Smitty: And you know what? When you know you hit it and other people identify with it, you know you’ve really nailed it because I felt the excitement of you instantly because I said “You know, I hear every string and every inch of the strings,” you know? (Both laugh.)
GV: Man, that song, it’s so funky and there’s another minute and a half where I’m playing that we just couldn’t fit on it, we couldn’t include. Maybe I should make a bonus track of that because, I mean, it was one of those grooves that Chuck Loeb created that, man, I could’ve just played on that forever, man, and just kept coming up with new funky little riffs.
Smitty: Yeah, I can feel a bonus track.
GV: Yeah, but you caught it. It was fun to do that. And you know the cool thing is that for me too, being on the other side of like making the music, yeah, I can feel it too when I’m in the zone.
Smitty: Yeah.
GV: You know, and the only trick at that point is to not block it, you know?
Smitty: Right.
GV: Don’t get in my own way.
Smitty: Yeah, exactly, because there’s a tendency to do that, humanly speaking.
GV: Mm-hmm.
Smitty: But the conscious effort to just let it flow and do it.
GV: Exactly.
Smitty: And you got into that sweet groove with “Slip ‘n’ Slide,” man, you know? That sweet groove you’re talking about and sweet melodies, you know?
GV: Oh yeah.
Smitty: And I had not heard this before, but I really love the interplay of you and Chuck. Man, speaking of sweet melodies, that was really sweet.
GV: Well, you’ve really hit on the whole magic of that tune, that it is more like a duet--
Smitty: Yeah.
GV: --which I don’t think I’ve heard before with a bassist and a guitarist like that--
Smitty: Same here, I’ve not heard that before.
GV: --where it’s a genuine conversation.
Smitty: Yeah.
GV: A lotta give and take.
Smitty: A lotta great communication going on with that whole track that I really love, man, and you gotta talk to me about the track “Three Tears” because it’s a different song but it fits the record perfectly, man, I tell ya. I really got into it. In fact, that was one of the songs that I had to play more than once to just really say “Hey, that was no fluke. I really love this song.”
GV: Well, last year in October, actually, year before last October 2006, my best friend, a guy who just had a heart as big as you’d ever want to know, he passed away.
Smitty: Oh, so sorry to hear that.
GV: And, you know, I knew that I would write a song dedicated to him because he was such a supporter of my work and supporter of me as a man, and that is why I had to honor his memory with something, so I started writing this piece that I knew would have a very soulful and respectful feel to it, almost had a little gospel flavor to it. And I thought that it would be a piece that would end up kind of having a solemn feel to it and it did, but at some point working on this song it ended up having this beautiful end to it of almost like when the clouds break and the sun comes through and then all of a sudden the song sounds more, yeah, sunny, and I kinda just went with that, so the song, it ends up being very earthy and very soulful and serious and a little sad, and then at a certain point it kinda just takes off, and there again, my idea was—or my feeling was I can’t block this.
Smitty: Yeah.
GV: Even though I wanted it to go someplace else, I can’t block this. And it ended up being perfect because my friend, who passed, Kip [Boyer], was this kind of a man. He was the kind of man that would walk into a room and just light it up no matter what kind of bad day he was having. You know, so a lotta people wouldn’t even know it if he was having a bad day because his whole spirit and his whole motivation in life was to make other people feel good. It was so good just being around him. So it was almost like his personality, like the sun through the clouds was just peeking out, you know, showing itself.
Smitty: Yeah, well, it’s great that you have that unique ability to allow a song to flow when you’re writing and when you’re playing because if you had forced it another direction, then you wouldn’t have captured the real Kip, you know?
GV: Hmm.
Smitty: And you captured the real Kip because you allowed the song to flow and let the song take you to where he is and who he was, which I think is a great ability because we sometimes don’t trust our true feelings sometimes unknowingly, but when we have that—
GV: You’re preaching now (both laugh) because that applies to not just music or creative endeavors, but life in general. We don’t trust our instincts.
Smitty: Yeah.
GV: And we block—
Smitty: Some wonderful things, yeah.
GV: We block our intuition based on what we think should happen or what others think should happen or think we should do or because of what our rational mind says to do.
Smitty: You’re so right.
GV: Really, a lotta times we know in our hearts what’s the right direction to take, whether it’s music or whether it’s relationships or—
Smitty: Yeah, absolutely.
GV: And just about anything.
Smitty: You’re so right. Well, I must say, man, this record is so true and it has so much heart that I think music lovers period, your fans, your new fans to be, are gonna embrace this record because it has such a great human spirit about it and it’s true music from the core, yeah.
GV: Well, I thank you for that. You know, you keep getting right to the point and right to the source because I at one point considered calling this record True.
