Music
Playing Saturday, 9th at Gaylord Entertainment Center
“Sweet 16’s turned 31,” a not-coincidentally 31-year-old Bob Seger sang on 1976’s “Rock and Roll Never Forgets,” as if all the good times were behind him. Three decades later, the now 61-year-old Seger’s infectious, easy-rolling laugh suggests the good times are back. He just released his first album in 11 years, Face the Promise, recorded mostly at Music Row’s Ocean Way studio using local session musicians instead of his erstwhile Silver Bullet Band. Seger worked on the album for several years, commuting back and forth from the home outside Detroit that he shares with wife Nita, son Cole and daughter Samantha.
Now the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has reconvened the Silver Bullet boys for his first tour since 1996, including a stop at the Gaylord Entertainment Center on Saturday. (Country up-and-comer Eric Church opens.) Seger has been playing to sellout crowds so far and Face the Promise has already sold over 400,000 copies, suggesting that rock ’n’ roll indeed never forgets.
Scene: So where have you been for the last 11 years?
Bob Seger: Raising kids. They’re 11 and 13 now, and they’re getting pretty independent, which is exactly what we strove for. The last tour, my daughter was 1 and my son was 3-and-a-half. He barely remembers it.
Scene: Why did you decide to record in Nashville?
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
Seger: I grew up in a college town—Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is—and Nashville is basically a college town, so it felt real familiar and comfortable to me. Add the nearness of it—it’s only about 500 miles away, so I could go down in the morning to a 10-to-2 session with the guys and be home that night with my wife and kids, listening to what we did. It was pretty cool.
Scene: Face the Promise is credited only to Bob Seger. What about the Silver Bullet Band?
Seger: Well, the stuff that we used happened to be all stuff that I cut with the studio cats, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to call it a Silver Bullet album. I thought, “Well, this will be my Full Moon Fever” [Tom Petty’s first album without the Heartbreakers]. It wasn’t the fault of Silver Bullet in any way, shape or form. They’re still playing great. It was just the luck of the draw.
Scene: How did those Music Row session guys adapt to playing your music?
Seger: I think they had fun, because they got to play stuff they don’t normally get to play. I think they wanted to play rock ’n’ roll. It’s a fresh breeze for them. And they’ve got it in ’em….
Scene: The only cover on the album is a version of Vince Gill’s “Real Mean Bottle,” which you recorded as a duet with Kid Rock. Why that song?
Seger: I always buy all of Vince’s records. I love his voice, and I love his style of singing. I think he’s a great singer, great guitar player, great golfer, great everything. The guy is too gifted. I heard it as a duet for me and Bob [Kid Rock]. It’s a song about Merle Haggard, so I knew he would love it because of his reverence for the old-time country masters. I had no idea it would end up to be a barn-burner rock ’n’ roll song. (laughs) Kid Rock walked in and literally took the session over. He sped the song up about 60 beats a minute from where Vince wrote it, and the next thing you know, we had a totally different version from what I planned. We started at 11 a.m., and called Vince in the afternoon. He was there by 3, listened to it and gave us his blessing. He told us that the next day he was going to see Eric Clapton in England, and Eric was going to record one of his songs. He said, “Boy, I’m having a good week!” (laughs)
Scene: This is a pretty rockin’ record all around. Why did it turn out that way?
Seger: The best songs [I wrote] were rock songs. It’s simple as that.
Scene: You’ve said before that the up-tempo songs are the hardest ones to write.
Seger: Yeah. You ask Kid Rock what’s the hardest thing he has to write, he’ll tell you that it’s the rap stuff, because there’s so many lyrics, and it’s hard to do anything new. I think that’s true of rock ’n’ roll, too. It’s harder to come up with something rock ’n’ roll that sounds fresh to me.
Scene: It seems like your lyrics have gotten more straightforward over the years.
Seger: Absolutely. That’s part of being a parent, maybe. You have to be straightforward with your kids, and explain to them what you think is important when they ask you. I kinda like that. Get down to it and say it.
Scene: A lot of your classics from the 1970s and early ’80s, like “Against the Wind” and “Night Moves,” are very reflective. Why is that?
Seger: You know, I made it when I was 31, but I started playing when I was 21, so there were 10 years there where we just basically played live and didn’t get a whole lot of record-company interest. We toured to live, or to eat. We made some records on the run, in between touring, but they didn’t do anything at all. So by the time I made it, I was already somewhat mature.
Scene: Hardcore fans have clamored for years to get your early albums reissued on CD. One of them, Smokin’ O.P.’s [1972], was finally re-released last year. Will the rest ever see the light of day again?
Seger: Yeah, I think so. It was a contractual issue that had been sitting around for 15 years between Capitol [Records] and my management, and it was settled recently. That’s definitely in the pipeline. I think they’ll be able to be downloaded, too.
Scene: What changes have you noticed in your voice since those early days?
Seger: Oh, it’s gotten a little lower. Joni Mitchell was my neighbor for six months in L.A., and she used to tell me, “Yeah, it’s never gonna get higher again.” (laughs) But it’s not so low that it’s horrible yet, thank goodness.
Scene: Chevy used your hit “Like a Rock” in its TV commercials for a decade. Did you ever get tired of hearing it yourself?
Seger: Yes I did, and yes, I would turn it off. We’re not gonna play it live [on this tour]. We just have too many ballads. I don’t wanna run the old stuff into the ground anymore—I don’t want it to be a greatest-hits show. But certain ones, you’ve gotta do ’em. Oh, man—on the last tour, we tried for three nights not to do “Turn the Page,” and my crew came to me and said, “We’re in big trouble. At the end of the night we’re getting so many complaints.” It doesn’t bother me. They’re still fun to play.
Scene: You’ve got enough material to play for hours.
Seger: If I still had the stamina! (laughs) I’m working on it.