This is not the first case of well known musicians of the past playing in bars. This won't be the last. What's different about The Southern Rock All-Stars is that they aren't "the band from 1978" that is half-reunited except for the dead one and the one who went crazy and joined the order of nuns despite his gender. No, this is a band that didn't ever exist back in "the day." These are players that you probably knew in other bands, though. Dave Hlubek was a founder and driving force behind Molly Hatchet, one of the hottest bands of the late 70s and 80s. Jakson Spires was the drummer and principle songwriter for Blackfoot, a hard rock band that began as a southern rock outfit. Jay Johnson played with The Rossington Collins band, and later the Rossington band, and later still Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a hot little band called Radio Tokyo, where he met bassist Charles Hart. When The Southern Rock All-Stars found themselves without a bass player, Hart came to the rescue and it's been a perfect fit. All have enjoyed plenty of success, and together, here in 2001, they're making the music they want to make and having a good time doing it.

To hear musicians of this caliber in a bar is unexpected bliss. Well, "bliss" is the wrong word when we're talking about music that tries to take your head off. To walk within 2 feet of people you once watched from the 80th row of the football stadium is at first a novelty, but as you watch them play at close range you begin to realize what you missed there in row 80: nearly everything. You didn't catch the power or the talent or the intensity of these people. In a club, you can feel the qualities that made them stars.

With my choice of several assignments this month, I chose this one almost like choosing a vacation spot. Some interesting and currently hot acts in big venues, but no thanks. I want to meet these guys. I love this music and so does our co-publisher, who happens to be my wife, Louise. What a scam, this magazine business. A night off from the parenting thing, a night hanging out with people we admire, a chance to dance, not only to their classics, such as the Blackfoot tune "Traveler," but to hot rockers from their new album, Crazy Again, like "Trouble Comin'," "Crazy Again" and the smokin' "Train Of Sorrow." Not a bad deal for us, huh? Beats workin'.

At 9 PM we arrived at Jimmy Z's, the top rock club in Everett, Washington. We met everybody, everybody met us, and as soon as the tape deck was turned on, we mostly shut up and learned. Here is the evening as it appears on the tape, along with enough commentary to make it make sense. Thought you might appreciate that. Or... you know... maybe not.

---

Pop the name Jakson Spires into the search engine of your choice and you'll get a boatload of hits, the vast majority of them lyrics to songs he's written. As the drummer of Blackfoot, Jakson had some fine glory days in the 70s and 80s and several of his songs are still played regularly on classic rock radio. A genuinely friendly man, Jakson seems to have the ability to give several pockets of people in a room what seems to be his full attention. He's a multi-tasker. Not surprising when you consider this drummer wrote both the words and music for most of Blackfoot's songs, and, as it turned out, there was more.

When Jakson's out of the room, the conversation turns to his writing credits and the many songs he's written that he didn't get credit for. It begins with three or four people tossing out titles, but before long most everyone in the room has gravitated our way and the song pile is growing exponentially. I'm asked repeatedly to keep the titles and the bands off the record because Jakson "wouldn't want it done that way." Having recognized most of the songs, and having been stunned to find that one of them is among my favorite songs by a certain legendary southern rock band, I don't understand this at all. "How can he just sit back and take it," I ask, because I know I'd probably do something stupid that would end with me in jail and nothing changed. "Jak's a nice man," says Jimmy Smith, the sound man and indispensable, integral part of the Southern Rock All-Stars machine. "That's not the way he does things," adds a new voice that turns out to belong to bassist Charles Hart. By the end of this conversation we've been given a graphic example of the dark side of the music business, several of our heroes have fallen or, at the very least, stumbled badly in our eyes, and Jakson has somehow walks up behind us.

"C'mon, Jak," I prod, certain that everybody is as hotheaded as I am, "how can it not eat at you that you get no credit for [song title deleted at Jakson's request]?"

Jakson Spires is one of those people who says what he thinks without beating around the bush. "What really eats at me is they owe me $750,000 in unpaid writer's royalties," he says, then pauses a moment and throws the weight of that screwing off with a shrug and gives me a lesson in class and self-control: "They do what they do, we do what we do, and we sleep good at night."

Not that Jakson probably has to worry a whole lot. As the man who wrote nearly every song for Blackfoot, Jakson was already busy before he began writing for other people and prolific before "those bands that shall remain nameless" began to steal from him. Jakson -- "Jak" to his friends -- sees royalty checks, but he could see a whole lot more. I wanted to get so much more of the conversation with Jak into this article, but despite the indignation of everyone in the room toward the people who have done nasty little things to Jakson Spires, Jakson Spires won't go on record and trash anyone's reputation. The most I could get him to do was generalize on the record.

Cosmik: I don't get it, Jak. It's not like it's one song. Or one band. They're all over the place out there, and apparently it's not a big secret.

Jakson: I'm okay, though. People know the truth. I mean listen to [band name deleted] and tell me they wrote some of those songs. It doesn't take a musicologist to figure that one out. Hey, "musicologist." There's a big word for a drummer, huh?

Cosmik: Very nice.

[Everyone in the room voices their approval.]

Cosmik: Being up north and kind of dumb, I'm just learning about some of this. I knew that some of the screwing you'd taken was legendary, but I didn't know it was this bad. What surprises me is finding out it's so well known elsewhere.

Jakson: You wouldn't believe it. Hardly a week goes by that somebody doesn't walk up to me with a CD or an album with marks by the songs that I wrote but didn't have my name credited. These are just fans, not insiders, so they have no way of knowing that I wrote those songs other than just knowing what my songs sound like. They'll walk up and say "could you autograph by these songs?" I'll look at them and go ".... yeah." They say "Because I know these are your songs, because there ain't no way they wrote these songs."

Cosmik: That at least feels good, huh?

Jakson: It's good to know that the truth is known. I'm okay, too, because I get royalty checks for a whole lot of songs I've written, and it's good.

Cosmik: It's just it could be so much more.

Jakson: I don't ever want for me, I just want for my kids. I figure I'm fine, but you never know about the future.

Cosmik: Just one name on the record?

Jakson: .... Naw.

Cosmik: Can I print their pictures and make the caption say "They who may not be named?"

Jakson: Tempting, but no. It all comes back around, though. It all comes back around.

---

Bass player Charles Hart has the most unusual resume in the band. An engineer and producer, he's worked with artists like Flat Duo Jets, Government Mule, Etta James, and Bobby Blue Bland. He found his way into The Southern Rock All-Stars via years of working with guitarist Jay Johnson, both as an engineer in the studio and in the 80s rock band, Radio Tokyo. Within a few minutes of meeting Charles, you realize he's not just a snort-the-whiskey and thump bass player. This is a student of the instrument, and of music in general. At the moment, the student is dragging his ass, a victim of the hangover one gets when they wake up from the first sleep after 40 hours of sleep deprivation. Adrenalin seems to have failed him. With less than an hour to go until show time, he must be wondering about second wind. He looks as tired as you'd expect him to. I begin to question him about this as Jay Johnson shoots through the middle of the scene long enough to grab something from one of his guitar cases. I start to ask him to hang around a few so I can ask him some questions, but he's gone again before I can get the words out. I turn back to Charles Hart and, much to my surprise, find him still standing upright and awake.

Cosmik: So are you crazy? You stayed up for forty hours?

Charles: We were up for forty hours. I was, at least. I woke up at 11:30 AM, central time, on Thursday, and I went to bed this morning at 5 AM, central time, Saturday morning. So when we were on stage last night, it was all I could do to keep from falling off the stage asleep. 'Course, the fact that I drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels didn't have anything to do with it.

Cosmik: You must have already been in bad shape before you ever got to that bottle, anyway.

Charles: We were eating dinner and I felt totally detached from my body.

Cosmik: Life on the road.

Charles: But then again sleep deprivation is a great thing because you become detached and you have your visions, and if you believe in the native American way of things, it's like when people sit by the fire and meditate for three days; the whole thing is to stay awake and tire yourself out and get that sense. I didn't feel like it was me. I felt like it was someone else grabbing hold of me.

Cosmik: Yeah, but two songs left in the set is a bad time to go spirit walkin'.

Charles: I was spirit walkin' before the show, and everyone was looking at me weird and saying "Are you gonna be up for the show?" because I was sitting in this big chair like [Charles opens his eyes very wide and holds his arms out to demonstrate]. I said "OH! Show time!" I was ready.

Cosmik: Was it just you, or was anyone else sleep deprived?

Charles: Everybody else was pretty down, too, but when it comes show time, we kick it up for that. Most people don't care if you been up for a week! They paid to see you.

Cosmik: How was the show last night?

Charles: In terms of numbers, I don't know. I can't see too far out there. I just see the dance floor right in front of me, so if that starts to fill up and people start to move, then I know we're having a good show. In terms of enthusiasm, we had a good show, I know that. I see movement, I know we're doing okay. I used to be in a band with Jay that played twelve minute Rush epics.

Cosmik: People don't tend to dance to that.

Charles: No. Mostly you get musicians who come up and say "Man, how do you remember all that?" But at first you'd get through playin' a song and it'd be dead silence and you'd think, "Aw, man, they hate us!" Then a few seconds later the cheering would start. Then we'd think "Yeah, man, this beats playin' Tom Petty covers all night." Not that there's anything wrong with Tom Petty, it's just that it's not as musically challenging as something like Rush, and that's what I'm into.

Cosmik: And then it's safe to bring out the King Crimson.

Charles: Actually, we never played them, even though I'm a big fan of theirs. Strange.

Cosmik: So your real thing is progressive rock?

Charles: I like music that's challenging to play, that you have to think about and not just pump it out.

Cosmik: So how did you get into a southern rock band? I mean southern rock is great fun and powerful and all, but it's not Jaco Pastorius or Percy Jones bass music.

Charles: But it's fun, too, and my friend, Jay, needed a bass player. We've always worked together, so here I am. Soon as this tour ends, though, it's back to the studio and back behind the board.

Cosmik: Anything specific?

Charles: When I get home I'm gonna be working on a Bobby Blue Bland record. I've been working on it for a while, actually, going through the tapes looking for the best tracks. We don't know how much longer he's going to make records anymore, so it would be nice for him to go out on a really good one. I just got to work on Lee Roy Parnell's album, and a band called Ultraphonic, and I worked with Johnnie Taylor's son on his record and I've worked with Stan Mosley on his blues album. That's what I've done so far this year.

Cosmik: When you've had that kind of studio discipline, how does that help you when you come out on the...

[Charles slowly shakes his head in the negative]

Cosmik: It doesn't do a thing...

Charles: I play my instrument, I know where everybody else is supposed to be, and I do what I'm supposed to do. I've been playing with Jay for 13 years, and we've always been side by side on stage, so we know where each other's gonna be and how we're gonna move. There's no running into each other... Watch, tonight we'll knock each other out. [Laughs] Two headstocks... CRASH! SNAP!!!

Cosmik: At least that's survivable, and probably unavoidable.

Charles: We've only crashed headstocks [Ed.Note: The top of the guitars] three times in 13 years.

[At this moment, Jay Johnson cruises through the room again with about five people in tow. All are laughing so loud that Jay can't hear me as I again say "HEY! CAN YOU STICK AROUND FOR... A... few... minutes." He's gone again, up the ramp and toward the backstage door to catch more of the Whiskey Creek set with his entourage.]

Cosmik: Someone behind me just said that the show last night in Seattle was really good, and a good crowd on top of that.

Charles: Yeah, we've had shows like that and they're great, and then we've had shows with less people that were as good because the people were so into the show. My thing is that if there's five people out there or if there's 500, you play for who comes to hear you. If they're shouting and they're into it, you play for them. If I went to a show and nobody else went and the band said "there aren't enough people here, so we're not gonna play," I'd be offended as hell. I'd feel like that means I don't count. I played in a band at one time that was one of the top-10 unsigned bands in the country according to Musician Magazine... this was 1988, I think. We played a gig one night and we only had two people on the floor, and one of them left. There's one guy out there from Chicago. This was an alternative band, which I hated being in but I was doing it for the money. They were ready to pack it up and leave, and I said "We're gonna play or I'm gonna quit. This guy paid to hear a show and he's sittin' here. If you don't like to play for him, then go get another damned job!" So we played, and he was into it! Sure, one guy, I mean that's discouraging. "Hey, we made ten bucks!" But we played that gig and he had a good time.


There's a rumbling up the corridor toward the stage door, and at first it is ignored, but within a few moments it has the attention of everyone in the room. The FULL attention, in fact, for it is the second most important backstage arrival at any rock show: the beer! (Number one is "women.") As large plastic bus tubs filled with ice and beer are placed atop the bar, Charles, Jakson, and several members of Whiskey Creek, the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band that has just come off the stage, take turns pronouncing Rainier Beer. Jakson offers Ray-nur, while Charles is fairly sure it's Ruh-neer. The Whiskey Creek boys have an unfair advantage in that they grew up in the Seattle area where Ray-Near is brewed, but it doesn't much matter, as the beer in the bus tubs is Budweiser. There's also a lifetime supply of hard lemonade in there, and as the evening wears on, that supply doesn't seem to dwindle at all, and eventually that's all that remains floating in the tubs. Good call, whoever thought of that one.

Jay Johnson's guitars are in their cases, open at one end of the room. The lighting is pretty bad there, and I'm staring... well, drooling, actually, all over one of them. It seems to be a Gibson Gold Top Les Paul, though I can't make out any specifics, and I have fantasies that baffle even my shrink when it comes to that particular make and model of guitar. As I inch closer to it, I reach out to touch it and contemplate doing something very unprofessional: picking it up and playing it. No, no, can't do that. Very wrong. Bad precedent! I realize my hand is under the neck of the instrument when I hear the voice of the elusive Jay Johnson speaking out from behind me. "She's a beaut, isn't she?" I wonder if the yelp was only in my mind or if it was audible, and I try to think of something clever to say. Perhaps "I thought I detected a leak in the ceiling and was going to move your guitar to safety, but I see I was mistaken." I attempt those words but they just come out "uhhhyep."

Jay Johnson has been around the business for a long time, and as the vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Southern Rock All-Stars, Jay is the man in front; the focal point in the camera lens and the stylistic burst of red, blond and blue that would make a Confederate flag backdrop unnecessary.

"Got it for 300 bucks," he tells me, and at once I smell a rat, knowing that these guitars go for ten times that. Turns out it's an Epiphone, which is made by the same company, and while their 1970s models were firelogs with strings, the 90s models are extremely close to their mega-buck big brothers. "Here, check it out," he says, handing the guitar to me. In better light I can see it's not a gold top at all, but rather a birds-eye maple top, a beautiful thing that plays nice and smooth. Sold me, anyway. I turn to ask him if I can turn the tape on and ask him some questions, and hey, guess what. At this point I come to the conclusion that Jay has mastered light-speed travel. On foot.

Dave Hlubek, former Molly Hatchet guitarist and current Southern Rock All-Star kicker of serious ass... whatever that means... has finally unplugged his guitar from the electronic tuner at the end of the bar and put it back in its case. He's wandered down to my end of the bar to snag his pack of cigarettes, and I take the opportunity to snag him and bring him in for questioning.

---

Cosmik: How did this band come together?

Dave: Jakson and Jay and I had played in an early endeavor called the Dixie All-Stars, and that ran its course after... God, I wanna say five, six years maybe. Then we went our separate ways. I figured that was it, so I went home to Jacksonville, Florida. I now live in Fort Lauderdale. I got a call from Jakson. He and Jay had hunted me down and said that they were putting this thing back...

[Charles sneaks up behind Dave and thwaks him one with a slice of cheese, chanting "The power of cheese... the power of cheese...." and I begin to note where the exits are and estimate how fast I could grab my wife's hand and run for it if I had to.]

Dave: That's Charles Hart and "The Power Of Cheese," a new up and coming song, which will be followed by the sequel, "Cutting The Cheese." But anyway they said they were thinkin' about putting this thing back in the water and calling it something that would lend itself to a nice looking logo, like the SRA logo for The Southern Rock All-Stars. I said sure. because I wasn't doing anything but sitting around on my haunches collecting royalties from my Molly Hatchet days. So we put it together.

Cosmik: And it worked out.

[Pictured: Jimmy Smith]

Dave: We've gone through different members in and out of the band, with Charles being the newest member, along with Jimmy Smith, our sound engineer. We've been making some headway and having a good time. By no means are we the flavor of the month or setting the world on fire, but we're doing good for being an independent. We just came back from playing in Sweden, which is not too bad. Our drummer, Jak, has turned out to be one of the best booking agents around.

Cosmik: Yeah, I'm gaining a lot of respect for Jak. He seems to do it all.

Dave: Chief cook and bottle washer. It's really Jak and Lester Shelley in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that keeps us working. We're doing real well because of their efforts. They work real hard. The running joke in the band is "sure must be nice to be you, Dave; all you have to do is get drunk, play out of tune and complain." But they're fun guys to play with, so I let 'em get away with that. [Laughs.]

Cosmik: SRA has some heavyweight names. Supergroup. Do you find some danger in that?

Dave: Well, there are drawbacks, of course. It's just like when a company puts a product out on the marketplace and then you put out the new improved model. "Thirty percent improved!" Is it? Or is it only nineteen percent improved? Because we're all players. The anticipation and the expectations of the people can be pretty high. Myself, I'm the only one of the original six members of Molly Hatchet that's currently touring in any capacity, so there are a lot of people, curiosity seekers, who want to come see me up this close instead of seeing me up on the stage in a coliseum, where they've seen me before many times, and if they got close it was maybe for a brief moment slapping their fingertips with security all around me from up above them. A whole different thing than it is now.

Cosmik: I used to be in the front at those shows, man, squished against the plywood. You guys were already a supergroup to the people. The summer tour in 1980 in particular. That was an outdoor show in Seattle, about 40,000 people, all pushing against me to get closer to you. You guys had it going.

Dave: We found out then that there were hazards that came with being a supergroup. Talk about going full circle: We started out playing just to play, then we played small rooms like this, and before we knew what was happening we were graduating to the coliseums and then to the stadiums and then the mega-stadiums and playing with The Who in front of 800,000 people. It's all just so fast. But some of the best shows I've ever played are in these small, informal rooms. You'll find a lot of entertainers who'll agree that it's much more intimate. It's personal between you and the audience. You can get in touch with the fans. We've got a real strong fan base.

Cosmik: That shouldn't be surprising, considering how hard you've toured. You've earned it.

Dave: The drawbacks are there, though. Some people come up and treat me like a god. They'll say "oh you're the best thing since sliced bread," and I have to live up to that image they got when they saw me 15 years ago when I was on fire one night, and I'll think "God, I hope I don't let them down," because I'm older and slower. I'll turn 50 this August 28th, and I'm feelin' it. I'm not 26, 27 anymore, flyin' by the seat of my pants with my hair on fire and something to prove. I've got triple-platinums, quadruple-platinum albums from three continents, I've got a room full and a hall of gold and platinum albums adorning my home and my mother's home, all just things to look at and remember, the highest achievements, because they don't just give those things away.

Cosmik: What made them stop coming in?

Dave: I went as far as I could go... as far as I felt I was prepared to go before I left Hatchet in '87. I fell prey to all the trappings that go along with the fame and fortune, and I used my body as a garbage can for all those years, and to be perfectly honest with you, I'm surprised I'm still here after what I put myself through. I had to get out. But now it's a different pace, and I'll tell you what, the audiences we play for, by and large, make us feel real t'home.

Cosmik: How do you handle the pressure of their expectations now?

Dave: The pressure is in each one of us. How high we're going to raise the bar for ourselves. So I'll just get there and do the best job I can for the bar that I'm in in the city that I'm in in the time of my life that I'm in, and hope that I do live up to what they last saw. That's all I can do. That's all anybody can do.

Cosmik: How much of this is for yourself?

Dave: Tell you the truth, right now I'm out here because I want to be out here. We live by the choices we make, obviously. I could have said to no to Jak and stayed home. I live a real comfortable life in Fort Lauderdale with my girlfriend, Jeannie, and our dog, Sophie, and our Persian cat. She owns a limo company, I have royalties from Hatchet and we're not hurting or wanting for anything. We have a nice, comfortable life, I have a big easy chair with all the remote controls for everything... The only thing I have to get up for is to use the restroom, you know? And pretty soon there are deli trays around my easy chair and before I know it I'm bigger than my chair! So... this is something I'm going to do for me: I contacted the Subway sandwich people because of the thing about Jarod losing all that weight. They sent me a bunch of paper work to fill out and they want to monitor my progress. As soon as I get back home I'll be talking to them. So there are things I'm doing for me in my life, and one of them is playing in this group. If something's not fun, don't do it. We're only here for a limited time, so don't do it if it's not fun.

[Jay Johnson suddenly slaps me on the shoulder and in my shock and my rush to get the words out, I shout "You'll stay talk later to me!" Jay actually stops moving for a full two or three seconds to look sideways at me before dematerializing.]

Dave: Besides, playing burns weight. You sweat under the lights, burn off water weight, and you move a lot and get exercize. A whole lot more than sitting in that easy chair with the remote controls and deli trays. But you've gotta take care of yourself, people. One of the reasons I'm incorporating this into the interview is to say that touring is rough. Getting up and playing can kick your ass. It physically just wears you out. You get up there and you can't breathe. All through the Hatchet days, I was 179, 180 tops. We were all body-building. When we were going to go on a tour, our crew and our band went into physical training, and I mean ball-busting physical training, sometimes for six months straight before the tour starts. We were in top physical condition, from the band right down to the road crew.

Cosmik: Which explains why you guys looked like you were going to drop the guitars and start killing people any second. You guys were all over the place, too, I remember. Long tours, no breaks. Or was that just legend?

Dave: Oh, yeah, listen: we'd get handed an itinerary book that was 245 pages thick, and you'd think "I'm gonna die if I'm not in shape!"

Cosmik: Because of the physical type of show you did more than just the number of shows.

["Firm, yet not too show-offy. I'd give it a 7. Not bad for a drummer, Jak." (photo by Louise Johnson)]

Dave: Yeah! So our manager would put us in training and we'd work hard. You know, after the first album did so well, we had the best of everything: the best transportation, the best food, the best hotels, but when you've done a show and gone full out, it doesn't matter if you wind up in a 1,200 dollar a night room or Motel 6 at 30 bucks a night, it's a fuckin' bed! [laughs.] And hey, a hair bonnet! Hard to wash your hair with THAT on. But being in good shape paid off. We could make the shows even wilder.

Cosmik: I remember a few that blew my mind. Especially the enterances, when Danny Joe Brown would call out the introductions.

Dave: For a while there, I got to a point where I wanted to turn up the burner a bit, so I went ahead and got a damned rappelling rope and had the rigger set it up so I could get hoisted up to the catwalk and I'd have this harness, and then when Danny introduced me I'd freefall from the top of the coliseum. A lot of the coliseum managers didn't think much of that because of the liability issues. What if the rope snapped, you know? So I had to sign all these legal waivers with wording that basically said "In case you should explode onto the stage..."

Cosmik: [Laughing] Figures I'd live in a wimpy city that wouldn't allow that or Blue Oyster Cult's laser shows.

Dave: Yeah, I only did that for a short time. It was fun though. You know, we were having such a great time back then. We were just a bar band that made good, you know, and it was our time. To tell you the truth, I've got no complaints. I've done far better than I ever thought I would do. There are entertainers out there, young hopefuls, who will never get the chance. And it doesn't mean they don't have the chops, it's just that things won't come together and the wheel won't turn. You could be the next coming of Eric Clapton, but you might never get out of your bedroom or your garage or the little local bar you've been playing in, simply because lady luck won't smile on you. I've got friends in Jacksonville working at UPS and places like that who are, to this day, much better players than I can ever hope to be. They scratch their heads and say "why not me?" And I... I can't tell them the answer to that.

---

Dave bids me farewell and heads back to the other end of the bar to tune another guitar. As he does so I see Jay walking my way. Slowly. I call his name. He stops and says "Yeah?" I'm not sure what to make of it. Suspiciously, I ask him "Do you have time to sit down and answer some questions?" "'Course," he says, as if it should be obvious that that's what he was there for all along. As I'm about to ask him the first question, he begins to interview me.

Jay: Okay, I have to ask which parts are gonna get printed and which parts aren't.

Cosmik: I'm gonna print all the parts that'll get you in a lot of deep shit.

Jay: Alright, then I won't say anything about [CENSORED] or [CENSORED].

Cosmik: I'll avoid the subject. So you've been here since the beginning?

Jay: No, I replaced Charlie Hargrett in the Dixies, so I've been in since '94 if you count the Dixies, but we try not to count the Dixies.

Cosmik: I was talking to Dave off the record, just talking about playing in a 3-guitar format, and I asked him if it's strange playing in a 2-guitar format now. He said it's not a problem because you're one of the best rhythm players he's ever seen. Is that fuzzy, or what?

Jay: Well that's cool! He usually says much worse stuff.

Cosmik: He did, once you were out of the room.

Jay: See?

Cosmik: Had you worked with him before?

Jay: With DAVE? Nooo, but I made a lot of faces at him back in the 80s. He thought I was an uptight jerk and I thought he was an asshole.

Cosmik: Why so? What contact did you have?

Jay: Ooooh... we just banged around a little bit and ran into each other here and there. Dave was in his asshole mode and I was in my uptight jerk mode and it just didn't work. We did some shows togther, but the last time we'd seen each other was at a hospice benefit, and he didn't even play. I was up there playin' with some guys... all the Skynyrd guys were up there. But we didn't hit it off at all.

Cosmik: But at some point there had to be somebody who said "let's put these two guys together in this band." Didn't somebody say "eeeeeh, not such a good idea"?

Jay: Naw, it wasn't any big deal. By that time it was like "Okay, I'll put up with him if he'll put up with me." We're alright now.

Cosmik: That's hilarious, because I've seen a lot of bands that get backstage and everybody heads for their own corner with their own entourage. No joking, no interaction, then they go out and play, then they go home in separate vehicles. You guys hang out and laugh and watch out for each other.

[At this moment, someone shows up with a stack of business cards that say "Gone to pee. Don't fuck with my drink." Like snickering school kids, we're all extremely amused. Louise and I have no excuse because we haven't had a single sip of booze, but we will both snicker at the card a lot for the next few days. Associate Editor Shaun Dale has offered an alternative wording that works well, too: "Gone to fuck. Don't pee in my drink." More cards are on order.]

Jay: We peed in Dave's luggage once. We'll tell ya'all about that another time.

Cosmik: I could pretend to turn the tape off again.

Jay: Pretend? You've just been pretending?

Cosmik: It's not mine. I don't know HOW to turn it off. It's been running all night. There's gonna be five, six paternity suits before this whole thing's over.

Jay: You hang around with us for a few days, we're ALL goin' to jail. That's all there is to it. "SLANDER!!!" "It ain't slander if it's true, Goddammit!"

Cosmik: [Laughs.] Tape's STILL rollin', Jay.

Jay: Hey, stick around till about 3:00 AM and you'll get a whole book out of us. We talk to much when we're tired.

Cosmik: Yeah, I talked to Jakson at 1:00 this afternoon and he seemed totally shattered. He could barely think.

Jay: Well, he's had some people piss him off lately.

Cosmik: Yeah, who? What's that all about exactly?

Jay: mmm...

Cosmik: What the hell is it, like a band vow of silence about people who've screwed you over?

Jay: mmm...

Cosmik: C'mon, Jak could obviously write a book, and from what little Charles would say, it sounds like you could, too. Just nail a bastard for once.

Jay: Jak has a big book in him, and I've got a couple, but honestly, to me, if you bring it up to their fans, if they're die hard fans it won't matter how bad the band's shit stinks, you know what I'm saying? It doesn't matter as long as they're still there and still doing it. So who am I to disrupt their image of Mr. Perfect? In the end it just makes me look like I've got some kind of sour grapes I want to air, so I'm trying just to shut the hell up.

Cosmik: Look, I've never gone for the dirt before, but that's where the ratings are. Just wanna do it this one time. So c'mon. Give me one name. One bastard. Just one little...


I didn't notice the commotion as I was speaking. It's literally everybody heading up the corridor toward the stage. Showtime. Naturally, Jay's gone. How does he do that?

Louise and I watch the first half of a rock-em sock-em show from backstage, a location great for everything but photography. And so I brave the wall of volume (hey, Jimmy, I understand you're good at what you do but I'm now deaf, have a detatched retina and can't make babies!) and go up front for all the pictures that count. Louise soon joins me and hey, what can ya do? It's a dance floor, it's songs like "Flirtin' With Disaster," "Wishing Well" and "Whiskey Man," and it's a bar band like no other we've ever heard. Two happy hours later, we're again backstage, high-fivin' the guys after a stellar show. Everyone seems pleased with the performance. Jak is still in hyper-drummer mode, hopping around. Charles is nowhere to be seen. Dave is cleaning his Paul Reed Smith guitar with tender loving care before putting it to bed for the night. Suddenly Jay Johnson strides into the room, a child-like "I know a secret" smile on his face. "Wanna know how much boo-tay I kicked tonight?" he asks the room at large. Without waiting for guesses, he holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger about three inches apart and says "I kicked about... THIS much boo-tay!"

Has to be a scale model of boo-tay, Jay. You kicked serious boo-tay tonight. Catch The Southern Rock All-Stars in concert if you get the chance. Their tour dates are posted on their website at www.southernrock.com. You can also buy their CD and video there.

Best of luck on the rest of the tour, guys. And thanks for making us feel so welcome. Your checks have cleared and the tapes have been erased.

(C) 2001 - DJ Johnson

Photos by DJ Johnson except where otherwise noted. If you want to use them for your own article or website, just give him credit and he'll be happy. Lord knows he's borrowed plenty from the web. He's shaking his head... but we have proof.

The author would like to thank Lester Shelley, the 6th member of The Southern Rock All-Stars, for making some last minute arrangements and basically being one hell of a nice guy. And as hinted at before, both the author and the publisher would like to thank Jakson, Dave, Charles, Jay and Jimmy, as well as Dr. Dave and the Arrowoods for making this more than the usual concert coverage. It turned into great fun and lots of laughs. Mucho gracias.