ton of influences, a hundred different influences, and we kind of just mashed it all together, which kind of created our own unique sound, which took a while to develop,” explained Kinchla. “But luckily, we always had John’s amazing singing and ripping harmonica to set us apart.”
Soon, they moved to New York City, and at one of the bars they played, they befriended a bartender – also a talent scout – who got them a gig on the “Late Show with David Letterman.”
“I grew up sitting around in the wee hours of the morning playing guitar and practicing scales to watching David Letterman, so those are magical moments,” said Kinchla. “But it’s all these little steps along the way. I mean we were just hell bent for leather. We didn’t really look left or right, we just kept moving forward and just trying to get better and reach more people, especially back then, you know. You’ve got a lot of energy when you’re a kid.”
Barnstorming their way up and down the East Coast, Blues Traveler built a cult following, while other similar acts such as Phish, Widespread Panic, The Spin Doctors and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit were establishing themselves. They would join forces in creating the legendary H.O.R.D.E. touring music festival.
“We would meet at all these various gigs we would do,” said Kinchla. “We started playing together in little combos, here and there, so we got to know each other – mostly based around school, because it was college music. That’s what all the college kids were into. So, by the summertime, we were sick of playing little bars during the summer and we went to Lollapalooza, and that had come up, the first Lollapalooza came out, and we were like … we should do this, but with just us jam bands. So, I guess we have Perry Ferrell to thank.”
Crowds were small at the beginning.
“I mean, the funny thing was that very first H.O.R.D.E., it was a pretty beat up old circuit,” said Kinchla. “We didn’t get out and do that many shows, and they weren’t that highly attended because nobody knew these bands, other than college kids and partiers. And the funny thing is, now, so many people say they were at that first year of H.O.R.D.E., and I’m like, ‘Really?’ Because it certainly didn’t look like that many people were there, but for us as a band, it was a really special time. We kind of realized … there was a scene brewing.”
Meanwhile, Blues Traveler was churning out records, releasing a self-titled debut in 1990, with the track “But Anyway” gaining traction on college radio. A year later, Travelers and Thieves arrived, setting the stage for the live EP On Tour Forever honoring famed concert promotor Bill Graham, whose son David was their manager.
They were well on their way to making a third album, Save His Soul, a record Kinchla said had “gritty energy,” when Popper got into a motorcycle accident. After finishing it, Blues Traveler toured with Popper in a wheelchair. Momentum was building. Then came four, the smash hit studio album that changed everything, yielding the ubiquitous, deliriously catchy “Run-Around,” a Grammy winning hit succeeded by “Hook,” another Billboard Hot 100 chart climber. The producer team of Michael Barbiero and Steve Thompson shepherded the record, which went six times platinum. Everyone was focused on the task at hand.
“We always wanted to make cool records … that were accessible, and you know jamming and improvisation and all that, that’s a very live, in-the-moment (thing) … like with the live crowd and the lights, smells and smoke,” said Kinchla. “That doesn’t necessarily translate to something where you’re sitting listening quietly in your room. We tried to always look at it like it’s a totally different form, not trying so much to bring out all that improvisation onto a record. So, that was our fourth record – four – and we’d worked with some great producers and gotten more comfortable with how the studio was. I do know for four we were up in Woodstock, at Bearsville studios, a famous studio, and it was a nice big studio, and we really knew what we were doing. We had been touring a lot, we had great songs … so we were definitely very comfortable and confidant making a record, and we knew it was going to be a good record. We had no idea we were going to have top 10, Hot 100 hits, but we certainly liked the record and felt like it was pretty bad ass.”
At the same time, the popularity of H.O.R.D.E. was exploding, too.
“We were all friends before we did the festival,” said Kinchla. “We put it together as friends. As H.O.R.D.E. grew after that, it became more like disparate bands … always with a rock jam tilt, but it became more like a big rock festival. But that first year, and first two years, it was just us friends putting together packages … those were the first and second years and the third year was Big Head Todd and Dave Matthews. At the time, we were called neo-hippies, they were still looking for the name. They hadn’t turned them into jam bands. That came a decade later.”
What followed was a whirlwind of movie and TV appearances – see “Kingpin,” “Blues Brothers 2000” and “Saturday Night Live” – and soundtrack entries, as well as a slot at Woodstock ’94. They were even brought on as the opening act for The Rolling Stones, and they figured they’d enjoy the ride, like their jam band compatriots.
“At the time, we were working with A&M, and they were a great label and they stuck with us all the way through the first three records, so we had a pretty good relationship with them,” said Kinchla. “I mean, we only know one way to do things, kind of the way we’re into at the moment, so we wanted to make another really good record and I feel great about the next record we made (Straight On till Morning). Nothing was going to be as commercially huge as four, but it did really well. And then, by the end of the ‘90s, the music business was turned on its ear, so we were quite happy just going back to making cool records and touring. We just kind of roll with the punches and then Bobby passed away in ’99. That put a wrinkle in things, but we love playing live, and that’s what we always fall back on when things get weird on the other side. So as long as we get to play live and write new songs and be in a working, growing band, we’re good.”
More recordings are on the way, as Blues Traveler looks to promote the upcoming Live and Acoustic: Fall of 1997 limited edition, double LP, which culls concert highlights from that year’s touring coming on the heels of their 1997 performance at Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit. At the event, they played two captivating acoustic sets.
“It was after four and all that mayhem, and we went out and did a tour where we played acoustic … I mean, we were just non-stop working back then, so thankfully, someone took the time to record it properly,” said Kinchla. “It was a friend of the band who did that, and years later, he got in touch with us and showed us these, and we actually had been working with these people that press vinyl, and we thought it would be an awesome thing to release. It’s kind of an old school blast from the past, and when we listened to it, it was neat. And it’s just great to get any of that stuff with Bobby Sheehan, our dearly beloved, passed away bass player, on it. So, for us, it’s just kind of a cool way to keep his memory alive. Honestly, that’s the coolest thing about it to me.”
Traveler’s Blues dropped in 2021. Nominated for a Grammy for “Best Traditional Blues Album,” it saw Blues Traveler re-working American blues classics, and in March, Blues Traveler plans on going back into a Nashville studio to do an album of R&B covers in similar fashion.
“We did this blues record during the pandemic that we got nominated for a Grammy for and we had a blast doing,” said Kinchla, who now lives in Los Angeles. “Now we’re doing one … the Blues Traveler treatment doing a bunch of cool, kind of Motown soul tunes.”
Hitting the road again, Blues Traveler will function as they always have, changing the setlist every night and keeping fans on their toes.
“We’re always changing it up, but the nice thing for us is, to keep it fresh, even the songs we know, we’re always changing them up, trying to keep it improvisational live. So, it’s going to be some new stuff, some old stuff, and some hits,” said Kinchla.
Next summer, there will be more touring, as Kinchla said “… it looks like we’re going out with Big Head Todd. It’ll be an old H.O.R.D.E. reunion.”
With 14 studio albums and 2,000 live shows to their credit, Blues Traveler shows no signs of slowing down.
“We’ve got my brother (Tad, who joined in 1999 after Sheehan’s death) playing bass now,” said Kinchla. “He’s more of a funk bass player. Bobby was more of a rolling rock kind of player and that changed the sound, and we added keyboards, which for me has been great. And I think it took a little while for that to gel to what it is now. Our first 10 years we were very in your face, just aggressive playing, and as you get older, you have to change where you land on the beat and how you approach songs … I think musically we’re playing as well as we ever have, we get along great, the fans are great, so honestly you just kind of follow the muse and try to keep it good and for the most part, we’ve managed to do that.”